Until fairly recently I knew nothing about my great grandfather other than that he must have served in the Army, as he is commemorated on Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial. I had passed the war memorial a million times but never spent any time studying it or questioning his name on it. When my mum became very ill a few years ago she asked me to find out more about her grandfather, as he had died before she was born. She told me that his name was held in high regard within the family. I therefore started on my journey finding our more about the life of my great grandfather Richard (Dick) George Read.
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| Dicky Read c.1920s |
My mum’s family were brought up in Llangawsai, I had always assumed that they were Welsh, but it turned out that Richard was born in Hockley in Warwickshire in April 1899. Richard's mother Mary, and his two sisters Violet and Hilda, lived in army barracks as his father was an artillery man, accordingly Richard education was mainly in barrack schools where his father happened to be posted.
Richard's father was in the South Staffordshire Regiment but left to join the Royal Artillery in 1891. He served a total of 12 years, and was called up to serve in the Boer War arriving in April 1900 but sadly he died of dysentery in October 1900 when Richard was just over one year old.
Richard’s mother therefore had to bring up three children on her own, no mean feat without the today's safety net of the NHS and Benefit system. She eventually re-married another artillery man five years later and had three more children with him. When Richard reached the age of 12 he found work at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. He was employed as a 'boy' and it was here that they created the weapons and ammunition for the British Armed Forces. At the start of WWI he left aged 14 to enlist in the Royal Horse Artillery as a 'Bugler', he was posted to the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) serving on the Western Front in France.
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| In Egypt 1920s |
I find it hard to even contemplate the things he must have seen, especially considering that he was still only just a teenager. Richard's role in the Royal Horse Artillery meant that he would have been involved in several campaigns on the Western Front (I need to do more work to find out which!), indeed he was still in France in 1919, all before he was 20 years of age.
Richard went on to spend over thirty years in service, serving in Palestine and Egypt in the 1920's and 30's, reaching his twenty one years’ service as Quartermaster Sergeant.
He then re-enlisted just prior to WWII as a Lieutenant (QM) in the Territorial Army firstly in the 102nd then the 146th Regiment Royal Artillery and was promoted to Captain during this period. He was based mainly in Pembrokeshire and Cardiganshire before he decided to relinquish his Captain’s rank to join the 118th Field Regiment Royal Artillery as Lieutenant again.
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| F Sphinx Royal Horse Artilliary in Gaza, 1923 |
He and his unit were deployed overseas initially expecting to arrive in the Middle East, however the war against Japan in the Far East was not going well and Churchill decided to deploy the 18th Division to Singapore, arriving when the battle was virtually already lost. They landed during air raids in Singapore harbour and many disembarked without the right equipment or training for warfare in the Far East. Within two weeks, on the 15th February 1942, Singapore had surrendered to the invading Japanese. About 80,000 mainly British and Australian (but also Indian and Dutch) troops became prisoners of war. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, called it the "'worst disaster and largest capitulation in British history'".
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| With his Unit, location unknown |
There followed over three and a half years of imprisonment for Richard and his fellow POW's. The Japanese had refused to sign up to the Geneva convention and were notorious in their acts of cruelty to their prisoners. Richard entered weighing 12st, 10lbs but by the time of his release was down to 7st, 10lbs, a reduction of 40%. Many families at home were in the dark for years about the fate of their loved ones. Richard only got his first piece of mail from his family in September 1943. Richard somehow managed to survive and after recuperating for a few months in India, arrived back to a hero’s welcome in Aberystwyth in December 1945. There is a Cambrian News article about his return, and on arrival in Aberystwyth there was a welcoming party including the mayor and other dignitaries. His wife, Marion, misunderstood the arrangements and, having taken the train to meet him in Shrewsbury, missed his homecoming!
Richard George Read is commemorated on Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial. Sadly he never really recovered from his poor treatment as a POW and died of stomach cancer in Chester Military Hospital in September 1946, leaving behind his wife and two daughters in Llangawsai.
Blog by Simon Burges, project contributor
Find out more about his great grandfather on Simon's website: http://www.richardgeorgeread.com/
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