West Wales War Memorial Project


This site was originally set up to remember the men on the Laugharne War Memorial, but it has slowly been expanded to include all of the men & women of Carmarthenshire who died in both World Wars. Information will be added bit by bit, and any comments, criticisms or help are welcomed. Information will be added by means of a separate web page for each Town or Parish in Carmarthenshire, as information becomes available. A sister site to this is the Pembroke County War Memorial, which is a similar project, which has been set up in the same manner, to locate and record the details of all of the war memorials in Pembrokeshire, and to enable the commemoration of the memory of the fallen men and women of both counties online, in an easy to access database of records and photos. I am always travelling about photographing the war graves and memorials of these people and welcome any contributions in the form of photographs of the people, war memorials or graves to help in this massive task.

                                                 Welcome to the Carmarthenshire Roll of Honour.

The aim of this website is to remember the men of the County of Carmarthenshire, in South West Wales, who gave their lives during both World War 1 and World War 2.

This site is mostly geared up toward men who fought in the Great War, due to the tremendous amount of research material available, but the men of World War II are not forgotten, being also remembered on this website, and more information will be added as it becomes available. These men are harder to research, as their Service Records are not yet available to the general public, so this will be an ongoing project.

To give some idea of the loss of life in both World Wars, over 16 million people were killed in the Great War. On the first day of the Battle of the Somme alone (on the 1st of July 1916) over 60,000 casualties were incurred by the British and Allied forces (Made up of around 19,000 dead, and the remainder wounded or missing).

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 steve_john@tiscali.co.uk


                                                                             About the Site Itself

This website has been split 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 two local Infantry Battalions, the 1/4th Welsh and the 15th Welsh. Both contain brief histories of the Battalions, and their Casualty Rolls.

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 Guest Book and Shopping Cart where I have for sale copies of my book on the Laugharne War Memorial.

I welcome any information or comments, whether positive or not, as it will help me to form the website.

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.

News Items

This section will be used to announce any new discoveries, or people that further research is needed on.

October 8th, 2007- Work has now begun on the Pembroke County War Memorial. I have began gathering information and started to put it into a database, similar to the work already carried out with Carmarthenshire. One of the pages on this site has been dedicated to this aim, and when enough information has been gathered, another website wil be set up to run in parallel with this. Due to the vastness of this task, the first area of research will be the Great War.

As with this site, any information or photographs of the War Memorials and War Graves in both Counties would be most welcome.

Work on the site has now begun. It can be found by visiting the link below-

http://www.pembrokeshire-war-memorial.co.uk/

**NEW**

Local War Memorial Books

After a lot of work and research, I have decided to publish War Memorial Books for the Villages of Llanddowror, Whitland and St. Clears, along the same lines of my book on Laugharne. These books are being printed as Hardbacks, with dust jackets, and contain details (and photographs where available) of all of the men of these Villages who lost their lives during both World Wars. I am awaiting samples of these books back so that I can proof read them, and then they will be available for sale via this site. I have also republished the Laugharne Roll of Honour in the same Hardback format. These copies will be priced at £15 each, inclusive of postage, and take from 2-3 weeks to deliver.

Please check out the Shop section of the site if you are interested, which has thumbnail photos of the book covers.

I still also have about 20 copies left of the original paperback Laugharne book, which will be going on sale for £10 each including Postage and Packing.

If there is enough interest, more books on the War Memorials of Carmarthenshire will be written and published in due course.

Also the Shop page will now be used to sell replica/ replacement WW1 and WW2 Casualty Memorial Scrolls. These Scrolls were issued to the next of kin of every man and woman who lost their lives during the wars. Many of these have been lost over the years, and so this is an ideal opportunity to support the running and developement of this site, and get yourself a nice bit of memorabilia, which can be framed to complement your ancestors medals.

A few spare medals will also be advertised on the page when available, so please keep an eye out.


                                                                                    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.


Above is a photo of myself, stood by the Panel on the Villers Brettoneux Memorial in France, which bears the name of my Great Grandfather, David Thomas John of Laugharne. David is below on the left, and to the right is his younger brother John James John. John was to join David in Australia, but the outbreak of War spelt an end to this. He enlisted into the Pembroke Yeomanry, and fought in Palestine, before being killed towars the end of the War, during the Battle of Epehy. The brothers enlisted at opposite ends of the earth, and died just 20 miles apart in France, two years apart, and both aged 25 when they died. They are both remembered on Laugharne and Llanddowror War Memorials, as well as the Memorial inside their local Chapel of Bwlchnewydd, near Cross Inn, Laugharne.

Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoy the website, and please feel free to comment, criticise or to send in information- it all helps to build the site!

Steve John

Western Front Association Member No. 14876.

mailto:steve_john@tiscali.co.uk

For anyone who does contact me, I will reply to all e-mails as soon as I can, unless I am away on holiday. I would be grateful if anyone who does contact me would please acknowledge my replies, as many don't seem to bother! Thanks for that.

 

 Legal Notice

Most of the material used in this website has been photographed and compiled from various sources by the Author, Steven John, except where otherwise noted. Due to the immense amount of hard work, time and money that has gone into the website, I would appreciate that if any material is copied for anything other than personal research, that permission is granted, and acknowledgement is given to this website and the author.