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| Private Fred Davies |
A World War One soldier's account of sharing "cigs, jam, and corn beef" with Germans during the Christmas truce has been revealed in a collection of letters. Frederick James Davies, of Lampeter, Ceredigion, described meeting enemy soldiers across No-Man's-Land on 25 December 1914.
The details were in a letter written to his mother from the front line. He said they had a "good chat with the Germans on Xmas day." Soldiers serving in northern France left their trenches along some parts of the Western Front on the first Christmas Day of the conflict to meet the enemy and exchange gifts.
A private in the 2nd Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers, Davies described the brief armistice in correspondence among the collection found by his granddaughter, Jane Oliver.
"They (the German soldiers) were only 50 yards (45m) away from us in the trenches. They came out and we went to meet them," he wrote.
"We shook hands with them. We gave them cigs, jam, and corn beef."
"They also gave us cigars but they didn't have much food. I think they are hard up for it. They were fed up with the war."
In the same letter, he described how they had come out of trenches for a few days of rest, commenting that it was nice to sleep away from the wet, although they were still sleeping in their clothes.
"I am happy through it all. It's no use being otherwise," he said.
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| Fred Davies, Veteran |
Private Davies, who was born in 1886 and joined the army in 1908, also sent home pressed flowers to his mother. He left the army in 1915 after a trench caved in on him, shattering his spine and leaving him unable to work properly. He married in 1919 and had three children. His youngest daughter, Audrey Trenchard, now 86, said he never spoke about his war experiences before his death, aged 61, and "it was so interesting" to read the letters.
Source: BBC
Adrian Roberts
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't look less than 61 in this photo! Younger than many of us! People had hard lives in those days.
ReplyDelete