The Association has been informed by his son-in-law, that Colonel David Jones, late DERR, died aged 87 years on 13 June. A Service of Thanksgiving was held at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Powerstock, Dorset on 5 July.
Born in 1936, Colonel Jones was educated at Abingdon School where he was Head Boy and Captain of Cricket. In those days Abingdon was still in Berkshire and the school CCF was affiliated to The Royal Berkshire Regiment. Consequently, following 2 years at RMA Sandhurst he was commissioned into the Royal Berkshire Regiment, joining the 1st Battalion in Cyprus in December 1957. He joined The Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment (Berkshire and Wiltshire) when the Royal Berkshire Regiment and The Wiltshire Regiment amalgamated in 1959. He served with 1 DERR in the Isle of Wight, Tidworth, Canada, Libya, Malta, Cyprus and Minden until 1967, with the single exception of a tour at the Wessex Brigade Depot at Honiton where he commanded the Junior Soldiers Company.
In 1967 he was posted to Mons Officer Cadet School as an instructor before attending the RAF Staff College at Bracknell. From 1969 – 1970 he was the Brigade Major of 2nd Infantry Brigade and then took over command of A Company 1 DERR, serving in Catterick, Northern Ireland and Berlin. During 1973 – 1975 he was posted to RMA Sandhurst as Chief Instructor at New College prior to promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. He then spent 2 years as the Military Assistant to the Commander-in-Chief British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and Commander Northern Army Group (NORTHAG).
He took over command of 1 DERR in July 1977 in Warminster where the Battalion was employed as The Demonstration Battalion for The School of Infantry and led the Battalion in fire fighting duties in Scotland during the winter of 1977/78. In the summer of 1978 he moved the Battalion to its new role as a mechanised infantry battalion based in Osnabruck, West Germany. In 1979 he took the Battalion to Northern Ireland for an operational tour in Londonderry, for which he was Mentioned in Despatches the following year.
At the beginning of 1980 Col David left the 1st Battalion to move as GSO1 Directing Staff at the Army Staff College in Camberley and in February 1981 he was posted on Loan Service to be the Deputy Commandant of the Ghanaian Staff College. This was a time of considerable political and economic turmoil for Ghana which had only recently returned to civilian rule following a coup d’etat lead by Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. Claiming that the new government under President Hilla Limann was corrupt and incompetent, Rawlings then executed another coup d’erat on 31 December 1981. It speaks volumes for Colonel Jones’ effective diplomacy and the esteem in which he was held by senior Ghanaian officers that the newly installed government insisted that he stay in post. He and his wife Nerissa remained in Ghana until June 1983. Col David’s final tour in the Army was as Colonel (Operation Requirements) working for the Assistant Chief of the General Staff in the MoD for 23 months before retiring in August 1985.
In January 1983, towards the end of Col David and Nerissa’s tour in Ghana, President Shagari of Nigeria ordered West African migrant workers, including a million Ghanaians, to leave Nigeria. While Col David persuaded the Ghanaian military to set aside their differences and provide transport and aid to the many thousands returning to Ghana, both he and Nerissa set about personally helping with their reception and care, almost literally in their back garden.
That experience set the tone for both their lives after Col David’s retirement from the Army. In a move which caused consternation to some he took up an appointment as Deputy Director of Oxfam, quite an achievement for a soldier to be accepted into an organisation whose founders included Quakers and pacifists. For more than a decade, Col David’s service at Oxfam took him to the worst humanitarian disasters in the world. In early April 1991, Oxfam received a call for help from the Turkish Red Crescent. After the 03 March ceasefire following the 1st Gulf War, rebel Iraqi and Kurdish rebels had risen against Saddam Hussein who responded by unleashing his remaining armed forces against them resulting in thousands of civilian deaths and some 1.5 million Kurdish refugees trapped between the Turkish border and Hussein’s troops. Within 36 hours of receiving the Turkish request Col David was above the snow line on the Turkey/Iraq border. His grandson recalls that he quickly understood that the only feasible solution was to get the Kurds back down the Iraqi side of the mountains into safe areas. His advocacy rapidly evolved into the British/Dutch Operation Haven led by the Royal Marines. As more nations became involved, including the USA, Op Haven evolved into Operation Provide Comfort and Northern Iraq ‘No Fly Zone’. Although he would never claim it himself, Col David really was the saviour of the Kurds of Iraq.
While Col David laboured with Oxfam, Nerissa began training for the priesthood, taking up a parish in Coventry once ordained, moving to Dorset in 2001. Their daughter Anna recalls “Nerissa as the star lead with David supporting as the super charged Vicar’s ‘wife’. He fulfilled the role with aplomb … running the Powerstock fete, starting the 5 pubs challenge, chairing the Eggerton View, helping at the Cider Festival and much, much more. He was especially good at jumping through hoops and raising money for worthwhile causes, especially in Coventry, where huge amounts of work by them both ended up with £54 million being allocated to the Wood End area by Government.”
Col David and Nerissa married in 1960 and were very much a team from then on, both within the Army and the Church. She predeceased him by 10 months in 2023. They had 3 children, Anna, Tom and Harriet. Harriet, who sadly was severely handicapped, also died in 2023, six months before her mother. We send our heartfelt condolences to Anna and Tom and to their families and conclude with these words from David and Nerissa’s grandson Charlie’s eulogy for his grandfather – “As we remember David today let us take comfort from the fact that there are thousands around the world, people we will never know, people we will never meet, who will today break bread with their loved ones because of the deeds of this Christian soldier. May his legacy be an inspiration to us all.”
