Your Ever Loving Son

[Dolphin]

Your Ever Loving Son (ISBN 978 987 1121 32 8) is the biography of Capt Tommy Colvill Jones, the first ace fighter pilot from Argentina, who flew Bristol Fighters in Nos 20 and 48 Sqns RFC/RAF. He was credited with 11 victories before being shot down in April 1918, after which he died as a Prisoner of War. The book was written by a relative [and Forum member] who had access to the many letters sent between Tommy and his family in Buenos Aires. The reader gets to know Tommy and his family through the book, including his brother Robert, who served in the trenches before transferring to the RAF as an observer in No 57 Sqn, where he was killed just before the Armistice. The book gives a good impression of the impact of the Great War on the British community in Argentina, from which many men volunteered for war service. In many ways, the young men in Argentina were like their counterparts in Australia and other parts of the British Empire, in their eagerness to serve the ‘Mother Country’ though those in Argentina were, of course, citizens of a neutral country, and need not have volunteered.

I found the book very interesting, and commend it. Unfortunately, the appendices which fill out the technical details of Tommy’s service are rather oddly set out, but are nevertheless readable. The Spanish edition of the book is available on the internet, and the English edition can be purchased through the author’s family at: john.fordham@btconnect.com

Gareth