Grave location: I. A. 16.

A standard Commonwealth Grave Commission (CWGC) inscribed gravestone.

John R. Tougher was from Rochester, New York and at the beginning of World War 2, joined the Canadian Army.  He followed in the footsteps of his father, who joined the Canadian Army in the First World War.  He served in the Royal Canadian Signal Corps.

From the CWGC Files:

TOUGHER, JOHN ROBERT

Service Number B/38501

Died 21/08/1944

Aged 21

H.Q. 1 Cdn. Corps Sigs.

Royal Canadian Corps of Signals

Son of John Robert and Jean Tougher; husband of Audrey Claire Tougher, of Rochester, New York State, U.S.A.

Inscription: 

OUR BELOVED "JACKIE"

About the cemetery: 

Following the fall of Rome to the Allies in June 1944, the German retreat became ordered and successive stands were made on a series of defensive positions known as the Trasimene, Arezzo, Arno and Gothic Lines.

The cemetery at Ancona reflects the Allied progress up the Adriatic coast in August and September 1944. The cemetery site was chosen in September and graves were brought in from a wide area round about, extending from Pescara, 80 kilometers farther south, to Pesaro, over 48 kilometers north of Ancona. They include those of casualties from the first attacks on the eastern sector of the German defensive Gothic Line, near Fano and Pesaro, at the end of August and early in September. Ancona itself had been taken by the Poles on 18 July 1944 and, being little touched by the war, served as the main port for supplies for the attack on the Gothic Line and for the final break through the following spring at Argenta.

Ancona War Cemetery contains 1,019 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War.

The text on the grave reads: 

(Canadian Maple Leaf)

B/38501 SIGNALMAN

J.J.R. TOUGHER

ROYAL CANADIAN

CORPS OF SIGNALS

21^ST AUGUST 1944    AGE 21

(Christian Cross Symbol) 

OUR BELOVED "JACKIE"