Carmarthen County War Memorial, Priory Street, Carmarthen

During the Second World War, the number of people killed throughout the world was estimated at over 55 million. This stupefying figure includes the mass German slaughters of millions of Russian people and the near extinction of the Jewish Race in Europe.

ESTIMATED CASUALTY FIGURES FOR THE COUNTY

The Original Carmarthen County War Memorial listed the names of 1,913 men & women of the County who gave their lives in the Great War. This was made up of 3 Nurses, 123 Officers, 254 Non-Commissioned Officers & 1,533 Other Ranks. After painstaking research, this figure has now been expanded to around 2,700 men & women to WW1, and 1,050 in WW2, and more are being uncovered all the time. Many of these are mentioned on the memorials of more than one village, which makes research difficult.

INFORMATION AND PHOTOGRAPHS

The main method of remembering these men is through photographs, either portrait photos of the men them selves, or of their graves or names inscribed on the various memorials. My database of War Grave and Memorial photos is growing constantly, and if anyone requires such, please contact me to see if it is available.

Also, I have published a book to commemorate the Laugharne men, and have a limited quantity available for sale, from a print run of only 200. They are an excellent quality paperback, with 360 pages with all of the details that I have been able to uncover written into the book. It is priced at £15 per copy, plus post & packing of £3 if required, and has been reasonably priced just to cover my printing costs, or can be bought directly from Victoria Bakery or Corran Books, Laugharne.

New information is always being sought for any of the men from the area, and if anyone has any photographs, paperwork, medals or just information about anyone on these pages, please contact me at;

mailto:mail@laugharnewarmemorial.co.uk

This website has been split into separate pages, and the aim is to ultimately have a page for each War Memorial, with a short biography of each casualty, along with a photograph of their last resting place or memorial, plus any photos of the men themselves when they are available.

In addition to these rolls there are separate pages on the local Infantry Battalions, the 1/4th Welsh, and the 15th Welsh (Carmarthen Pals). These pages contain brief histories of the Battalions, and their Casualty Rolls. These pages will be extended in the future.

One page of the site commemorates the role of the Colonial Forces who fought alongside the British Armies on the Western Front. These include the Australian Imperial Force, the Canadian Expeditionary Force, the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and the South African Expeditionary Force. Men of Carmarthenshire who died in their service are listed on the page.

Another page lists all of the CWGC War Memorials in France & Belgium, giving a background history on each, with a photograph.

An interesting page is Carmarthenshire Heroes. Here I will be remembering the men of the County who performed great deeds of heroism, for which they were decorated. Some work has been carried out on this section, but research is still on-going.

Finally there are pages which show a typical tour of the Western Front, Links to other web-sites, and a Shopping Cart where I have for sale copies of my book on the Laugharne War Memorial.

The Guest Book has been disabled, to stop vindictive postings being left, but I welcome any information or comments, whether positive or not, as it will help me to form the website., so please use the contact form on the site to get in touch.

If you wish to donate toward the costs of running and maintaining the website, please feel free to do so by visiting the Shopping Cart page, where a donation can be made via Paypal. This will help cover the costs involved in obtaining photographs both myself and via Third Party sources such as Bob Pike, who gives me a lot of help. If you require photographs of War Graves or Memorials in Belgium, France, Salonika or Gallipoli which are not of men from Carmarthenshire, then Bob's e-mail address can be found in the Links Section.

Search Tip; If using Internert Explorer, then pressing 'CTRL and F' together will open a search bar, which can be used to search for keywords on the page of the site you are viewing. This is particularly useful when looking for family names or regiments etc.

NEWS ITEMS

Work is still on-going to develop both this website, and the sister website- the Pembroke County War Memorial. As with this site, any information or photographs of the War Memorials and War Graves in both Counties would be most welcome, and any information on the local regiments is always needed for further research.

The Pembrokeshire site can be found by visiting the link below-

ABOUT MYSELF

I was born in the Township of Laugharne, and attended Laugharne V.C.P., and Whitland Grammar Schools. Upon leaving school, I gained an Apprenticeship as a Mechanical Engineer, at the Royal Aerospace Establishment, Aberporth, and have since worked as an Engineer for Dairy Crest, McCain Foods, BMI Healthcare, and now for Muller (the yoghurt company), where I still work in Engineering- through necessity of supporting my family, not choice! Due to a work-related move to Muller, in Shropshire, I had to give up playing rugby for Laugharne, and found myself with plenty of spare time. This seemed the ideal opportunity to try and unravel the mysteries of the 'John' family tree.

After researching my family tree I discovered that my Great Grandfather, Lance Corporal David Thomas John, of Laugharne, was killed in the Great War. He served as an original member of the 4th Battalion, Australian Imperial Force, and was one of the original men who landed at ANZAC Cove, on Gallipoli, on the 25th, April, 1915. He survived the terrors of Gallipoli, and fought through the beginning of the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, being part of the victorious First Australian Division who captured the German stronghold of Pozieres. He died whilst leading a patrol to discover the exact whereabouts of the German Front Line at Mouquet Farm on the 18th August, 1916, aged just 25. His grave was lost in the following fighting over the area, and so he is remembered on the beautiful Villers Brettoneaux Memorial to the Missing, on the Somme. His death left my Grandfather, John William John, fatherless at three years old.

A couple of years back, prompted by this discovery, I wrote a book about the men of Laugharne who died in both World Wars. As a result of the research that I undertook, I began compiling information about the men of the villages nearest Laugharne, but this again escalated, so I decided to undertake the research & compilation of a Roll of Honour for the whole of the County of Carmarthenshire for both Wars. As part of this research, I am in the process of photographing as many of their War Graves and Memorials as possible, and of trying to build up a collection of photographs and information about the men, which is being entered into a database, so far with around 2,800 men who lost their lives in World War One, and over 1,000 men who lost their lives in WW2.