2019 Remembrance

Remembrance. It is the 101^st anniversary since the guns on the Western Front fell silent.  Next November, it will be the 100^th anniversary of the unveiling of the cenotaph at White Hall, and the burial of the Unknown Solider at Westminster Abbey.

This article I will be writing about two soldiers, who both fought and died during the First World War.  They have been commemorated in two different ways.  They both are associated with Neath and the surrounding areas.

According to the Commonwealth War Grave Commission, 444 men from Neath were killed during the First World War. (405 – Army; 26 – Navy; 12 – Merchant Navy and 1 – Royal Air Force)

William Jones (left)

The first man, is Private William Jones who hailed from Glynneath, a Kitchener volunteer who served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 9^th Battalion. 


1917 Jones was a stretcher bearer serving in France, 13 June 1917, he went missing, after escorting a wounded solider to the dressing station.  The role of stretcher bearer, would have been for someone to go out into No Man’s Land, collecting either wounded soldiers, the dead bodies or body parts of those that had been killed in action.  It could have been these tasks that could have disturbed the young Jones, when he went missing.


Jones had been one of eight soldiers who deserted who made it back home to Blighty.  Three months past, when Jones handed himself into Neath Police Station.  Officers there promptly sent him to the Assistant Provost Marshal in Bristol.  He might have out lived the duration of the war undetected if he hadn’t handed himself in.


Jones had told the officers at Bristol that he had been wounded in France and has been evacuated back to England.  Sadly in his trial there was no evidence of this.  Although Judge Anthony Brabington, in his book For The Sake of Example states, during the trial, the Company Commander had said in his trial that he had been with the battalion ever since it had landed in France, and that Jones was a good solider. 


All soldiers, whether they were volunteers, reservists or conscripts had been treated the same way under the Army’s Disciplinary Produces. 


25^th October 1917,  Private William Jones, who might have been under the age of 18 was executed at Kemmel Hill, and buried at Lochre Hospice Cemetery.

306 soldiers, 15 from Wales were Shot At Dawn, for cowardice and desertion. They were granted a posthumous pardon during 2006.  Figures show that 200,000 or so men were court-martialled during the duration of the First World War. 20,000 had been found guilty, which carried the death penalty. 346 sentences were carried out.  The others were given lesser sentences, e.g. Hard Labour, Field Punishment or as 91 men had a Suspended Sentence.  Sadly 41 men who had executed had been previously subject to commuted Death Sentence, and 1 man had a Death Sentence commuted TWICE before.  Of the 346 men executed 30 were pardoned and another 37 men were executed for murder, Civilian Law.

National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshir

During 2001, 5 years earlier, The Shot At Dawn Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, was unveiled it commemorates the 306 British Army and Commonwealth soldiers were executed.  The memorial portrays a young British soldier blindfolded and tied to a stake, ready to be shot by the firing squad. It is surrounded by a semicircle of stakes each bearing the name of executed soldiers. 



Private William Jones’ name was added to the Glynneath War Memorial during 2006.



Robert King,  wrote a book titled “Shot At Dawn – The fifteen Welshmen executed by the British Army in the First World War” which has information about 15 men.

Leonard Allan Lewis 

The second man connected with Neath is Lance Corporal Leonard Allan Lewis, who served with The Northamptonshire Regiment, 6^th Battalion.  Lewis was originally from Whitney-on-Wye, Herefordshire, born 1895.  On the outbreak of the First World War, he had moved to Neath where he was employed by the Great Western Railway as a bus driver.  Lewis joined up during March 1915.


18^th September 1918, at Rossnoy, Lance Corporal Lewis now 23, was commanding his company.  On right of the attacking line, two guns were enfilading. Lewis crawled forward alone and successfully bombed the guns and by rifle fire made those surviving gun team surrender.  Two days later, on the 21^st, he rushed his company through the enemy barrage.  During this action he was killed while getting his men under cover from heavy machine gun fire.

Sadly, Lance Corporal Leonard Allan Lewis’ body was lost, and his name was commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial.  The Victoria Cross Medal was given to Frank his older brother by their mother.  Today the medal is still kept by the family.

18th September 2018, the 100^th anniversary, The Railway Heritage Trust funded two plaques one in English the other in Welsh both unveiled at Neath Train Station. 

Two day later, 21^st September 2018, on the centenary of his death, a bronze statue was unveiled in Hertford’s Old Market Shopping Centre. 

Hertford's Old Market Shopping Centre

These are only two men whose names live on to this day.