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Bmdr. John Robert Jones
British Army 281st Brigade, A Battery Royal Field Artillery
from:Woolwich
John Jones saw service throughout the War in 281 Brigade, 56th (London) Division until the 1st Battle of Arras in 1918 when his gun was hit on 28th March. He spent 2 days on the battlefield and it seems he was found on 30th March and attended 54th General Hospital at Aubengue Hospital for shell shock and then returned to England for convalescence and then posted to the 5th Reserve Brigade.
The story handed down was that his artillery gun was hit and he was the only one to have survived, he then carried the attached photo of his gun crew in his breast pocket for the rest of the war. However I can find no record of 5 or 6 same day casualties from A battery around that time, but I have reason to believe A battery was posted alongside 109 battery and CWGC records show a group of fatalities from 109 battery on that day. Is it possible that as the Bombardier he was more mobile and close to 109 battery? Or, could he have been transferred to 109 battery at short notice (there are no military records of an official transfer that I can find).
The attached photo is believed to have been taken just before Cambrai in Nov 1917, and I am 99% sure this is his A battery gun crew. If anybody should recognise any of these men as having survived the war, then it would add weight to my theory regarding 109 battery.
John Robert Jones had 5 children after the war, including my mother, and one of whom was part of the British 1948 Olympic team. Sadly, he had a troubled life after the war, never recovered from his injuries, and died in 1936. John Robert Jones was my grandfather.
