End of hostilities brought demand for memorials to honour heroes
The First World War may have ended in November 1918 but not everything was settled, including how communities would remember the fallen, as Jessica Walford reports...
MEMORIALS were to be built. Prisoners had to be exchanged. There was planning to do – with villages, towns and cities all wanting to remember their heroes. Meetings up and down the country were held to best discuss ideas.
On October 14, 1919, a meeting for the townspeople of Aberdare was held to consider erecting a memorial for those who had lost their lives in the town.
Councillors, police and locals met to decide what to do, the Aberdare Leader reported.
The High Constable, Mr CB Stanton, wanted a cenotaph in the centre of town or Aberdare park with the names of fallen heroes inscribed on it.
That type of memorial was taken up in most towns, but Mr Stanton feared Aberdare would be left behind.
Nearby Mountain Ash had commission Sir Goscombe John to erect a memorial, costing around £4,000 at the time, through which the miners of the district were remembered.
Others agreed with Mr Stanton, and it was decided that a suitable memorial should be erected in Aberdare to solicit the support of the mines, railwaymen, Teachers Association and Chamber of Trade.
In Bridgend, a cenotaph erected opposite the town hall was “the centre of attraction, and the most moving part of peace festivities”, reported the Glamorgan Gazette on August 8, 1919.
At the time, it was only temporary, but a letter from SJ, Merthyr Mawr, in the paper expressed their hope to make it permanent.
“I appeal to Bridgend residents to try and influence the War Memorial Committee that this temporary affair may be of granite and be a permanent memorial to our late comrades who laid down their lives for our freedom, that all, comrades and relatives alike, may pay honour – where honour is due, with a wreath or a bunch of flowers on the anniversary of peace”.
A permanent cenotaph was unveiled in the town on November 11, 1921.
And a meeting in Rhymney was held in February 1919 to decide how they wanted to commemorate the war.
Mr Thomas, chairman for the Rhymney Urban Council, started the meeting by presenting gold watches to Corporals Wake and Whout, who had gained military medals.
Afterwards, the chairman heard there was a general feeling by the public that something needed to be done, reported the Monmouth Guardian and Bargoed and Caerphilly Observer.
A motion to establish a war memorial was carried and a committee from the four wards was appointed to consider several schemes to submit to another meeting.
A cross war memorial was unveiled in October 1929 in the centre of the village.
While memorials were being built, there were still administrative jobs to sort out.
Prisoners of war from each side had to be returned. But when prisoners of war returned, their stories were often heard for the first time. Some were shocking.
Private John Perry, part of the 3rd Welsh Regiment, had been a prisoner of war in Germany for nine months, the Barry Dock News reported March 1919.
After enlisting in 1916, he was in France by 1917. But he was captured and taken prisoner of war the following year during heavy fighting around Bapaume, which marked the beginning of the spring offensive.
For two-and-a-half days he was not given food or drink and was kept working behind enemy lines – exposed to the gunfire by Allies.
On the third day, he was given a small slice of bread and a cup of coffee, in and, along with the other prisoners, was marched about 20 miles to Behaine.
Upon arrival, they were given a bowl of soup. There for two days, they were then transferred in cattle trucks to Malichof, where Perry and others were told to work on trench-digging and making gun-pits, all while exposed to the fire of guns.
He was given bread made of potatoes and sawdust, the daily ration for 12 men. There was no water to drink or wash themselves in for three months.
One day, a bag of cordite they were loading up burst into flames. Perry’s clothes were burned off his back and he sustained severe burns on his head. He was lucky to survive.
But when he was taken to hospital, he was only given paper bandages and ointment, and a diet of barley water.
Transferred to Stargardt in Germany, his clothes and boots were taken from him, and he was given a paper suit and wooden boots to wear. If prisoners didn’t walk quickly enough, they were knocked down by the butt-end of a rifle or kicked by the guards.
From Stargardt, he was sent to Schiedemuhl Camp, to be registered as a prisoner.
It was not until then that he was allowed to write home.
Perry was sent to work at a sugar factory, where hatred of British prisoners was intense. They were called “pig dogs” by locals and mocked by children from the village.
By August, letters and parcels from home arrived for him. Russian prisoners were not allowed such luxuries. They relied mainly upon potato peelings.
By the time the Spanish flu came, there was relief when the guards caught the illness.
When the Armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, hatred towards the British increased. They were still treated badly until orders came for the release of prisoners.
The toll of work increased, and at night they were the victims of fiendish brutality. Guards with fixed bayonets would enter their rooms and one British prisoner was flogged to death, the paper reported.
Pte Perry left Germany on December 19, and arrived in Leith in Scotland on Christmas Day. At the time of printing in March 1919, he was a patient at St John Garrison Hospital on Barry Island, where he was recovering from the effects of ill-treatment he received as a prisoner of war.
He returned home to Cadoxton aged 26.