Phillip Rees – Devonshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion

Private Phillip Rees – Devonshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion

Phillip Rees served as a Private with the Devonshire Regiment, 2nd Battalion, one of the Regular Army battalions that took part in the opening assault of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 1916. Although only limited information survives regarding Phillip’s early life and family background, the record of his military service places him among the men who faced one of the most devastating actions in British military history.

The 2nd Devons, recalled from Egypt at the outbreak of the war, had served continuously on the Western Front from 1914 onward. By the summer of 1916, they were positioned opposite the fortified German positions near Ovillers‑la‑Boisselle, preparing for their role in the great Somme offensive. At 7.30 a.m. on 1 July, the battalion advanced across the exposed ground of Mash Valley, immediately encountering intense machine‑gun fire from the German lines. Entire companies were cut down within minutes, and the battalion suffered catastrophic losses in the opening phase of the attack.

Among those killed that morning was Private Phillip Rees. Unlike many of his comrades who have no known grave, Phillip was recovered and laid to rest at Ovillers Military Cemetery, Somme, France — a burial ground created after the fighting in the area subsided and the battlefield dead were brought in from the surrounding fields and trenches. His grave stands as a quiet testament to his service and sacrifice.

Though the details of Phillip Rees’s life remain scarce, his name endures in the solemn rows of Ovillers Military Cemetery and in the history of the 2nd Devons, whose courage and suffering on that first day of the Somme have become emblematic of the cost of the Great War.