Info: Australian? Allied Unit, Quartermaster John Lewis Jones , MV Abosso Quote: Any further information would be appreciated. Need assistance on Who/Where/What/How for this man who is on the Australian Commemorative Roll which is for those "Australians" who died in other Allied Services. If proved not to be "Australian" their names will not be removed from the Commemorative Roll however their details will be updated accordingly. I have researched the Air Force members but there are many more Land and Sea deaths in a myriad of different forces. There is not a lot of information on these people that can be accessed easily and I ask your assistance to fill in at least some of the gaps. Hopefully some relatives may see this thread and add more. I will make a different thread for each along the way as they may tend to get lost if clumped together. Commemorative Roll - John Lewis Jones Rank: Quartermaster Unit: MV Abosso Service: Merchant Navy Conflict: 1939-1945 Date of death: 29 October 1942 Place of death: At sea Cemetery or memorial details: Tower Hill Memorial, United Kingdom In Memory of Quartermaster John Lewis Jones M.V. Abosso (Liverpool), Merchant Navy who died on 29 October 1942 Age 38 Son of Mr. and Mrs. David Jones, of Pwllheli, Caernarvonshire; husband of Ellen Jones, of North Wolongong, New South Wales, Australia. Remembered with Honour Tower Hill Memorial http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/searching-someone-military-genealogy/33965-cwgc-brookwood-memorial-m-v-abosso.html Abosso 11 MV was a passenger/cargo liner of 11,330 tons (Capt. R. W. Tate) of the Elder Demster Line. She was powered by a oil engines of 7,200bhp giving 15 knots. She was on her way from Cape Town to Liverpool, when she was attacked and sunk by torpedoes from the German submarine U-575 (Kptlt. Gunther Heydemann) about 589 nautical miles (1,091 kilometres) N of Lagens Field, Azores Islands. Two torpedoes were fired at intervals of twenty minutes, the second sinking the Abossa in about fifteen minutes. There were only 31 survivors including five Dutch members of the 33 Netherlands Royal Navy and one female passenger out of the ten women on board. Three of the four Royal Navy men on board survived. All survivors were in lifeboat No 5, the only lifeboat with survivors that didn´t capsize. In all, a total of 168 crew and 193 passengers were lost (=361). Among the passengers were 44 newly trained pilots from the No 23 Service Flying Training School, X Flight, Advanced Training Squadron, at Heany, Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia. Pilot Officer William B. Thomson of Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, was the only survivor from this pilot graduating course. Survivors were picked up from the freezing Atlantic 36 hours later when an Australian Navy Lieutenant on board the sloop, HMS Bideford, which was escorting a troop convoy proceeding to North Africa as part of Operation ´Torch´, sighted their lifeboat. The sloop put them ashore at Gibraltar three days later. (Pilot officer Thomson was assigned to return to Britain onboard a Sunderland Flying Boat, one of two which were to take off in formation. On take off his plane developed engine trouble and take off was aborted and delayed for a few hours. The other Sunderland, which had a number of high ranking officers on board, plus five passengers, continued on to Britain only to crash in heavy fog upon arrival...all the five passengers were killed. Pilot Officer Thomson claimed that it was only fate or his lowly rank which kept him off the ill-fated flight. On the Alamein Memorial are inscribed the names of 19 RAF men lost on the Abosso. Others are commemorated on memorials in various countries including Singapore (21) and one name on the Australian War Memorial. ref. used Martime Disasters of WWII
Geoff: Birth: Name:John Lewis Jones Date of Registration:Oct-Nov-Dec 1903 Registration district:Pwllheli Inferred County:Caernarvonshire Volume:11b I have found a possible marriage: Name: JONES, John L Registration district: Pwllheli County: Caernarvonshire Year of registration: 1925 Quarter of registration: Jul-Aug-Sep Spouse's last name Parry Volume no: 11B Page no: 748 Name: PARRY, Nellie Registration district: Pwllheli County: Caernarvonshire Year of registration: 1925 Quarter of registration: Jul-Aug-Sep Spouse's last name: Jones Volume no: 11B Page no: 748 Nellie and Ellen have been interchangeable in my experience. I am looking for a relevant entry in the Passenger lists. Mark
Geoff: Birth: I have found a possible marriage: Nellie and Ellen have been interchangeable in my experience. I am looking for a relevant entry in the Passenger lists. Mark Thanks Mark, When in the UK last year I drove to Pwllheli to get some RAAF headstones after getting others from Holyhead on Anglesea. I tried a few pronunciations and made the locals giggle. It is pronounced PISSWELLY or PIZZWELLY or something close. I had an Aunty Nell who was born Ellen.
