"TODGER" JONES, V. C.
The Man Who Captured a Hundred Germans Single-Handed
His Story as told by Himself, set down by A. E. Littler
"How the dickens did you do it, Jones?" asked King George, when he invested Private Jones with the well-earned Cross; and our readers will echo the question. Here is the answer—"Todger's" own modest account of his amazing feat, as told to our representative at a special interview. It is a story that will live, a record of dauntless pluck and unfailing cheerfulness in the face of death that has no parallel even in the glorious annals of the Victoria Cross. Told in Wide World Magazine.
I—"TODGER" JONES TELLS HIS TALE
"If I've got to be killed I'll die fighting, not digging."
It was with these words on his lips that Private "Todger" Jones leaped from the British trenches.
This is the spirit of the soldier who killed several Boches, and by a wondrous piece of bluff, combined with consummate valor, took no fewer than a hundred and two Germans as prisoners. One of the most highly-placed men in London has described it as "the doughtiest deed of the war," and the description is fully merited.
It was with the object of obtaining the story first-hand from Private Jones's own lips that the writer visited the little Cheshire town of Runcorn, a place proud of its historic traditions, but prouder still of Jones, V.C.
Brown-eyed, lithe, clean-cut, and on the slim side is "Todger," keenly intelligent, with a streak of fatalism in his composition that has sustained him through untold trials, modest as the true hero always is, humorously tolerant of the worship he is commanding, lavish in praise of his comrades, yet reluctant to speak of himself.