Special Constable Jasper Jackson Mellett
On the 1st
August 1914 Britain declared war on Germany and so began
“The Great War”.
Jasper Jackson Mellett, known as Jap, was 16 years old and
working in his father’s bakery at Wooburn Green in Buckinghamshire....
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Special Constable Jasper Jackson Mellett
On the 1st
August 1914 Britain declared war on Germany and so began
“The Great War”.
Jasper Jackson Mellett, known as Jap, was 16 years old and
working in his father’s bakery at Wooburn Green in Buckinghamshire.
Jasper
was born at the bakery on the 29th
October 1898, the third of seven children
born to William and Jane Joy Mellett.
William was a master baker and
confectioner.
In 1917, with the war still raging, Jasper joined the Royal
Flying Corps (RFC); he was 18 years old.
Men were recruited
into the service for their skills as mechanics, carpenters and
upholsterers.
Jasper, having a natural aptitude for anything
mechanical, became a mechanic/dispatch rider with the service
which was originally formed in May 1912.
His job as a
dispatch rider,
serving in France,
was to pick up and deliver
information about artillery
placements, trench lines, etc.
This
information was sometimes thrown
out of balloons in pouches by
observers and picked up
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