Soldier Record

Major Lewis Jackson RA - my wonderful grandfather.

Major Lewis Jackson (RA) joined in 1905. By 1914 he was married with two children, one a baby, one aged four. When war broke out, his regiment with their families were packed and waiting at Woolwich Barracks to go. Mum said it was raining and the families were just left there with all their belongings in the rain. It must have been awful for the wives because there was no SAAFA in those days. The knock on effect of that war socially is something that has never been addressed. They coped somehow. Lewis went to Belgium with the BEF and saw action at Mons. He was commissioned in December 1914 and was later chosen to go with General Dunsterville on the Dunsterforce and returned home in 1919. In 1923 Geddes reduced the army and Lewis was out of work. However, he joined the TA and continued to soldier (which is all he knew) in his spare time. He was 'called out to national service' in the winter of 1938 for two weeks. In early1939, realising that war was coming, he was constantly sick because, though we had the guns, we had no ammunition with which to defend our island. He commanded a battery at Green Street Green. He was invalided out of the army shortly before the end of World War 2 and died tragically on 30 September 1948 at the age of 59.