THE FORGOTTEN FALLEN
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FREDERICK JONES Private 9083 2nd Bucks Battalion, Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
Killed in Action aged 26 11th September 1918
No Known Grave, but commemorated on Vis-en-Artois Memorial, Arras, France |
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The birth of Frederick Jones is reported in censuses to be in Gosport but remains unconfirmed. However, it seems likely that he was born in the spring of 1892. The second son of Charles and Laura Jones; he had two sisters and three brothers when they lived at the Five Elms Public House in Weedon. His parents were the landlords from about 1900 until the end of the Great War.
The 1911 census shows Fred, aged 19, working along with about 30 other young men as a Stoker in Edinburgh Road Portsmouth and he is reported to have enlisted in nearby Gosport, where he was born. He is known to have served as 72620 in the Yorkshire Regiment and also the 1st Battalion of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry in Mesopotamia where he was twice wounded. He was the brother of Charles Jones who was killed in 1916. After the war, his parents left the Five Elms and went to live in Luton in Bedfordshire.
Vis-en-Artois Cemetery is situated 10 kilometres south east of Arras in northern France, just outside the town in open countryside. Steps lead up to the Cross of Remembrance which, with walls either side by the roadside, acts as the entrance to the site. A series of large imposing panels, with two high columns, like needles, form the far part of the cemetery. Many of the graves are marked as ‘Known unto God’ and Fred, as he was known in most of the documents appertaining to him, is probably one of these. His name is inscribed on the panel of his Regiment. The area was captured by the Canadian Corps in late August 1918. The cemetery was started then and continued in use after the Armistice for reburials from the battlefields. It contains the graves of 1,748 British and 590 Commonwealth soldiers and airmen. |
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GO TO Forgotten Fallen list for more biographies of the men commemorated on the Weedon War Memorial.
