Reginald Davis, Private 14308 South Wales Borders. Killed in action Sunday 30th July 1916. AGE: 20
Reginald was born in Mathern, the son of Robert Davis. Army records show that he enlisted in Newport and lived in Chepstow (but this may mean he still lived in Mathern). He was in the 5th Battalion of the South Wales Borderers, which was being used as a “pioneer” battalion i.e. to follow up the front line troops and consolidate the occupation of ground gained. They would dig trenches, lay telephone cables, and do general laboring, but never far from the front line.
Reginald first served in France on 17 July 1915. The first Battle of the Somme began as a British offensive on 24th June 1916 but very little progress had been made by the end of July. On the day he was killed, a Sunday, an enemy trench in the Intermediate Line at High Wood had just been captured and he was engaged in consolidation work, or possibly mopping up the enemy. During all this time Reginald and his comrades were subjected to constant and accurate shellfire and his body was never identified.
General Haig abandoned the offensive on 18th November. Less than five miles of land had been gained, along a 30 mile front, at the cost of more than a million men killed and injured. Reginald’s name is on Face 4A of the Thiepval Memorial as one of the 73,412 British troops who died in the area during 1916. He would have been awarded the 1915 Trio.
Gareth Jones Jan 2000
The Thiepval Memorial is on the site of the Chateau which was destroyed in the fighting