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32162 1st/4th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment
John Coote was born in Sudbury around 1878, the son of David and Mary Coote. His father was a carpenter/builder and the family lived in Bulmer, Essex before they later moved to 28 Church Street in Sudbury.
At the age of 13 John was employed as a labourer before following his father into the building trade as a carpenter. He married Priscilla Fenton in 1916 and they lived at 8 Walnuttree Lane.
A report in the Suffolk and Essex Free Press on 16 November 1916 shows that a tribunal refused an application by Mr. Baker of Messrs Dupont & Orttewell for an exemption for John who was employed by them as a carpenter and pattern maker for agricultural work. Dupont and Orttewell’s was a wholesale and retail ironmongery store at the bottom of Market Hill on the corner of Burkitts Lane and Gainsborough Street.
John was onboard the troopship SS Transylvania bound for Salonika in the Balkans when it was attacked by the German submarine U63 off the coast of Italy. A second torpedo hit the crippled ship as a Japanese destroyer was taking off survivors and it sank almost immediately with the loss of over 400 lives. Private Griggs, who survived by swimming to shore said of John ‘he was one of the best-liked men in the Company; he never complained but always carried on willingly’.
John died aged 39 on 4 May 1917. His body was recovered and lies buried in Savona Town Cemetery, Italy. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
John is also remembered on Baptist Church Memorial in Church Street.
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