In Jakarta War Cemetery, Indonesia is the Commonwealth War Grave of D/SSX 32939 Able Seaman John Mitton serving on H.M.S. Jupiter with the Royal Navy who died 23/08/1945.

A beautiful soul in a garden of rest.
God bless you; you were one of the best

He was the son of James and Mary Mitton, of Barnard Castle, Co. Durham.

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-
John Mitton was born on 18th July 1920 the son of James and Mary Ann (nee Bradley) Mitton who had married the previous year.   In 1921 the young family were living at 6 Salisbury Square, West Auckland and James was a waggoner at West Auckland Colliery.

John attended King James School in Bishop Auckland and was a member of the Church Lads Brigade at St. Helen Auckland.  When his parents moved to live in South Church, John remained in Salisbury Square, living with their70 year old widowed next door neighbour Mary Rutter and working as a fitter’s mate for a heating and ventilation company.

The service details of Able Seaman John Mitton have not been researched.

H.M.S. Jupiter was sailing near the northern coast of Java in the evening of 27th February 1942.  At 21.25 hours, a violent explosion hit her and she sank in 8 fathoms of water.  The explosion killed 12 ratings and wounded 7 and the ships commanding officer, 1 other officer and 95 ratings were captured by the Japanese, including Able Seaman J. Mitton.  At the time it was thought that Jupiter had been torpedoed but later it was found that she had struck a mine laid by Dutch ship “Gouden Leeuw”, part of the Allied Command cruiser force.

All John’s POW records appear to be under the name Mitten.  His POW number was 5174.  In December 1943 he was moved to Camp 3 in Batavia and then in May 1944 to Camp IIS, after that to Java camp 1 and then camp 2.  John Mitton died from beri beri on 23rd August 1945.

John Mitton is remembered at Bishop Auckland on B140.01 and B140.12, at St. Helen Auckland on S145.04 and S145.05,  at West Auckland on W108.03 and on our List of Ships’ Crews.