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Home » Articles » First World War diary of Thomas Richard Owen, 1918First World War diary of Thomas Richard Owen, 1918
First World War diary of Thomas Richard Owen, Coedana, Anglesey, May-August 1918.
First World War diary of Thomas Richard Owen, Coedana, Anglesey, May-August 1918.
This is the diary of Private Thomas Richard Owen (1895-1918), Tyddyn Goedyn, Coedana, Anglesey. Tom Owen enlisted in the army in 1916 and was eventually sent to France where he was killed in action on 2 September 1918. This diary, which was written in Welsh, covers a period of four months from May to August 1918, during which Owen experienced heavy fighting.
By the beginning of August, however, the German advance had weakened and the Allies had begun to counter-attack and regain the land they had lost. The diary ends on 6 August when Owen, having recently been recruited to the Harvest Camp, finds himself in the middle of the wheat harvest on French land.
Owen's story did not end there, however. As a result of a German counter-attack, Owen later rejoined his Battalion, the 10th South Wales Borderers. On 21 August they succeeded to cross the river Ancre and marched on towards the Somme through Bazentin le Petit, High Wood, Delville Wood, before arriving at the village of Les Boeufs on 30 August. They continued in the direction of the village of Sailly Saillisel. Many of the men lost their lives and it was here on 2 September 1918 that Tom Owen was killed, aged 23.
A full transcription of the diary and further background information on Tom Owen is provided in Einion Thomas, 'Dyddiadur Cymraeg o'r Rhyfel Mawr', 'Transactions of the Anglesey Antiquarian Society and Field Club' (1987), 87-105.
