Jack was born in London, England in 1945. He was a pupil of St Marys High School where he won the Western Districts Schoolboy Swimming championship. In 1961, after qualifying for the Intermediate Certificate, he left school to work as a clerk in the construction industry and after serving 18 months as an apprentice electrician. Jack took up employment as a clerk and salesman for a local timber firm. Outside of normal work he was also a swimming coach. In 1964 the Government re-introduced conscription (or National Service as it was called at that time)because of the deteriorating strategic situation in South-East Asia,which would expand the Australian Regular Army to nine infantry battalions. A system was devised, where the names of all eligible men turning 20 years of age were placed into a type of lottery and Jack was called up in the first intake of national servicemen and commenced his recruitment training at Kapooka on the 30th June, 1965. After training was completed, he was allocated to the infantry corps. On the 8th September, 1965 he became a member of the newly-formed 6th Battalion RAR and was posted to 11 Platoon, D Company. On the 14th May, 1966 Jack married his long-time schoolgirl sweetheart, Susan May at St Mary Magdalene Church in St Marys. Following a brief honeymoon, Jack was sent for more intensive training in jungle-type warfare, and on the 8th June, 1966, Jack left by plane from Amberley air base and landed in Saigon. The remainder of his battalion travelled via the HMAS Sydney. The first priority of the new arrivals was to clear and establish a task force operational area at Nui Dat in Phuoc Tuy Province and on the 20th June, 1966, Jack was appointed Lance Corporal - second in command of a section of ten men. On the 17th August, 1966 the enemy mortared the task force base and on the morning of the 18th, Jack's company, D Company, left Nui Dat to search for the mortar crews. Later that afternoon, the advancing battalions of the Viet Cong 275th Regiment ran into D Company in teeming monsoon rain in the rubber plantation of Long Tan and a ferocious battle began. Over the next several hours, just over 100 diggers held off the best efforts of over 1,500 Viet Cong soldiers to wipe them out. Morning revealed the bodies of 245 Viet Cong & 18 diggers, Jack Jewry unfortunately was one of the diggers killed - the others were Richard Aldersea, Peter Clements, Glen Drabble, Kenneth Gant, Earnest Grant, Victor Grice, James Houston, Paul Large, Dennis McCormack, Warren Mitchell, Douglas Salverton, Gordon Sharp, David Thomas, Francis Topp, Maxwell Wales and Colin Whiston. The outstanding performance of D Company in the Battle of Long Tan was recognised by the Americans by the Presidential Unit Citation, the emblem of which is still worn by any soldiers serving in D Company, 6 RAR. Jack's body was returned to Australia and on the 2nd September, 1966 at Rookwood, he was accorded a full military funeral. The cortege was driven down Queen Street at St Marys and around pass St Marys High School. Jack's ashes were re-interred at Pine Grove Cemetery, Minchinbury late in 1966. On the 24th August, 1996, in the presence of his widow, Susanne, and many family and friends, the park at the corner of Acacia Avenue & Merinda Avenue at St Marys was dedicated "Jack Jewry Reserve" in Jack's memory. In 1996, as a representative of families of those who died in South Vietnam, Susan, Jack's widow, was chosen to accompany a tour which was known as "Australia Remembers Vietnam 1962 - 1973" and was able to lay a poppy at the replica cross which marks the site of the Battle of Long Tan where Jack had been killed 30 years before. The original Long Tan Cross, set up and dedicated by soldiers of D Company, 6 RAR on the battalion's second tour of South Vietnam in 1969, now rests in the Dong Nai Museum at Bien Hoa.
∼2781847 Lance Corporal Jack Jewry, 6th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, Age 21 from St Marys NSW. Jewry was killed at the Battle of Long Tan 18th August 1966.