Sidney Frank Davies

Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

The second military burial at Bethel Welsh Congregational Chapelyard in 1944 was that of Sergeant Sidney Frank Davies.

Family Background

Sidney was the youngest son of William Davies and Mabel Elizabeth Churchill, and the husband of Enid Davies (née Thomas).

1901 Census

William Davies, originally from Carmarthen, had first married Maria Richards in 1898 at St. Margaret’s, Roath, Cardiff. The 1901 Census records Carmarthen-born William Davies living at 40 Morris Street, Newport. Then aged 28, he was employed as a grocer’s manager. With him were his first wife, Maria (30), and their young son, William Claud, aged 3. Maria died in 1905, aged 30.

William Davies and Maria Richards
Marriage certificate
St. Margaret, Roath, Cardiff

In 1906, William remarried, this time to Mabel Elizabeth Churchill at Llanelly. Mabel, born in Glastonbury, was the daughter of James Churchill, a retired blacksmith, and had worked as a Post Office clerk before her marriage.

1911 Census

By the 1911 Census, William and Mabel were living at 135 Rhondda Street, Swansea, with Claud, then 13, and two young children of their own: James Eric (4) and Esther (under 2).

1921 Census

Ten years later, the 1921 Census shows the family still at the same address. William, 48, was employed as a grocer’s manager for Home Colonial Stores Ltd., while Mabel managed the home. The children then included Claud, 23, working as a clerk with the Swansea Corporation Water Department; James Eric, 13; Esther, 11; and the youngest, Sidney Frank, aged 6.

Marriage and Early Life

1939 Register

In the summer of 1939, Sidney married Enid Thomas. The newlyweds set up home in Yeovil, Somerset, at 9 Elmhurst Avenue, where Sidney was employed as a light leather technician.

Military Service

With the outbreak of war, Sidney joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, training as a navigator. By 1944, he was based at RAF Wratting Common, Cambridgeshire, an airfield built in 1942 and active between 1943 and 1945.

RAF Wratting Common was home to several squadrons, including 1651 Heavy Conversion Unit, where crews trained on heavy bombers. Losses from the station during the war were heavy, with 43 aircraft lost, 34 of them Stirling bombers.

Death and Burial

RAF Wratting Common
Cambridgeshire

 Stirling III 

On 30^th September 1944, Sidney was serving as navigator aboard a Stirling III (LK501) when tragedy struck. Soon after take-off from RAF Wratting Common, the aircraft developed an engine fire and crashed at Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, about 9 miles east of Duxford. Of the crew, only one man survived. Sergeant Sidney Frank Davies, who was killed, was a navigator, was aged just 29 years

Those who perished alongside Sidney included Pilot Officer Leslie Hendrik Biesiot, Flight Engineer Alec Sidney Titchener, Wireless Operator Gilbert Crozier, Air Gunner Jack Dare, and Sergeant Harry Stephenson, who were buried in cemeteries across Britain.

Sidney Frank & James Eric Davies
Bethel Welsh Congregational Chapelyard
credit - findagrave

Sidney’s body was returned home to Swansea. His funeral took place at Bethel, where he was laid to rest with full honours.

A Brother’s Sacrifice

James Eric Davies
Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial
credit - findagrave

Sidney was not the only son of the family to be lost during the war. His elder brother, James Eric Davies, who served with the Royal Artillery, had been killed in action on 30^th October 1942, two years earlier. James, who had married Dorothy Silvey in 1934, is commemorated on the Brookwood 1939–1945 Memorial, as his body was never recovered.

Legacy

The double sacrifice borne by the Davies family — losing both Sidney and James Eric within two years — reflects the heavy toll of the war on Swansea families. Sidney’s grave at Bethel, alongside the memory of his brother’s name on the Brookwood Memorial, stands as a poignant reminder of two young men whose futures were lost to the skies and battlefields of the Second World War.