David Morgan – Welsh Regiment, 18th Battalion

Private David Morgan – Welsh Regiment, 18^th Battalion

Limited Surviving Information

For some of the men commemorated on the Mumbles War Memorial, very little personal information survives beyond what is recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. This is the case with David Morgan.

Background and Military Service

David was born in Caio, Carmarthenshire, and served as a Private in the 18^th Battalion, Welsh Regiment, part of the 119^th Brigade of the British Army during the First World War.

The 18^th Battalion, Welsh Regiment – December 1916

By late 1916, the major fighting of the Battle of the Somme had ended, but battalions like the 18^th Welsh continued to serve in the Somme sector through the harsh winter of 1916–17. The fighting had settled into a static period of trench warfare, yet conditions remained extremely hazardous. Soldiers faced flooded trenches, freezing temperatures, intermittent artillery fire, trench raids, and sniper activity.

The area around Combles, where David is commemorated, had been heavily contested earlier in the Somme campaign. Although the village was captured by British and French forces in September 1916, the surrounding trenches remained active and dangerous. It was during this period of winter service that Private David Morgan was killed in action on 30^th December 1916.

Guards’ Cemetery, Combles – History and Loss of Graves

David Morgan
Guards’ Cemetery, Combles
credit - findagrave

The site of Guards’ Cemetery, Combles has a complex wartime history. Prior to its capture by Allied forces in September 1916, it formed part of a German military cemetery. Many burials were destroyed or lost due to intense shellfire and shifting front lines. After the battle, British units—including the Guards Division—began burying their fallen in the same area between October 1916 and March 1917, and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission later concentrated additional battlefield graves there. As a result of the devastation, the cemetery contains over 500 unidentified Commonwealth burials, representing soldiers whose original grave markers could not be recovered.

A memorial within the cemetery bears the inscription:

“To the memory of these 30 soldiers of the British Empire who fell in 1916, 1917 and 1918 and were buried in Combles German Cemetery and Priez Farm Cemetery, Combles, and whose graves are lost.”

Death and Commemoration

David Morgan
Guards’ Cemetery, Combles
credit - findagrave

David Morgan is among the soldiers whose original graves were lost, and he is now commemorated at Guards’ Cemetery, Combles, France, rather than at an identified grave. His name stands with those whose burial sites disappeared during the fierce fighting and destruction around Combles, reflecting the cost and chaos of the Somme battlefields.