John James (Jack) Jones

Always known as Jack, he was born in Aberayron, Cardiganshire at the beginning of 1901.  The family moved to Ton Pentre , in the Rhondda valley when he was young.  His father was killed in World War 1 when H.M.S. Goliath was sunk in 1915. Jack later moved to Skewen where he married Mary Ann (Annie) Bevan in 1930, apparently against her mother's wishes and she had to climb over a wall to get to her wedding.

When he first left school, Jack worked as a 'lather boy', shaving the dead before burial. He later became a fireman at the National Oil Refinery at Llandarcy (to become after de-nationalisation,  B.P., Llandarcy). It was during the heavy German bombing of Swansea in 1941 that he was awarded the George Medal. The citation was published in The Times on 15 March 1941:

JOHN JAMES JONES, senior refinery fireman, National Oil Refineries' Fire Services.
Bombs dropped in an oil tanker started fires in a tank and on deck. Jones and a volunteer party, assisted by members of the jetty staff and some of the ship's personnel, boarded the ship and extinguished the fire in the tank. There still remained a rope fire on the fo'c'sle head. Jones made a hazardous climb up the damaged structure on to this deck and put out the fire by means of water passed up in buckets from the sea. It was an extremely dangerous climb in the dark with bombs dropping and a heavy barrage overhead. Jones saved the tanker from destruction.

He became fire chief at Llandarcy before retirement.  He died in October 1959 and is buried with his wife in Coedffranc Cemetery, Skewen, Glamorgan.