GUNNER WILLIAM JONES
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
17TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 25
BURIED: DUHALLOW A.D.S. CEMETERY, BELGIUM
There doesn't seem to have been any hard and fast rule about soldiers' leave but it appears that, depending on the war situation at the time, soldiers were entitled to up to ten days leave every twelve to eighteen months. Gunner Jones' medal roll card shows that he was not entitled to the 1914-15 Star so he can't have entered the war zone before 1916. Killed in August 1917, it'stherefore quite possible that he never got any leave.
William Jones is not a good name if you are trying to find out exactly who he was, there are rather too many of them. Even though his mother, who had remarried and was Mary Ann Davies at the time of her son's death, states that he was born in Bangor, I still can't find him in the census records. All we do know is that Gunner William Jones, army number 11782, served with the 460th Battery, 15th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and was killed in action during the Battle of Langemarck, 16-18 August 1917. We also know that his mother, who chose his inscription, lived at No. 1 Prospect Place, Near Hospital, Penydarren, Merthyr Tydvil (sic), and that he is commemorated on the Bangor War Memorial.