In 1915, at the age of 20, Fletcher Jones enlisted in the 1st A.I.F. He served in WW1 as a private in the 57th Batallion in both Egypt and France.
In 1917, he was invalided home from war after being buried alive for four hours and unconscious for 8 days. The army found him a job as an electroplater in Little Bourke St in Melbourne. He only lasted 6 days in the job.
"I had not realised that I would be classified C3 and thus entitled to a war pension for the totally and permanently incapacitated. Charlie Rowe, a school mate from Bendigo, was with me when I joined the pension queue for the third time at the Clifton Hill Post Office. Perhaps God was managing me again, for suddenly when almost at the pay counter I broke free of the queue and went for my life down Queen's Parade. I had coped with shellshock, falling sickness and malaria, but they were illnesses of the past: one more pension pay might hook me for life. Six years later a letter from the Repatriation Department informed me my pension had accumulated to a sizeable sum. I still did not touch it."
Fletcher Jones, Not By Myself. Wentworth Press, 2010. Chapter 5 - The Army.
