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25387 ‘B’ Company, 12th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment
John Cansdale was born in 1887 in Bures St. Mary, Suffolk, the second of five known children of Robert and Emily Cansdale. By 1911 he was employed as a farm labourer and lived with his widowed mother and younger brother Charles in The Street. He married Mary Ann Nunn on 6 June 1913 and moved to 4 Mount Place, Sudbury. By November 1917 Mary had moved to 21 School Street.
John enlisted at the outbreak of war to serve with the Middlesex Regiment (formerly 29771) landing in France on 27 September 1916. His service record describes him as 5ft 2inches in height and weighing 112lbs. He transferred to the East Surrey Regiment on 11 October 1916, when the battalion, which formed part of 122nd Brigade, 41st Division saw action in the final phases of the Battle of the Somme at the Battle of Le Transloy (1 – 18 October).
The battalion had moved to Belgium by the summer of 1917 and saw action at the Battle of Messines (7 – 14 June) where the British detonated nineteen mines under the enemy position and devastated their front line defences. This battle was a prelude to the Third Battle of Ypres known more commonly today as the Battle of Passchendaele and the battalion went on to see action in the opening attack at Pilckem Ridge (31 July – 2 August).
John was killed in action on 5 August 1917 aged 30. There is no known grave and he is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Belgium. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
A Cross of Remembrance was laid at the Menin Gate in April 2006, April 2009 and October 2012.
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