Post by Administrator on Sept 11, 2018 20:55:11 GMT
Barry’s Book of Remembrance – adding the missing names
On Saturday, September 22, at the Memorial Hall in Barry, the Royal British Legion is staging a Festival of Remembrance with a particular focus on the centenary of the Great War.
A centrepiece of the evening will be a Book of Remembrance of Barry’s fallen of the war, compiled by historian and headteacher Dr Jonathan Hicks who has spent 13 years researching Barry’s contribution to the First World War.
As a result, the Book of Remembrance now contains an updated, definitive Roll of Honour of Barry men from all four services who died as a result of the war.
The book has been produced by the Royal British Legion with support from a legacy by former member Tommy Nettleship.
The Roll of Honour in the Hall of Memory in Barry Memorial Hall is a wonderful tribute to the fallen of that terrible conflict, but it is of its time and contains some errors, and in addition a number of men were omitted when the roll was first compiled in 1932.
Families had died off or moved out of the area and as a result many men’s names were not submitted. Unless it could be proved that a Merchant Navy man had died as the result of enemy action, then his name did not appear on the Tower Hill Memorial in London, and therefore was not included in the Roll of Honour.
I have taken the decision to add these men as, to my mind, they died on active service during the war; my reasoning being that men in the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force who died as the result of illness or an accident are included.
As an example of this, on New Year’s Eve 1915 the Admiralty collier SS Satrap left Barry on sealed Government orders. She went missing on a stormy day and 11 Barry sailors were never seen again.
The wreck now lies off the coast of Pembrokeshire, near Manorbier. The third engineer was H May of 171 Gladstone Road. This was only his second voyage.
An interesting footnote to the story of the Satrap is that a few days after her sinking a member of the crew, Seaman Alexis Ivanhoe, was seen alive in Barry.
He was arrested and stood trial for his absence from the sailing and was sentenced to a month’s hard labour. Upon his release he went back to sea and was killed as the result of enemy action in 1918 when the SS Turnbridge sank.
These are just some of the men who laid down their lives serving their country by running the gauntlet of the German U-boats in the waters around Britain to ensure that food and essential raw materials were brought into the country.
In the trenches near Maricourt on the Somme on the morning of August 27, 1916 was Rifleman James John from Barry.
James had written home: "Our patrol reported a large German working party wiring to the right of our line. We went out and mounted our machine gun about 30 yards from them.
"The Lewis gun spoke, perhaps more spiteful and deadly than ever because I remembered my chums and also how three nights previous when we were marching over a road leading to the line that we had to pick our steps over a score of our lads, dead and dying…
"Snipers watch from dawn until dusk for targets. Trench mortars, rifle and hand grenades, shells of all descriptions and sizes, come at intervals. At nights machine gun fire sweeps parapets, communication trenches, roads near firing line etc. Bombarding is in the daily routine and nightly.
"You see the flash of the guns, hear the report, and then wait for the explosion; thoughts run riot in your brain; a flash, boom, and a crunch, and one, three, or perhaps 20 human beings are gone to the skies."
James John was killed later that same day when a German shell exploded in the trench in which he was standing.
In December 1916, Corporal David Towers of the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers was awarded the Military Medal.
David was 20 years old and the eldest son of Mr and Mrs D Towers of 29 Travis Street, but was adopted from childhood by his uncle Philip Phillips of 41 Evans Street, Barry Dock.
He had joined the Army in 1914 and was awarded the MM for ‘gallant conduct during a raid on the enemy trenches on the night of 17/18th November, when attached to the 115th Trench Mortar Battery during the Battle of the Somme.’
On the night stated, David Towers was ordered to go out into no man’s land in charge of a trench mortar just before a battle was to begin. The reason for the order was to deceive the Germans. Shells and bullets began to fall around but he and his crew stuck to their trench mortar and carried it back safely.
David Towers was killed just a few months later on February 2, 1917. Writing home, Captain Morris of the same battery intimated that Towers was killed by a German shell. His last words were ‘I am hit!’
All of these men are now commemorated in the Book of Remembrance. Their sacrifice should never be forgotten.
LINK
On Saturday, September 22, at the Memorial Hall in Barry, the Royal British Legion is staging a Festival of Remembrance with a particular focus on the centenary of the Great War.
A centrepiece of the evening will be a Book of Remembrance of Barry’s fallen of the war, compiled by historian and headteacher Dr Jonathan Hicks who has spent 13 years researching Barry’s contribution to the First World War.
As a result, the Book of Remembrance now contains an updated, definitive Roll of Honour of Barry men from all four services who died as a result of the war.
The book has been produced by the Royal British Legion with support from a legacy by former member Tommy Nettleship.
The Roll of Honour in the Hall of Memory in Barry Memorial Hall is a wonderful tribute to the fallen of that terrible conflict, but it is of its time and contains some errors, and in addition a number of men were omitted when the roll was first compiled in 1932.
Families had died off or moved out of the area and as a result many men’s names were not submitted. Unless it could be proved that a Merchant Navy man had died as the result of enemy action, then his name did not appear on the Tower Hill Memorial in London, and therefore was not included in the Roll of Honour.
I have taken the decision to add these men as, to my mind, they died on active service during the war; my reasoning being that men in the Royal Navy, Army and Royal Air Force who died as the result of illness or an accident are included.
As an example of this, on New Year’s Eve 1915 the Admiralty collier SS Satrap left Barry on sealed Government orders. She went missing on a stormy day and 11 Barry sailors were never seen again.
The wreck now lies off the coast of Pembrokeshire, near Manorbier. The third engineer was H May of 171 Gladstone Road. This was only his second voyage.
An interesting footnote to the story of the Satrap is that a few days after her sinking a member of the crew, Seaman Alexis Ivanhoe, was seen alive in Barry.
He was arrested and stood trial for his absence from the sailing and was sentenced to a month’s hard labour. Upon his release he went back to sea and was killed as the result of enemy action in 1918 when the SS Turnbridge sank.
These are just some of the men who laid down their lives serving their country by running the gauntlet of the German U-boats in the waters around Britain to ensure that food and essential raw materials were brought into the country.
In the trenches near Maricourt on the Somme on the morning of August 27, 1916 was Rifleman James John from Barry.
James had written home: "Our patrol reported a large German working party wiring to the right of our line. We went out and mounted our machine gun about 30 yards from them.
"The Lewis gun spoke, perhaps more spiteful and deadly than ever because I remembered my chums and also how three nights previous when we were marching over a road leading to the line that we had to pick our steps over a score of our lads, dead and dying…
"Snipers watch from dawn until dusk for targets. Trench mortars, rifle and hand grenades, shells of all descriptions and sizes, come at intervals. At nights machine gun fire sweeps parapets, communication trenches, roads near firing line etc. Bombarding is in the daily routine and nightly.
"You see the flash of the guns, hear the report, and then wait for the explosion; thoughts run riot in your brain; a flash, boom, and a crunch, and one, three, or perhaps 20 human beings are gone to the skies."
James John was killed later that same day when a German shell exploded in the trench in which he was standing.
In December 1916, Corporal David Towers of the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers was awarded the Military Medal.
David was 20 years old and the eldest son of Mr and Mrs D Towers of 29 Travis Street, but was adopted from childhood by his uncle Philip Phillips of 41 Evans Street, Barry Dock.
He had joined the Army in 1914 and was awarded the MM for ‘gallant conduct during a raid on the enemy trenches on the night of 17/18th November, when attached to the 115th Trench Mortar Battery during the Battle of the Somme.’
On the night stated, David Towers was ordered to go out into no man’s land in charge of a trench mortar just before a battle was to begin. The reason for the order was to deceive the Germans. Shells and bullets began to fall around but he and his crew stuck to their trench mortar and carried it back safely.
David Towers was killed just a few months later on February 2, 1917. Writing home, Captain Morris of the same battery intimated that Towers was killed by a German shell. His last words were ‘I am hit!’
All of these men are now commemorated in the Book of Remembrance. Their sacrifice should never be forgotten.
LINK