Robert Ray Jones: An Update

On October 30, 2020, I posted an article on the uncle I never met, Robert Ray Jones. If you missed that article, the link is here. In sum, my uncle died about 30 days after D-Day, his body was, as far as we knew, never found, and his name is engraved on a wall in the Brittany American Cemetery in Saint-James, Normandy, France. Yet recently my sister discovered that an elderly woman in France had one of my uncle’s dog tags in her possession. That is all we knew: she had his dogtag, and we hoped that she would be able to shed some light on his death. This post is an update, and a correction.

First the correction. I stated in that post that he, Robert Ray, was the only blood-related uncle I had never met. My sister, Debbie Lesher, the family genealogist, has since corrected me. It turns out that my maternal grandfather (another man I never met: he died five years before I was born) had an out-of-wedlock son prior to marrying my grandmother. The son was born in May of 1918, and died in 1985, a few weeks short of his 67th birthday. That hurts: my last birthday was number 68.

Now to the update. They are contained in emails. I include no last names, and reproduce the emails exactly as received (except, of course, for the last names). The first was written on the evening of January 3, 2021:

Dear Karen and Bob,

Time is flying, I realize we're now reaching 2021... Let me wish you all the best for this New Year! Let us all hope that 2021 could bring us so much more than the previous year! We're still full of hopes for April (Jazz festival in Coutances) or June (D-Day celebrations) when you are more than welcome to stay with us and enjoy the best of springtime in Normandy.

I haven't forgotten about the Dog Tag, and have been able to find out where precisely the tag had been found in July 1944. The place is known as Le Buhot, a farm where our former neighbour used to live back in the day. It is on the other end of Hambye, in some beautiful apple orchard... I'll send you a few pictures taken a few days ago. No doubt the soldier's niece will be glad to have them.

I was told that the tag was found there some time after the battle, but not much more information yet. I'll try to have a word with my former neighbour, Marie-Thérèse (then aged 18) who was the one person who discovered the dog tag. She was the person who gave me the tag, back in the 1990s or early 2000s. She also gave my nephew, Pierre (now a Captain in the Gendarmerie, currently in Martinique, then only a teen...) the second dog tag found on the same location. I have talked to him about it, and hearing that the original tag had been given back to the soldier's relative, is now willing to do so as well. He will either send it by post, or best is thinking of traveling to the USA to do that himself. Do you think Bob would be interested to go? Why not plan a trip there next summer, the three of us and organise some sort of a reunion/celebration with the family of this fallen American GI? That seems the least to do, to honour someone who gave his life for our freedom...

Please tell Bob about that.

We are back at school tomorrow, but I'll make sure you get the pictures before long.

Take care, the best is to come.

Bertrand, Carole and Clara.

The next email was sent the following day. It had pictures.

Hi again,

This is a photo of the Buhot, where Marie-Thérèse used to live with parents and two brothers. They are now deceased, only Marie-Thérèse is still alive, now living nearby in Bréhal by the seaside.

She is losing memory somehow, which explained why I haven't yet contacted her about the dog tag. Maybe she remembers well, maybe not. We have to see her on a good day...

I'll try to arrange something in the next few weeks.

Just opposite the farm, across the road is the orchard where the tag was found. It must have been on a temporary grave, left in July before being transfered to the nearby US war cemetary in Le Chefresne. (All US casualties in the vicinity were re-buried in Le Chefrene, to rest there till the 1960s, when the authorities decided to transfer all the graves to Mont de Huisnes Cemetary, in La Baie Du Mont St Michel.)

About 10 to 15 years ago, I happened to meet a group of veterans and their descendants aboard their Jeeps, Harleys and AM8 armoured cars (shipped from the USA for the occasion) that were honoring their dead in Le Chefrene. Sadly no picture was taken then.

Here are the three pictures included in that email.

The third email, dated January 4, 2021, contained three more photos.

Another view of the family's farm.

I don't remember more about the circumstances the tag had been found, though I suspect the tags were discovered when the soldier's body was exhumed some time after the fighting. That explains why the tag I handed you was still covered in dust/mud, just like the one in the possession of Pierre. No doubt, Marie-Thérèse's dad knew how the soldier had met his own death there, but he is long gone (I never had a chance to meet him, even when I was a young child...).

As far as I remember, Marie-Thérèse lived on the other side of Hambye (near where we live) with her husband, while her two brothers and parents continued to live in Le Buhot.

I'll keep you updated as soon as I gather more information.

Hope to hear from you soon.

It may be that we will learn more about Robert Ray Jones’ death, but if we don’t, I am satisfied. We know a lot more now than we did, thanks to some very kind people on both sides of the Atlantic (or, on the other side of the Atlantic and on this side of the Pacific). If Pierre does decide to return the other dog tag in person, we will have a very nice, happy get-together.

We can thank modern technology, and the fact that the world wide web ties us all together, for the knowledge we have about the fate of my unknown uncle. The implication from all this is that he is in fact buried, in an unmarked grave, in Mont de Huisnes Cemetary, in La Baie Du Mont St Michel.