Rees John Rees – Welsh Regiment, 6th Battalion

Private Rees John Rees – Welsh Regiment, 6^th Battalion

Background

Another soldier commemorated on the Mumbles War Memorial, about whom only limited information survives, is Private Rees John Rees.

He was born in Llangyfelach. Prior to the First World War, he resided in Clydach and enlisted at Swansea.

Military Service

Private Rees John Rees served with the 6^th Battalion, The Welsh Regiment, which was engaged on the Western Front during some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

6^th Battalion, The Welsh Regiment – December 1916

By December 1916, the 6th Battalion, The Welsh Regiment was serving as part of 1st Brigade, 1st Division, one of the British Army’s most experienced formations. Following the end of the main Somme offensive in November, the battalion was holding positions in the Bazentin–Longueval sector, an area that had suffered intense fighting during the summer and autumn of 1916.

Although large-scale attacks had ceased, conditions at the front remained extremely dangerous. Daily life in the trenches was marked by frequent artillery shelling, trench mortar fire, sniper activity, and machine-gun fire. Working parties repairing trenches and barbed wire, as well as routine patrols and sentry duties, were regularly exposed to enemy fire.

Winter conditions added to the hardship. Trenches were often waterlogged, muddy, and cold, with freezing temperatures contributing to exhaustion and illness. Casualties continued to occur on a daily basis, even during periods described as relatively quiet.

Death and Burial

Private Rees John Rees died on 27^th December 1916, most likely as a result of enemy shelling or routine front-line duties during this period of trench warfare.

Rees John Rees
Bazentin-le-Petit Military Cemetery, France
credit - findagrave

He is buried at Bazentin-le-Petit Military Cemetery, France, a cemetery that contains the graves of many soldiers who fell in the Somme sector during both the offensive and the months that followed.