208950 Sgt. John Allen Jones British Army 10th (Service) Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers from:Holywell, Flintshire My father, John Allen Jones, volunteered for the RWF on 7th September 1914 and was trained in England, promoted Sergeant in January 1915 and sent to France with his Unit on 27th September 1915.
They were deployed on the Ypres salient and took part in operations over the next few months.
He was wounded, probably only slightly, on 2nd March 1916, but had returned to the line and was gravely wounded on 29th April 1916 by the explosion of a German shell which fell into a group of RWF men who had just come down from the Front and were resting in a French farmyard.
Five deaths and 27 woundings are recorded in the War Diary of that day.
Miraculously, within 48 hours my father was received into the Wharncliffe War Hospital in Sheffield.
He was operated on for wounds in his right leg, as many as 20 times over the next months and, as a result of dedicated care from the surgical and nursing staff he was released to the care of Sir Robert Jones at Alder Hey Hospital Liverpool in June 1917.
Finally he was discharged from the Army in November 1917 as 'no longer fit for War Service'.
He returned to civilian life, graduated from University and served his Community in North Wales as Headmaster, Mayor and Alderman for the next 50 years until his death in 1966.
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