Cardiganshire politics and the Second World War

 In 1921, the long-serving Liberal MP, Matthew Vaughan-Davies, was raised to the peerage as Baron Ystwyth, of Tan-y-Bwlch in the County of Cardigan. His elevation was a cynical move by the ‘Welsh Wizard’ David Lloyd George to bolster his support in Westminster when his leadership of the coalition government was reliant on the support of the Conservatives in the House of Commons. As a Welsh seat, Cardiganshire was widely seen as Lloyd George’s backyard and guaranteed to return an MP supportive of the Coalition. That calculation, however, failed to take account of the split in the Liberal Party since Lloyd George’s coup against former prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith in 1916. As part of the ongoing rivalry with his successor, Asquith, at the head of the Liberals on the opposition benches, decided to contest the seat. 

In the resultant by-election, the Coalition Liberals put up barrister and Lloyd George’s former private secretary, Ernest Evans. After service in the Great War, in which he had been a captain in the Royal Army Service Corps (1915-18), he returned to his native Aberystwyth to fight a bitter election battle. The Tories agreed to support him and there did not seem to be any other potential competition. That was, until the Asquithian Liberals, which included the Cardiganshire Liberal Association, selected William Llewelyn Williams, another barrister who had made a name for himself as a journalist, a former MP for Carmarthen Boroughs, and, more importantly, a bitter enemy of Lloyd George. Kenneth Morgan described it as ‘a bitter civil war’, with ‘violent conflict over the personality and reputation of Lloyd George himself.’*  It tore through the county with Methodists and coastal communities (including Aberystwyth) generally favouring Evans and Baptists, Unitarians, farmers, and inland towns tending to back Williams. In the end, Evans was elected with a majority of 3,000 votes but the scars ran deep and, with rival Liberal clubs being founded in Aberystwyth, they fought it out in the ensuing general elections in 1922 and 1923. This internecine electoral warfare did for the Liberal Party in many of its Welsh strongholds and, by the time they decided to settle their differences in 1923, found that they had lost South Wales to the Labour Party.

Evans lost the seat in the 1923 General Election to the Independent Liberal, and former Asquithian, Rhys Hopkin Morris. Another barrister, Morris had benefitted from the Tories deciding to contest the seat and so deprive Evans of many of his previous voters. With the Liberal leaders recognising that their infighting had left them increasingly less likely to form a government again, Morris took the Liberal whip and was one of their few success, admittedly unopposed, in the 1924 General Election. At the same time, Evans won the University of Wales constituency, one of the non-territorial constituencies elected by graduates, which led to his deep involvement with both the University in Aberystwyth and the National Library of Wales. Consistently electing Liberals, the University proved a safe seat for Evans until he stepped down to become a county court judge in 1942.  

In 1931, when the second Labour government broke apart over cuts to unemployment benefits, the Liberals agreed to join the ‘Government of National Unity’ with the Tories under Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald. This ostensibly temporary alliance was to see through the immediate crisis of the Great Depression. Lloyd George, who was still Liberal leader, did not agree but he was ill and so was not consulted. Sir Herbert Samuel, then deputy leader, and Lord Reading, their leader in the House of Lords, took up positions in this new ‘National Government’ with the support of all but four Liberal MPs. These four, all related to Lloyd George and representing north Wales constituencies, remained in opposition to be joined by the old man when he returned from illness. Their opposition was, officially, because the new government, dominated by Tories, would end Britain’s free trading policy and adopt tariffs on imports. In truth, it had more than a little to do with Lloyd George not being offered a place in the Cabinet. Morris, who disliked Lloyd George, followed Samuel tentatively and, for the first time, faced a Labour candidate at the 1931 General Election. 

The Liberals had agreed with the Cabinet to stand on a separate manifesto to the Tories and National Labour, which enabled them to still campaign for free trade, but the election proved a disaster. The party had been splintering since 1929 into the official party and the right-leaning ‘National Liberals’, led by Sir John Simon. With the official party reduced to a rump, Simon led his followers into joining the coalition, which left Samuel and his allies heavily outnumbered. Morris, increasingly uncomfortable at the ideological sacrifices they were making to remain in government, stood down in 1932 to become a Metropolitan Police magistrate. In 1945, he managed to buck the trend by beating Labour to win Carmarthen at that year’s general election. 

Meanwhile, in the Cardiganshire by-election, the local Liberal association selected yet another local barrister, David Owen Evans, the son of a tenant farmer. Evans did not support the National Government, so the Tories asked for a free run at the seat. Fearful of a bruising contest, the Liberal leaders had Evans publicly commit to supporting the government but to no avail and he had to face both Conservative and Labour candidates. Predictably though, Evans was elected with relative ease. His reservations about supporting the National Government gave him little cause for anxiety in the end when the Liberals in Cabinet resigned. Already marginalised, the death of Sir Donald Maclean and the failure of MacDonald to appoint another Liberal had led to an ongoing argument. Then, when the Government convened the British Empire Economic Conference in Ottawa to agree on an imperial response to the Great Depression, their patience snapped. When the Government agreed to implement ‘imperial preference’, whereby tariffs would be imposed on goods from outside the Empire, Samuel led the few Liberals left in government to cross the floor. 

Following his leaders, Owen Evans dutifully, and more comfortably, adjusted to opposition. It was here that the Liberals would reunite with Lloyd George and be mauled at the 1935 General Election. When Samuel lost his seat as a result, they selected the Lloyd George-backed Sir Archibald Sinclair as his replacement. Evans was not a particularly distinguished parliamentarian, but he was well respected in the Commons. His interventions included topics such as unemployment, agriculture, and army morale. In the debates around the Munich Agreement of 1938, which seemed initially to be wildly popular with the public, he supported Sinclair in voting against it and in other moves that saw the Liberal Party become one of the most consistent opponents of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler’s Germany. In the 1945 Dissolution Honours List, he had been awarded a knighthood but, before he could receive it, he died suddenly whilst going to see a doctor in London about heart trouble.

As the honour had been awarded to mark the dissolution of Parliament before the 1945 General Election, the Cardiganshire Liberal Association, as had become a bit of a tradition, selected another local barrister. Evan Roderic Bowen, a local grammar schoolboy, Aberystwyth graduate, and an army captain in the Second World War, swept to victory over his Labour opponent. In 1950, he was returned with the largest Liberal majority in the country, and, when Montgomeryshire MP Clement Davies stepped down as Liberal leader due to alcoholism-related health problems, Bowen was seen as a potential successor. In the event, Jo Grimond beat him, and he went on to eventually lose the seat to Labour in the 1966 General Election.  

K.O. Morgan, Rebirth of a Nation: Wales 1880-1980, Oxford, 1981, p.190

Blog by Ewan Lawry

 

 

The Anniversary of the Fall of Singapore 15th February 1942

During World War II, Singapore was known as the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, one of the most important fortified military outposts in the Empire. The Japanese knew though that it was under-prepared for any potential conflict, with Britain seeing Europe and North Africa as the more important theatres.

On the same day as the bombing in Pearl Harbour, the Japanese had started their invasion of the Malayan peninsular, threatening Singapore. The 118th Field Regiment Royal Artillery, part of the newly formed 18th Division, departed the UK late in 1941 bound for the War in the Middle East. However during their journey Churchill decided to send them to the Far East, the war was not going well there at his point, and Churchill had decided to send additional troops to bolster the defences and hold off any invading forces.

As with the rest of the 18th Division, the 118th were not prepared, trained nor did they have the correct equipment for war in the Far East, nevertheless they landed on 29th January 1942 during Japanese bombing raids of the harbour and , little did they know at the time, just days before the British Surrender on the 15th February 1942.  My Great Grandfather Lt R G Read (QM) was in the 118th Field Regiment Royal Artillery who were sent to train in India prior to posting to Singapore. Two weeks of ‘intensive training’ was all the preparation that they had for War in the Far East.

 

Royal Artillery on Elephants in India

My Great Grandfather arrived in Singapore on the USS Westpoint disembarking with the rest of the 118th Field Regiment RA on 29th January at Keppel Harbour. He kept a diary and he somehow managed to continue to keep these diaries during his imprisonment too. During those days before the surrender, the Japanese carried out intensive bombing missions on the  troops as they disembarked and unloaded their equipment. Here my Great Grandfather writes of the relentless bombing by the Japanese, including the sinking of a troop ship by Japanese dive bombers and the resulting rescue:

5th Feb 1942
'Empress of Asia bombed. 6 miles out. Dealt with about 600 survivors as rescued. 'Q' 125 badly injured looks as though he will loose his sight. Later! he has.'
Diary entry dated 6th Feb 1942
‘We loose 5 at docks whilst unloading by 27 bombers, no resistance from RAF’
Diary entry 14th February 1942
‘Casualties amount to 20 odd dead+many wounded, Capt Martin 259 killed’

 

Here is my Great Grandfather in Singapore, just after his arrival in January 1942.

As my Great Grandfather was the Regimental Quartermaster, he had access to communications received by the Regimental HQ.  Below is a Telegram written by General Wavell (Commander in Chief at the time),  and his last order before the surrender sent on the 10th February 1942, just days before the surrender on the 15th Feb, containing the instruction:  'Commanders and Senior Officers must lead their troops and, if necessary, die with them. There must be no thought of surrender and every unit must fight it out to the end and in close contact with the enemy.'

Telegram from General Wavell, Commander in Chief, Southern Pacific, dated 10th February 1942

As the Japanese invasion reached the final stages, communications were sent offering terms for the surrender of the Garrison.  This telegram presenting an ‘Admonition of Peace’ inviting the Allied forces to an ‘honourable’ surrender. It also attempts to give assurances as to how well that they will treat them upon their surrender:  ‘Upon my word we won’t kill you, treat you as officers and soldiers if you come to us, But if you resist against us we will give swords.’

 

Telegram from the ‘Nippon Army’ inviting the surrender of the allied troops in Singapore, dated 13th February 1942

On the 15th February 1942, the British and Commonwealth troops finally surrendered to the invading Japanese troops. The Japanese Commander, Lieutenant-General Yamashita had successfully led his 30,000 troops to overcome the 85,000 defending allied troops on Singapore. To this day, it was the largest surrender of British led forces in history. Winston Churchill called it ‘the worst disaster’ in British Military History.

Transcript of the Invitation of surrender of Allied Forces, on the 15th February 1942 at 5.30pm, written by Lieut-General Tomoyuki Yamashita, ‘High Commander of Nippon Army’

Here is the diary entry from the date of the Surrender to the Japanese on the 15th February 1942:
‘The Surrender of Singapore to Japan. “B” Echelon to report to RHQ at Thompson Road.’

 

Diary entry by Lt. R G  Read dated 15th February 1942

Telegram written by Lieut-General A. E. Percival (General Officer Commanding (GOC) Malaya) , explaining the reasons for surrender to Japanese Forces:  ‘The essential of War have run short, In a few days we shall have neither Petrol nor Food. Many types of ammunition are short, and the water supply, on which the vast civilian population and many of the fighting troops are dependent, threatens to fail.’

 

Telegram written by Lt. Gen. Percival

And so started three and a half years as a prisoner of war for my Great Grandfather along with 140,000 Commonwealth troops. The Japanese had refused to sign up to the Geneva convention and many of the camp guards were notorious for their acts of cruelty to their prisoners. The Japanese used the prisoners as slave labour, either on the infamous ‘Death Railway’ built by the POWs between Burma and Thailand or in Japan or their invaded territories.

My Great Grandfather was fortunate to survive the ordeal and was shipped back after the Japanese surrendered in August 1945. Upon his return to the UK in late November 1945, he caught the train home to Aberystwyth. I have an original Cambrian News Article dated 7th December 1945 containing an article about my Great Grandfathers return and his time as a POW. He was given a heroes welcome by the town and dignitaries.

He had never really recovered from his ordeal as a Prisoner though, and in August 1946, he was rushed to Chester Military Hospital again,  suffering from what was later found out to be stomach cancer. He died there on the 26th September 1946 and is commemorated on Llanbadarn Fawr War Memorial.

Blog by Simon Burgess

Author's website: www.richardgeorgeread.com/

When you came home on leave, you couldn't get a girl . . .

In recent times the old Queens Hotel on the promenade is best known as having been the police station in the crime series ‘Hinterland’ Prior to that it housed local government offices since the hotel closed in the late 1940s. Perhaps the most interesting chapter  in the building's  history opened when No.6 Initial Training Wing of the RAF was established there on 1 August 1940 until being disbanded on 10 May 1944. RAF recruits in their smart grey uniforms were billeted throughout the town.  The late Des Davies served in the Merchant Navy during the war and commented wryly that “When you came home on leave you couldn’t get a girl ‘cos the RAF had them all.”

Prospective pilots, navigators and other flight crew would study mathematics, navigation, airframes, engines, principals of flight and, of course, square bashing. After eight weeks, if successful, they would be sent to Elementary Training Flying School, usually after having a group photo taken in front of the Town Hall. 

Group of graduates of ITW No 6 photographed outside the old Town Hall, ca.1943

An interesting vestige of their stay came to light on 12 April 2007. Helpfully, though sometimes annoyingly, my first digital camera printed the date on every photo. On that day I received a call from the Belle Vue Hotel to invite me down as something of interest had been discovered. Stripping wallpaper in one of the bedrooms had revealed graffiti left by one or more of these prospective pilots.

How to navigate by the stars

The graffiti in question includes a map of part of the night sky centred on the Southern Cross, a table of aeroplane wing lengths, some sketches and intriguingly one name ‘Hallam’ and his service number 1803458. All that can be added about Hallam is that he does not appear on the Commonwealth War Graves website, suggesting he survived the war.  The same can be said for another name that appears, S Daller. Sadly the recent fire affecting the Belle Vue will have destroyed the graffiti  but below are a few  record photos. The management inform me that should Hallam 1803458 come forward he will not be charged for re-decoration of his room.

Table of aeroplane wingspans compiled by 'Hallam,1803458'

Sketch believed to be a Douglas Boston, an American twin-engined bomber flown by the RAF during WWII (aircraft id information supplied by Hugh Morgan)

Pilot Officer Prune

Hugh Morgan, of the West Wales Veterans' Archive, supplied some additional information about 'Pilot Officer Prune.' He was a fictional character used in the RAF’s operational training manual teaching airman how not to undertake a task – using humour as a teaching aid. So PO Prune was essentially someone to poke fun at and very commonly used during the War and even today in RAF related discussion groups.

Blog by William Troughton.