John Francois Dallons

John Dallons

Nineteen Fourteen was the start of the Great War when the German Army attacked France by invading through Belgium on August th.. The plan was to send two armies through France and capture Paris thus removing France from the war. The plan failed when the German troops outran their supplies and communications and were driven back by the defending French and British. By October a defense line stretched from the Swiss border to the North Sea leaving most of captive Belgium behind the German lines. Both armies dug in for trench warfare that lasted the next four years. In Belgium the Germans were conscripting men to be sent to factories in Germany so that their own men could go into the Army. Secret organizations were formed in Belgium to help the young men escape. The German sentries were watched along the border and when they were elsewhere a rubber tire was used to push up the electrified fence so that the escapee could crawl through the tire to freedom. Another group was waiting to help them through neutral Holland and send them on to England and then to France where they could join the Belgian Army in exile. At this time John DALLONS' parents, Oscar and Felicie Dallons, and children were in Milan, Italy. John was in a boarding school in Belgium. John decided to escape rather than be sent to Germany as a forced laborer so one night he was under the fence and was on his way to France where he enlisted in the Belgian Army.

John was both a soldier and artist. He made sketches of life in the trenches, a precarious position as enemy snipers were awaiting every opportunity. There was the mud and disease. John was wounded several times and it was when he was recuperating in England that he met Ethel ROLLASON, his future wife. After the war John returned to Belgium to earn money. He learned glass blowing as a trade, working at the same glass factory as his father and brother Paul. In January of 1921 John married Ethel ROLLASON , and in March moved to the United States. They had not planned to stay long, but did. They had 3 children, Suzanne, Lillian, and John. Their family lived in several places in the United States, but for the most part settled in Los Angeles, California. John died 2 January 1976 of a stroke after he retired to Riverside California.

Parents of John DALLONS
Father	Mother
Oscar DALLONS	Felicie PIERARD

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