Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria including the collection to Naval Artificers formed by JH Deacon

An early Second World War Hampden Bomber operations D.F.M. group of four awarded to Sergeant J. E. Jones, Royal Air Force, who was killed in action towards the end of his second operational tour in a raid on Brest in January 1942

Distinguished Flying Medal, G.VI.R. (551817 Sgt. J. E. Jones, R.A.F.); 1939-45 Star; Air Crew Europe Star; War Medal 1939-45, with original Air Council condolence slip, lacquered, extremely fine (4) £800-1000

D.F.M. London Gazette 17 January 1941. The recommendation states:

‘Sergeant Jones has completed 28 operational flights in a flying time of 196 hours, in the capacity of Wireless Operator / Air Gunner. His consistent devotion to duty and his coolness in carrying out his duties in the face of the enemy is inspiring to other members of the crew.’

John Elias Jones, who was from Glamorgan, Wales, flew his first sortie with No. 50 Squadron, a Hampden unit then based at Waddington, on the night of 30-31 May 1940, against Hamburg. And he remained on Hampdens for the duration of his operational tour, an aircraft with striking deficiencies that have been summed up by Max Hastings in Bomber Command (Michael Joseph, 1979):

‘The Hampden was the most urgent candidate for replacement: cruising at only 155 m.p.h., 10 m.p.h. slower than the other two [the Wellington and Whitley], this grotesque-looking flying glasshouse could stand little punishment, lacked power-operated turrets, and could only carry a 4000-lb. maximum bombload.’

In the following month, Jones and his crew participated in a “Gardening” run to the Sylt, when the evening’s proceedings were brought to a close with a machine-gun attack from 300 feet on Ribe aerodrome, in addition to outings to Langenhagen (‘Intense A.A. Fire was encountered bursting usually astern of the aircraft 40-60 yards away ... also numerous accurate whitish blue searchlight beams picked up and held the aircraft’), and Dusseldorf (‘Ground defences of a very intense nature were encountered, shells bursting all round the aircraft’).

Three more “Gardening” runs were carried out in July, one of them, to Denmark, resulting in Jones’ aircraft being fired upon by an unidentified ship; together with more regular bombing runs to Krummel, Paderborn, Wanne-Eickel and Wismar, although on occasion alternative targets had to be located as a result of weather conditions. A similar problem was confronted on the first target allocated to No. 50 in August, Jones’ aircraft attacking an electrical plant at Hastedt instead of the primary target at Hamburg. But Bernburg, Homburg, Leipzig and Magdeburg were all successfully visited in the same month. September saw just three operational outings being ordered, two of them to Altona, but in October a busier brief was allocated to the Squadron with trips to Magdeburg, Mannheim and Wilhelmshaven (twice), in addition to an attack on Amsterdam on the night of the 5th-6th, when the bomb release device in Jones’ Hampden failed over the target area. Then in November, with a further sortie being flown to Altona, in addition to attacks on Kiel and Munich, Jones completed his first tour of operations and was awarded the D.F.M.

But rather than gain a more restful posting, he returned almost immediately to the operational scene with No. 207 Squadron, barely a week after having received his D.F.M. at an investiture at Buckingham Palace - his original admittance ticket accompanies the Lot. Operating out of Waddington in a Manchester Bomber, his first sortie was flown against the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst at Brest on the night of 30-31 March 1941, the same target being re-visited in early May, in addition to more regular bombing runs on Berlin, Hamburg and Mannheim. Indeed the summer months would see a more or less uninterrupted agenda of German targets, other heavily defended cities visited by Jones and his crew including Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Kiel and Magdeburg, although for a period, due to mechanical problems being ever apparent in the Squadron’s Manchesters, such sorties were flown back in Hampdens - Jones was actually ‘lent’ for this purpose to his old unit, No. 50 Squadron.

By the advent of winter, No. 207 was back in harness in its Manchesters, Jones and his crew experiencing a difficult time over Huls on the night of 12-13 October in an attack on the local chemical works: ‘Endeavoured to get below cloud but ran into balloon barrage and accurate light flak. We were hit once and had several near misses and were obliged to take evasive action. Spent three quarters of an hour in target area endeavouring to locate target. Eventually returned and bombed aerodrome seen on our journey out.’

By the end of the year, Jones had completed the 22nd sortie of his second operational tour, the period October to December having seen 207 visit Cologne twice, in addition to first time strikes on Borkum and Aachen, the local Nazi party H.Q. being used as the aiming point on the latter occasion.

In the new year the Squadron was detailed to Brest for another effort against the German battleships, the sortie there on the 5 January leading Jones’ Manchester to an encounter with four enemy aircraft, two of which ‘appeared to start an attack but broke away.’ Then three days later, in a similar strike on Brest, he and his crew were posted missing, his aircraft L7322 EM-Q having been hit by flak and brought down in the sea in the vicinity of Crozon, on the northern shores of the Baie de Douarnenez. Jones, who was 21 years of age, has no known grave and is commemorated on the Runnymede Memorial.