Swansea VCs of the Great War

Interesting to see that the Government intends providing the birth place of every Great War VC winner with a memorial paving stone in remembrance of the winnner.

In the case of Swansea there is, of course, William Fuller VC and George Prowse VC. Fuller VC lived in the town until his death in 1974 and is buried in a local cemetery. Prowse VC was killed in action and his body lost in the subsequent fighting. His widow remained in Swansea until at least the late 1920s.

Under the Government scheme neither man will be remembered in Swansea as both were born elsewhere. It is very difficult to determine exactly which town 'owns' particular VC winners as people frequently 'moved around' so I suppose place of birth is pretty definite, even if the man subsequently lived elsewhere. 

Let the writing commence...

The research for 'Swansea in the Great War' is about 95% complete and I'll be starting the writing this evening while mopping up the odd bit of outstanding research as I go along. Just the 35,000 words to go then!

The book will cover the home front e.g. recruitment, conscientious objection, fund raising for soldiers comforts, hospitals and nurses, the effect of the war on industry, the treatment of aliens, Belgian refugees etc. It will also contain vignettes from the front whether on land, sea or in the air as experienced by the men (and women) of Swansea.

Interested? The book should be out in autumn 2014 and if you wish to express a possible interest (no obligation, of course) add a comment here ideally with an e-mail address and I'll add you to the update list.

Bernard Lewis

Remembrance in Swansea

At the end of the Great War Swansea, in common with every town and city in Britain, had a large number of its soldiers and airmen lying in a foreign field while most of its lost mariners rested in the deep, dark bosom of the ocean.

With no grave for a family to visit it was the town or village war memorial that acted as a focal point for remembrance. Ernest Morgan, the Borough Architect at Swansea Corporation, designed the cenotaph that now stands on the foreshore at Swansea, borrowing from the work of Edwin Lutyens and his cenotaph in London.

The foundation stone of the cenotaph at Swansea was laid by none other than Field Marshall Douglas Haig in 1922. The FM also received the freedom of the Borough during his visit. The work was officially unveiled a year later by Admiral of the Fleet Doveton-Sturdee, victor of the Battle of the Falklands, a forerunner of the 1982 conflict.  Since then the cenotaph has seen almost a century of remembrance, the ceremonies being held in November of every year.

Food control in the Great War

Why would you need to control food? Well, the success of the German U-Boat campaign in sinking Allied shipping in 1917/18 meant that food, as well as other essentials that were imported, were in rather short supply.

The situation became so serious that Swansea Corporation set up a Food Control Committee to oversee the delivery and subsequent distribution of foodstuffs to the Swansea public. There was also a move to increase the number of vegetable allotment plots. The raising of rabbits as food was also encouraged.

There were frequent food queues and butter and sugar were also regularly in short supply...

Did German U-Boats ever come to Swansea?

Well yes, they did but not during the war. They arrived (5 or so of them) for break-up at Swansea after the end of the war. As part of the Armistice agreement the Germans had to surrender numerous surface vessels and U-Boats to the Allied powers.

The U-Boats were estimated to have a scrap value of a few thousand pounds. The German High Seas Fleet (battleships, cruisers etc.) was accepted into the British base at Scapa Flow and, as discussions regarding its fate continued, the German sailors took the initiative and scuttled them, rather than have them fall into Allied hands.

The U-Boats were simply surrendered and  then broken up. They had played an important role in German naval strategy and, at one point, it looked as if their success in sinking Allied shipping might force Britain to the negotiating table before the country was starved into submission...one of the aims of the British Passchendaele Offensive in 1917 had been to clear the Belgian coast of Germans so preventing German submarines from operating against the shipping lines.

How to (try and) avoid being conscripted...

So, you don't fancy a spell in the front-line trenches but have no obvious answer to avoiding your call up for the Army. What do you do?

One enterprising chap in Swansea tried taking a drug that temporarily affected the heart in such a way that he would fail his army medical examination. The ploy failed, however, and he found himself in court to account for his unpatriotic actions (and yes, most people were patriotic in those far off days...)

The vast majority went when called, of course, judging the Great War to be a just war and the Allied cause to be one that was worth fighting for.

The hard yards...

Spent a few hours today 'plodding' through the Cambrian newspaper (on microfilm) for 1918-19. Lots of information on Great War issues as they affected Swansea. The overall research is now almost (not quite) complete and I plan to start the writing for 'Swansea in the Great War' in August 2013, with a finish date of 30 November 2013.

Publication should then be autumn 2014. A long, long trail a winding...