John Rees Williams' rendezvous with the 50th (Northumbrian) Division was determined years before the outbreak of war. As a 14-year old, in 1909, his parents were asked to remove him from school because of his continual truancy. But, despite his record and reputation, a new "college" was found that would take him. There was just one problem. John didn't want to go, had plans of his own and disappeared! He soon resurfaced in Newcastle, all signed up with a five-year apprenticeship to become an electrician with the famous Vickers company. One of his directors commanded a unit of local Territorials and a condition of his contract was to "volunteer". It is still a mystery to the family how a young farm lad from Pontyclun, at the foot of the South Wales valleys, came to know about and pursue an opportunity with one of the day's industrial giants some 350 miles way on the other side of Britain. Five years later, a fully-qualified electrician, the First World War began. John enlisted before the Government request for the Territorial Army units, which had no obligation to serve overseas, to volunteer. With one of his friends, probably from back home in Wales, he went to Newcastle to enlist. Their enrolment test comprised scaling a factory chimney stack by ladder and walking completely around its top. No mean feat for a man frightened of heights who got vertigo.
Sapper John Rees Williams, 1895-1975 Snapped up to be a Royal Engineer, there is family speculation that he arrived in France and joined operations before the 50th crossed over in April 1915. But, like many veterans, he spoke very little of his experience to his subsequent wife, Roseletta, who he married in 1928, or two sons or grandchildren. However, he did relay a few anecdotal stories and kept a couple of photos of his days with the Northumbrians. As a Sapper and electrician, he was attached to the Artillery, laying down cables and telephone lines between the guns, various headquarters and the forward observation posts. When an attack was going forward, he was called on to extend the lines of communications, with the orders that if he was to stop and help any comrades who fell off the duckboards into the mud that he would be court-martialled. He was in Ypres and on the Menin Road before the town was destroyed and said he saw the original Menin Gate. Whether he meant the Gate as in the original bridge exiting the town or the Lille Gate in the vicinity is not known. But in his own words, he saw Ypres, the Somme and Paeschendale and every battle that the 50th was part of. Plus more, since the Artillery and the supporting Royal Engineers, were usually first to take up position and the last to leave, hence working with other incoming and outgoing Divisions as a section of the front changed hands. He recalled feeling sorry for the Scots because the "bloody stupid" officers wouldn't allow them to switch to trousers through, at least, one winter. It was not just a matter of them feeling the cold, it was the fact that the Jocks had their legs cut to pieces by the ice sharpened edges of their kilts as they went "over the top" in the early morning. This suggests that he was on the front line with the Scots at some time which, according to the History of the 50th Division by Everard Wyrall, could have been in spring 1918 when the Germans made the massive counter-attack that saw the Division all but wiped out. But, he may also have had more personal contact with the Scots at other times since an elder brother, Eddie, was a Major in command of Machine Gunners, apparently in the 51st (Highland) Division. At some time he was withdrawn to Brigade Headquarters with shell shock after a vicious battle. As he could speak French, he was kept on as a Liaison Officer, serving out the whole war. John's discomfort in the trenches was not so severe but he remembered the seas of mud and losing his hair, pulling it out in clumps when he got back to his dug-out. He put it down to there being no ventilation in the caps and helmets. However, given that when on leave his parents would not let him in the house and made him undress outside on account of him being ridden with lice, there were most probably other factors at work. On the way back to France he joined a ship bringing fresh Australian soldiers into the war. Apparently, it was a riotous journey with gallons of beer going down and similar quantities of vomit coming up, with the Diggers hanging over the side with "seasickness"! A few spells of leave saw him and a band of 50ths swanning around Paris, taking in the sights and, best of all, getting deloused again in some sulphur baths that were a Mecca for British soldiers out of the line. Incredibly, the baths were run by a Corporal Fairbrother from John's home village. When asked in his 70s, by a most probably irritating grandson, if he had ever killed anyone, he replied quite blandly that he didn't know. He raised his walking stick like a rifle and said, "You were just firing at whatever you could see, in the dark, over the top of the trench and you couldn't tell." Again, during the Great Retreat, so-called, the 50th's Royal Engineers were formed up into makeshift infantry units to hold the line that was continually crumbling, so it appears he must have been involved in first-hand combat then, if not while "taking up the wire" to forward positions as part of his normal duties. Once the Armistice was signed, even though the 50th - such as it was by then - did not advance into Germany, John did not get to go home straight away. He was taken, as were many Royal Engineers, to support the occupying forces. What Divisions or units he was attached to is unknown, but he ended up in Cologne and did not return to Wales until mid-1919. On the trains home, back through France and Belgium, he recounted that, "We were all sick of it. As we went over rivers and bridges, everyone was slinging their rifles, helmets and uniforms out of the windows. When we got home, we just reported them lost." His sons have relayed similar sentiments that, despite his apparent eagerness to sign-up at the beginning, by the end of it he couldn't have cared less. But, perhaps he did in the greater sense as became apparent to one of his grandsons one day while visiting for a weekend, sometime in the 1970s. By this time John was quite frail approaching his 80s and was not known for taking long walks around Pontyclun. This one evening, however, he gave his young charge the full tour - out over common ground, along the railway that used to carry the iron-ore, through woods and out to Eddie's (by now deceased) old house, back into town over the river and past the brewery that he had rewired single-handedly as the town's only electrician for many years. By a small park, he stopped and pushed open the gate to the town's war memorial with the end of his walking stick. He then proceeded to prod the names...."I knew him; I went to school with him; he was the butcher's son; his sister used to work at the baker's....". He went round all four faces of the granite plinth and knew them all - as good as. More than a hundred men of what was then just a village. When he'd finished, he stood back for a moment and just looked, then turned out through the gate closing it quietly and slowly, this time with his hand. An added dimension to this story, only realised while writing this account, is that he
did not serve with any of them - unlike most First World War soldiers in locally-formed
battalions. He instead shared some of his most profound experiences with the men of, for
those days, quite far removed communities. A Taff with the Geordies, at the still young
age of 24, John Rees Williams was a Northumbrian for ten years. There are most probably
war memorials in and around Newcastle where he could have stood in similar remembrance. Note: My thanks go to Paul Williams, whose Grandfather John Rees Williams is featured above. Guy Smith
|
