John had joined the CEF with his younger brother, Carman, in 1916, and as a schoolteacher, his writings and words offer a different perspective of a soldier’s war.
They both joined the 170th Battalion (Mississauga Horse) and went overseas that October on the Mauretania. By December, Carman was in France with the 75th Battalion and was at Vimy Ridge in April, 1917. Wounded in a trench raid in June, he returned to Canada in December to recover from his wounds, and didn’t return to the front.
John remained in England as a musketry instructor with the 5th Reserve Battalion, and eventually went to France in November, 1917, transferred to the 15th Battalion (48th Highlanders), was gassed during the German attacks of March, 1918, and was part of the final 100-day push from August to the war’s end in November. He stayed with the battalion, and was part of the Army of Occupation until May, 1919.
John Cannon was a teacher before the war, and a bit older than most at 28. His letters are very descriptive and humorous, even in the worst of conditions. From a letter after a tour in the front trenches in February 1918:
“No two trips are exactly alike. You are continually learning something by being confronted by new situations, new difficulties, and new tight corners, not that I have seen anything exceptionally strange or wonderful. I could dismiss it all with a wave of the hand and a few words, now that it is over.”
“I might say that walking into a barrage of enemy artillery fire on our way to a working party near the front line had an effect not exactly exhilarating, but rather electrifying, for the speed with which we covered the duck boards in that trench was about as exciting as the Farmer’s Trot at Dungannon (Ontario) Fair”.
“Speaking personally, I never was so glad in my life as when the corporal in front was suddenly gifted with a glimmer of intelligence and dived into a deep sap. We weren’t long in reaching the bottom of it, where we could listen to the burst of the shells in comparative safety. So much for that, and it has suffered in the telling.”
NOK: Mary Stothers (M) RR #7 Lucknow, ON
