The Reverend Eric B. Jones

The Reverend Eric B. Jones was a Priest and military Chaplain. 

Eric Bertram Jones grew up in Liverpool, later attending Durham University where he studied Classics and Theology. He was ordained at Chester Cathedral and later became the Curate at Tranmere, before moving to St Thomas’s in Stockport. By the time the Second World War broke out in 1939, Jones was Priest at St Luke’s in Dukinfield. He decided to leave his post to become a Chaplain to the Forces.

Whilst stationed in North Africa Jones was captured by the Personal Assistant to Field Marshal Rommel and was detained as a Prisoner of War in the Stalag Luft III camp. Whilst there he acted as Minister to the other POWs.

During his stay in the camp, Captain Reverend Jones was informed that Himmler had ordered that all sermons were to be vetted by the Commandant of the camp. When Jones refused the order, he was put into solitary confinement and beaten.

After The Great Escape the recaptured Prisoners of War were executed under Hitler’s orders. Jones ordered the Commandant to see to the return of their bodies. However, only their ashes were returned, Jones ensured these remains received a Christian burial service.

After the end of the War, Officers of the Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force, who had all been Jones’s Altar Servers in the camp presented him with a book, “The Shape of Liturgy” with all their signatures in the flyleaf.  On arriving home, Jones went back to St Lukes for a year before going to St Peters in Hale between 1946-1955. After his final service on the 13th October 1955, Jones took up the living at St John the Baptist in Crewe.