113435 Pte. John Albert McIndoo was born on July 24th, 1897, in Victoria Harbour, Ontario, to John McIndoo and Eliza Adelina Webb. John had two brothers, Rufus and Francis, and two sisters, Hazel and Rena.
When the call to duty came, John enlisted and was attested in Barriefield, Ontario, on August 2nd, 1915. Although initially assigned to the 8th Canadian Mounted Rifles, John was transferred to the 4th CMR on January 29th, 1916, amongst more than 350 men re-assigned when the 8th CMR was dissolved under re-organisation carried out to form the new 3rd Canadian Division.
Joining the 4th CMR near Meteren, Belgium, finally on February 8th, the draft of new men were held in Divisional Reserve until finally going into the front line in Sanctuary Wood, near Ypres, in mid-March.
At 8am on June 2nd, 1916, the Germans opened up a very heavy bombardment on the 4th CMR front, in front of Armagh Wood, a little south of Sanctuary Wood. The rain of steel and explosives lasted 5 hours, before culminating in 3 mines being sprung on their front at 1pm. Any man that had survived the pulverising bombardment would initially have counted himself lucky, until the waves of German troopers advanced on the tilled-flat 4th CMR front.
It is recorded that only 76 of some 790 or so men answered to their names on the 3rd. Those who had not been killed in the bombardment, or the fierce hand-to-hand fighting thereafter, being wounded or who had been cut-off unable to retreat, were taken as POWs. John McIndoo was one of those men, although he was reported as missing in action until July 20th, when the Germans finally issued lists of POWs taken during the action then known as the "Battle for Mount Sorrel".
The following two and a half years were spent as a POW in Dulmen and Minden in Germany, before John was finally repatriated on December 18th, 1918.
Struck off Strength on June 20th, 1919, John worked all his life as a printer, having married Marie Matthews in 1921. Together they had four children: Walter, Hazel, Eileen and Eleanor. John latterly passed on in 1971.
Credit and thanks are extended to Hazel's daughter, Pat Jones, for the biography, and to Walter's son, Michael, for the image.