Tributes paid to Bomber Command telephonist Joan Jones
One of the last surviving members of RAF Bomber Command has died just a few weeks short of her 100th birthday.
Joan Jones, from Cinderford, Gloucestershire, was a telephonist from 1939 to 1945, logging who had returned from missions for 76 Squadron. Paying tribute, her son Ian Jones said she was a "very humble and dignified lady who went through a lot in a short space of time in her early adult life". A private funeral is due to take place on 17 September in Cinderford. "She was quietly proud of her service... working at bases including locations at Bicester, High Wycombe and Holme-on-Spalding-Moor," Mr Jones said. "After the war, she married my father, Herbert Jones, in 1945, [who] had been serving in the Somerset Light Infantry, where he had spent three years in Burma and India." Mr Jones said his mother was widowed in 1961 when his father died of cancer aged 45. "It was a lot for her, but she managed to find work as a telephonist at the GPO and then work within a private company before retiring at the age of 60 in 1980," he said. Bomber Command crews were tasked with attacking Germany's airbases, troops, shipping and industrial complexes connected to the war effort. Almost half of the 125,000 personnel lost their lives and it is estimated between 300,000 and 600,000 German civilians died as a result of large-scale bombing.