Orders, Decorations and Medals

A landmark Second World War B.E.M. awarded to Warden D. L. Jones, Air Raid Precautions Service, Kent and a Boy Scout Troop Leader - the first Warden thus decorated in the 1939-45 War

British Empire Medal, (Civil) G.VI.R., 1st issue (Donald Louis Jones), in its card box of issue, good very fine £600-800

B.E.M. London Gazette 30 July 1940. The original recommendation - submitted for Churchill’s approval on 22 July - states:

‘During a recent raid, bombs fell near his post and he went to the assistance of a number of people who were buried under debris at 50, Nelson Road. He crawled at considerable risk under some tons of wreckage and found two persons pinned down under heavy joists which had fallen with the floor above. During a period of some four hours he was able to give invaluable assistance to the rescue party. With his torch he was able to see how the victims were trapped and was able to advise the rescue party. He used his body to protect the heads and faces of the trapped people from debris which was dislodged during the work; without this protection the breathing of the victims and possibly their sight would have been seriously impaired. It is owing mainly to his efforts that the members of the rescue squad were able to release the victims.’

The raid in question occurred on the night of 17-18 July 1940, when at least six bombs hit assorted locations in Gillingham, Kent. This being an early example of indiscriminate bombing, ‘people came from miles around to see the damage, even then the looters were in the damaged properties and numerous things went missing’ (an eye-witness account of the raid on the World War Two “People’s War” website refers). Jones was no doubt back in action as a Warden on the night of 27-28 August 1940, when Gillingham suffered a far more extensive raid, 20 people being killed and another 22 seriously injured, many of them as a result of hits in Nelson Road, the scene of his earlier gallant exploits.

Donald Louis Jones was a Troop Leader in the 37th (Medway) Troop, Boy Scouts, and was appointed a Warden in the Air Raids Precaution Service at Gillingham, Kent, aged 18 years (The Left Handshake, The Boy Scout Movement during the War 1939-45 refers). The same source also confirms that he was first Warden to be awarded the B.E.M., as does a report in The Times of 31 July 1940. Had the incident in question taken place a little later in the year, there seems little doubt the calibre of his deeds would have resulted in an award of the newly introduced George Medal.