Yukon who is who

John Robert Blakeley “Bob” Jones (1908 – 2000)

Bob Jones was born in Edmonton, Alberta. He joined the Army Cadets when he was young and entered the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario in 1925. He joined the Canadian Officers Training Corps in Edmonton while he was attending the University of Alberta. He graduated in mining engineering in 1939 and enlisted in 1940 with Calgary’s new 10th Field Squadron, Royal Canadian Engineers at the Mewata Armoury. During the Second World War he commanded squadrons in North Africa, France, Belgium, Holland, and Germany. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel and appointed Commander, Royal Canadian Engineers, 4th Canadian Armoured Division in February 1944 and held that position until the end of the war. He is credited with strongly influencing the selection of the Bailey Bridge as primary equipment for crossing river in north-western Europe. Other bridges were under consideration but during a demonstration for General Eisenhower, he and his men constructed a forty-foot bridge across a river in fourteen-and-a-half minutes.¹⁾ A commonly-told story is that the men did it twice, the second time in the dark of night. ²⁾

War-time engineers are first in and last out and Jones was a pragmatic and visionary engineer. He was named to the Order of the British Empire, awarded the Distinguished Service Order for bravery and twice Mentioned in Dispatches. He received the Order of the British Empire for his actions during the Scheldt Battle where he and his men quickly cleared the roads of obstacles while under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire. Jones returned to Calgary after the war and was appointed District Engineer. After a month on the job, he was assigned the task of managing and maintaining the Northwest Highway System. He considered this his greatest challenge.³⁾

In the winter of 1946/47, Brigadier General Robert Jones took over the rebuilding of the Alaska Highway. The highway was little more than a bulldozer trail through the bush. Thirteen camps needed to be supplied and an additional 200 miles of access roads to many small airfields had to be maintained. There were 100 temporary bridges needing replacement and hundreds of raw timber culverts. Many miles of dangerous curves need straightening for safe civilian traffic.⁴⁾

After three years as senior engineer, Brig Jones became director of works at the National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa. He was appointed Chief Engineer of the Canadian Army from 1951 to 1954. Later he was a brigadier in New Brunswick before returning to the Yukon in 1957 as Chief Highway Engineer. Jones retired from the Army in 1963 and went to work for a construction firm in Calgary. He was director of campus development for the University of Alberta in Calgary for ten years and then was with the Alberta Universities Commission. From 1970 to 1973 he was the first Honorary Colonel of 8th Field Engineer Regiment in Edmonton. Jones was active in the Military Engineer Association of Canada and served as president in 1965/66.⁵⁾