John was born in Wolverhampton in 1915, the son of John William and Elizabeth Roberts. He was one of twins, his brother being William Kenneth. In 1921 they were living at 32 Mander Street in Wolverhampton. John married Edna Eileen Jeffery in 1938 in St. Germans, Cornwall.

John joined the Royal Marines as a Sergeant (service number PLY/X 952). He was serving on the HMS Gloucester, which was part of a convoy in the Kythira Strait, north of Crete. The Gloucester was hit by several bombs on 22 May 1941, and the decision was taken to leave her behind. The HMS Fiji, under heavy fire, dropped rafts as it passed the Gloucester but was unable to stop and was itself sunk within a few hours.  Only 85 men on board the Gloucester survived the sinking, but sadly John was one of those killed. He is remembered on the Plymouth Naval Memorial and on that of the Wolverhampton Municipal Secondary School.

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The research for this blog post was carried out by remote virtual volunteer, Doug Lewis.