Jack Frith

Jack Frith – by Jacquelyn Frith

The family of Frith’s mourning the loss of Jack included his mother, Florrie, and father, John, elder brother George, and sister, Gladys and all the family descended from them. This picture of him in uniform was hung over the fireplace, next to a picture of his brother George in his uniform, at John and Florrie’s home. The loss of Jack percolated through the family, and something of this grieving and grievance has been passed generation to generation.

The last person to have known him, Gladys’ daughter, Carole, passed in 2020, but she remembered being carried on his shoulders, sharing sweets and laughter. Jack’s arrival had been a ‘happy accident’ for his parents we’re told, as the older children were born just before and between his father’s service   in WWI. Jack arrived after two years of peacetime calm in 1920.

When the baby of the family signed up in April 1941, he became Gunner Jack Frith, of  239 Battery, 77th HAA, Royal Artillery. He  had been working in essential war work, making munitions at the ICI Rexine works in Hyde with his father, until hearing one of his best friends, Harry Booth, was lost aboard HMS Bonaventure when it was torpedoed by an enemy Italian  submarine, he decided to sign up. Jack’s character, I’m told, was quite bold, he was strong-willed and not afraid of speaking his mind. His brother had said he was glad Jack was not a prisoner of the Japanese for long, as he would have pushed back. That he was not a FEPoW long was, sadly, a misconception brought about by a delay in hearing of his status as a PoW of the Japanese, and not long after, learning of his death. The family knew Jack was sent overseas in December 1941, and were then told he was missing, but heard little more for over a year, until spring 1943 when they were informed he was a prisoner ‘in Japanese hands’, in  the NEI.

His brother, George, my grandfather, served in the RAF and after being posted around the UK (including preparing Spitfires for D-Day), he was, after learning of the loss of his brother in early 1944, posted to India for the remainder. George then saw direct action against the japanese, and he learnt first-hand what a cruel enemy they were.

He would not speak of them post-war. Although the family has a close connection with Jack’s loss, there are not many physical items. There’s a few newspaper clippings that tell the (incomplete) story of Jack, a diary of 1942, which he was never able to keep, contained within a leather document folder, and his medals — awarded posthumously, and a letter.

The newspaper clippings published within a few months of each other.