0:00:10 > 0:00:13The generation of Welshmen who fought in the First World War
0:00:13 > 0:00:14is now long gone.
0:00:15 > 0:00:18The old soldiers have all passed away.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22What survives is their first-hand testimony,
0:00:22 > 0:00:25recorded in interviews filmed over the last decades
0:00:25 > 0:00:28of the 20th century.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32We thought that the enemy was going to come over to England
0:00:32 > 0:00:37and burst in and slaughter your mother, your children, the lot.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42The brutality of war touched lives,
0:00:42 > 0:00:45not just on the battlefield but at home, too.
0:00:48 > 0:00:51Sometimes I'd feel, "I'm doing something that's going to
0:00:51 > 0:00:54"kill someone or maim someone,"
0:00:54 > 0:00:57but you had to forget that sort of thing, you know.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02This is the story of the Great War,
0:01:02 > 0:01:06in the words of the Welsh men and women who lived through it.
0:01:06 > 0:01:12For the first time, I realised that probably I may go...die
0:01:12 > 0:01:19and I'd never experienced anything like it before and I was terrified.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37By 1916 - the midpoint of the war -
0:01:37 > 0:01:40the naive optimism of its early years was a distant memory.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46That year's Somme Offensive had seen hundreds of Welsh soldiers killed
0:01:46 > 0:01:49in battles like that at Mametz Wood.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54On the ground, the conflict had become
0:01:54 > 0:01:57a long, bloody process of attrition.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01But the war wasn't just being fought in the trenches.
0:02:01 > 0:02:05Both sides were taking advantage of a new invention - the aeroplane -
0:02:05 > 0:02:07to take the fight into the skies.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12The average life expectancy for a new British pilot on the front
0:02:12 > 0:02:14was 11 days.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19I said goodbye to everybody
0:02:19 > 0:02:22and I naturally thought I was going to be killed,
0:02:22 > 0:02:23obviously.
0:02:23 > 0:02:26Oh, yes, I gave my life to the Army,
0:02:26 > 0:02:28to the Air Force,
0:02:28 > 0:02:32to the Force, rather, and I expected to be killed.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39Within weeks of joining up,
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Hubert Williams was flying bombing raids over enemy lines.
0:02:47 > 0:02:50The place, of course, was full of smoke and foul air
0:02:50 > 0:02:52and all the rest of it, you know,
0:02:52 > 0:02:56and you had pieces of shrapnel going through your aircraft.
0:02:58 > 0:03:01We were in an engagement
0:03:01 > 0:03:06and the shell burst with an awful lot of black smoke and I dived in,
0:03:06 > 0:03:09doing about 140mph,
0:03:09 > 0:03:13and I came up and I saw these four Taubes in front of me
0:03:13 > 0:03:16and, of course, I just let go to them, the four of them,
0:03:16 > 0:03:20and they just disappeared, one after the other.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22I didn't know whether I'd killed them or what happened.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24They just disappeared.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29During the war, you're not a human being.
0:03:29 > 0:03:31Don't forget that.
0:03:31 > 0:03:33It's difficult to explain it.
0:03:33 > 0:03:38You are a war machine and you become a war machine
0:03:38 > 0:03:42and you do not think about home or anything like that whatsoever.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48Behind me was a German.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51They were coming on again, a second lot.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53Of course, he fired at me and blew the tail
0:03:53 > 0:03:55and, of course, I had no control.
0:03:55 > 0:04:00I knew I was going down so I switched the engines off.
0:04:00 > 0:04:04I can remember going down and, all of a sudden, bang.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09Hubert was dragged unconscious from the wreckage of his plane
0:04:09 > 0:04:12by civilians from a nearby village.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15He spent the best part of a year recovering in hospital.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21Aeroplanes were just one of the new technologies employed in what was
0:04:21 > 0:04:25the first large-scale war fought between industrialised nations.
0:04:28 > 0:04:32On the ground, soldiers faced the threat of chemical weapons.
0:04:35 > 0:04:39I can remember as well as can be, we were on sentry,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42sentry in the trenches,
0:04:42 > 0:04:47and we saw this...like a garden fire, almost,
0:04:47 > 0:04:52a bit of smoke coming up from something green put on them.
0:04:54 > 0:04:59It got into your lungs and your nose and your eyes and into your lungs.
0:04:59 > 0:05:06There were two sorts of gas - that lethal stuff that strangled you
0:05:06 > 0:05:11and the mustard gas, which blinded you.
0:05:11 > 0:05:12Our eyes were sort of burning.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16We thought it was the smoke from the brazier.
0:05:16 > 0:05:18And the natural thing to do if your eyes were burning
0:05:18 > 0:05:22when you're waking up is to give them a rub.
0:05:22 > 0:05:28But we didn't know, obviously, that the gas, heavier than air,
0:05:28 > 0:05:30had percolated down into the cellar.
0:05:31 > 0:05:34Of course, when we got up, up into the open air,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38we found that our eyes were burning...
0:05:38 > 0:05:41and eventually blindness crept in.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45Burning crept in
0:05:45 > 0:05:48in parts of our body that were exposed to the gas.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54One of the things I saw was...
0:05:59 > 0:06:02..men fall...
0:06:06 > 0:06:09..unable to go any further.
0:06:12 > 0:06:13Unable to breathe.
0:06:20 > 0:06:21And...
0:06:23 > 0:06:28..big, braw men...
0:06:29 > 0:06:32..asking in so much pain
0:06:32 > 0:06:38that they begged passing soldiers to shoot them,
0:06:38 > 0:06:39to put them out of their misery.
0:06:41 > 0:06:42I saw it.
0:06:45 > 0:06:50I was shipped off across the Channel
0:06:50 > 0:06:55and I found myself eventually up in St Luke's Hospital in Bradford,
0:06:55 > 0:07:00totally blind, lung infection and blistered.
0:07:01 > 0:07:08But eventually, after about four and a half months, I recovered my sight.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25Those soldiers sent home from the war included not just men
0:07:25 > 0:07:27suffering physical wounds,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30but those who'd experienced psychological breakdown in
0:07:30 > 0:07:33the face of relentless bombardment.
0:07:33 > 0:07:36Among them, Rupert Rees's uncle.
0:07:36 > 0:07:37They all look out,
0:07:37 > 0:07:40a shell burst right near him
0:07:40 > 0:07:43and he was shell-shocked.
0:07:43 > 0:07:46And he was transferred to Bridgend.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52When my mother heard the news, she was very upset.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54She had to go to see him
0:07:54 > 0:07:59and, when we got there, we went in this big yard
0:07:59 > 0:08:06to see all these men walking about with their eyes open
0:08:06 > 0:08:08but they couldn't see anything at all.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10They weren't living in this world.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Coming back...
0:08:15 > 0:08:17..from the hospital,
0:08:17 > 0:08:22I can remember my mother catching hold of my hand tightly,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26as much to say, "You're not going,"
0:08:26 > 0:08:29crushing my hand, going back to the train.
0:08:30 > 0:08:33I can remember it so, so very well.
0:08:34 > 0:08:38Jack Jones, later a successful novelist,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42was also sent home, suffering from shrapnel wounds and mental trauma.
0:08:42 > 0:08:47I was so ill with the strain of 13 weeks' continuous fighting
0:08:47 > 0:08:48I was sent home
0:08:48 > 0:08:53to a hospital in Brighton. And then,
0:08:53 > 0:08:55having got home,
0:08:55 > 0:09:01I decided that I would do everything possible to stay home,
0:09:01 > 0:09:03to look after my family
0:09:03 > 0:09:07and leave King and country to look after themselves.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09When my wife and children met me on the platform
0:09:09 > 0:09:10and my wife tearfully said,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13"Oh, thank God. Will you have to go again?"
0:09:13 > 0:09:17And I said, "Not if I can bloody well help it, my dear."
0:09:17 > 0:09:22I was posted to a recruiting station as a propagandist
0:09:22 > 0:09:24because it was volunteers then.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27"Come on, join up," with Kitchener on the board saying,
0:09:27 > 0:09:32"Your King and country needs you," on the hoardings.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35And I was posted to a recruiting station in Merthyr.
0:09:37 > 0:09:40And I was put to speak at meetings and, believe me,
0:09:40 > 0:09:44I spoke like a man inspired.
0:09:44 > 0:09:49Spoke trying to get others to go to the war
0:09:49 > 0:09:51so as not to go myself.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59By 1916, voluntary recruitment could no longer provide
0:09:59 > 0:10:03the huge numbers of men the war effort demanded.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05That January, conscription had been introduced
0:10:05 > 0:10:09for men between the ages of 18 and 41.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12But a small number refused to serve.
0:10:12 > 0:10:16Many were driven by the religious conviction that killing was immoral.
0:10:18 > 0:10:20There was one man in particular who afterwards
0:10:20 > 0:10:25became my brother-in-law, Ithel Davies,
0:10:25 > 0:10:28who was imprisoned in Kinmel Bay
0:10:28 > 0:10:30because of his refusal
0:10:30 > 0:10:32to take part in war.
0:10:32 > 0:10:36He could have been excused on national service grounds
0:10:36 > 0:10:39because he was the son of a farmer
0:10:39 > 0:10:43and could have been exempted, but he wouldn't stand on those grounds
0:10:43 > 0:10:49so he was put in jail in Kinmel Park,
0:10:49 > 0:10:55and actually had his nose broken by an officer who knocked him down
0:10:55 > 0:10:57and he fell into a trench.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01Of course, he was one of our great heroes at the time.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04My father used to go and see him and try and get him released
0:11:04 > 0:11:08but he was there all the time that the war was on.
0:11:14 > 0:11:18Some conscientious objectors were spared prison,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21but they couldn't escape the resentment and anger of the public.
0:11:25 > 0:11:31This man who lived in Station Street in Aberdare, owned a repair shop,
0:11:31 > 0:11:33he had a son and a daughter.
0:11:35 > 0:11:40Nearby was the old fire station and across the side of the road,
0:11:40 > 0:11:43on the other side of the road, was the police station.
0:11:43 > 0:11:44And a whole crowd,
0:11:44 > 0:11:50knowing now that this man was a conscientious objector,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53marched down Station Street
0:11:53 > 0:11:56to get him out of the house
0:11:56 > 0:11:58and murder him.
0:11:58 > 0:12:01That was the idea. They'd have killed him if they'd got hold of him.
0:12:01 > 0:12:03That was the feeling about it all.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07The police did nothing about it.
0:12:10 > 0:12:14Many young Welshmen who didn't object on conscientious grounds were
0:12:14 > 0:12:16nonetheless reluctant to go to war.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24I was hoping and hoping that the war
0:12:24 > 0:12:27would be finished before I was called up.
0:12:30 > 0:12:36You may call me a bit of a coward but I didn't want to join the Army
0:12:36 > 0:12:38because I knew,
0:12:38 > 0:12:40I could see by the casualty lists,
0:12:40 > 0:12:42that so many had died.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Nonetheless, Percy Williams volunteered
0:12:47 > 0:12:49in the belief that, as a volunteer,
0:12:49 > 0:12:52he'd have to serve for less time than conscripted soldiers.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54He was at the front in France
0:12:54 > 0:12:58when his battalion came under attack from a German artillery barrage.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Nearly sick with fright.
0:13:07 > 0:13:11And then we just had to wait until this started.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14For hours, all hell let loose.
0:13:24 > 0:13:31Shells were falling and there was a gas attack before and we had to...
0:13:31 > 0:13:34Of course, we had to put on our gas masks
0:13:34 > 0:13:40and the gas mask got covered with a film and you couldn't see, and then
0:13:40 > 0:13:46I was faint-hearted and sick and I felt sick
0:13:46 > 0:13:49and I had to spew up my...
0:13:50 > 0:13:55And I know that I was absolutely terrified for hours.
0:14:06 > 0:14:14He says, "The Germans have broken through." Because there was a tank.
0:14:14 > 0:14:18He said, "I've seen the tanks," and he said, "We are surrounded."
0:14:21 > 0:14:28This German came, with his fixed bayonet,
0:14:28 > 0:14:30and I thought he was going to kill me.
0:14:30 > 0:14:36He came to me and he shouted at me, "Halt! Halt! Halt!"
0:14:36 > 0:14:38And I was petrified.
0:14:40 > 0:14:44They captured thousands, thousands,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47and I'd never fired a shot there.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51Percy was taken captive
0:14:51 > 0:14:54and would see out the remainder of the war behind enemy lines.
0:14:56 > 0:15:01Over 170,000 British soldiers were taken prisoner during the conflict.
0:15:05 > 0:15:09As the war continued to deprive Wales of a generation of young men,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12the jobs they left behind were increasingly done by women.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17I was a Land Girl in the First World War.
0:15:17 > 0:15:24I was at the Green Farm right opposite my home.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28Five o'clock in the morning, we had to get up.
0:15:28 > 0:15:33We had to milk 100 cows and then we had to muck out the cow sheds.
0:15:33 > 0:15:38Then you went home to breakfast - half an hour - then back again.
0:15:42 > 0:15:47When I was a Land Girl, I began to feel, oh, I had a pound a week,
0:15:47 > 0:15:49I was independent of anybody.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54Nobody bossing me what time to get up, what fire to light,
0:15:54 > 0:15:56what coal to put on fire,
0:15:56 > 0:16:00running beck and call for the cook.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03None of that. I was my own boss nearly.
0:16:03 > 0:16:07You know, I was told what to do - go pick stones in the field or cut
0:16:07 > 0:16:13the hay or plough the field - and I was out there as happy as a lark.
0:16:15 > 0:16:16I loved it.
0:16:20 > 0:16:21As Minister of Munitions,
0:16:21 > 0:16:25the politician they called the Welsh Wizard, David Lloyd George,
0:16:25 > 0:16:29had harnessed the industrial might of the country.
0:16:29 > 0:16:33Thousands of women served the war effort in the munitions works.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Pembrey was a munitions factory, making cordite.
0:16:42 > 0:16:47Cordite is used as an explosive for rifles
0:16:47 > 0:16:49or any firing of guns.
0:16:51 > 0:16:55Sometimes I'd feel I'm doing something that's going to kill
0:16:55 > 0:16:57someone or maim someone,
0:16:57 > 0:17:02but you had to forget that sort of thing, you know,
0:17:02 > 0:17:05when you were working there, and you just put it out of your mind.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15Women on the home front looked forward to the occasions
0:17:15 > 0:17:18when their loved ones returned home on leave.
0:17:18 > 0:17:21But bidding farewell to them again could prove painful,
0:17:21 > 0:17:24as the sister of the poet Ellis Evans,
0:17:24 > 0:17:27better known by his bardic name, Hedd Wyn, recalled.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35TRANSLATION:
0:18:17 > 0:18:21# Keep the home fires burning
0:18:21 > 0:18:26# While your hearts are yearning
0:18:26 > 0:18:29# Though your lads are far away
0:18:29 > 0:18:33# They dream of home. #
0:18:33 > 0:18:36Percy Williams's parents also worried about their son.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40They knew only that he was missing,
0:18:40 > 0:18:42and for months were unaware that he'd survived,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46albeit as a prisoner of war, enduring dreadful conditions.
0:18:48 > 0:18:54I was, for a couple of months, behind the German lines in France.
0:18:55 > 0:19:00We were always hungry and we simply had a bit of black bread
0:19:00 > 0:19:03and then a few potatoes.
0:19:03 > 0:19:09I was down from about 12st till about 7... 6 or 7st.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17As losses mounted, the mood at home changed.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48A month after Ellis Evans's death,
0:20:48 > 0:20:51an ode he had written, under the name Hedd Wyn,
0:20:51 > 0:20:56won the most prestigious prize at the 1917 National Eisteddfod.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00On the festival stage,
0:21:00 > 0:21:03the bardic chair he should have claimed as his own
0:21:03 > 0:21:05was draped in a black sheet.
0:21:06 > 0:21:10It became a symbol of the sacrifice demanded by the war.
0:21:12 > 0:21:16The loss and grief that followed in the wake of the conflict
0:21:16 > 0:21:19touched the whole of society.
0:21:19 > 0:21:24There was a woman, and her son was on that train
0:21:24 > 0:21:27and he never returned.
0:21:27 > 0:21:29He was killed.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32And for years that woman went up
0:21:32 > 0:21:37at the station, waiting for her son, so they said.
0:21:37 > 0:21:42She used to sit there and wait for the train to come in.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46A terrible thing. Of course she was... Her mind had gone.
0:21:46 > 0:21:48A terrible thing, to lose your mind.
0:22:19 > 0:22:25On the 11th of November, 1918, the war finally came to an end.
0:22:28 > 0:22:32The Armistice came and I shall never forget that time.
0:22:32 > 0:22:37I was at Shotton, at the works at that time, and we were
0:22:37 > 0:22:41expecting some news and, at 11 o'clock,
0:22:41 > 0:22:46the hooter started blowing and the bells started ringing and we gave up
0:22:46 > 0:22:51our work and went home, got the early train and went home to celebrate.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18Some Welsh prisoners of war, like Percy Williams,
0:23:18 > 0:23:21weren't even aware that the Armistice had been declared.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25I said, "What was that noise in the night?
0:23:25 > 0:23:28"It sounded like firing."
0:23:28 > 0:23:30"No," he said, "nothing."
0:23:32 > 0:23:36We didn't realise that there was an armistice
0:23:36 > 0:23:38until about a fortnight afterwards.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42We were, of course, absolutely delighted
0:23:42 > 0:23:48and we just couldn't believe that our luck was in like that.
0:23:49 > 0:23:53Because I'd seen quite a few of our fellows dying.
0:24:03 > 0:24:06We were very excited when we knew that my father was coming home,
0:24:06 > 0:24:10and my mother was looking forward very much
0:24:10 > 0:24:14and she decided that she must have a new suit to wear.
0:24:14 > 0:24:16He brought us presents -
0:24:16 > 0:24:20a teddy for my brother and ornaments for my sister and I.
0:24:20 > 0:24:23But when he tried to get my brother to go on his knee
0:24:23 > 0:24:25and make a fuss of him,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28he was terrified of this strange man in uniform.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Of course, he was a mere baby when he left, you see,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34and he didn't remember my father at all.
0:24:34 > 0:24:38But we were all very thrilled to be a family again.
0:24:38 > 0:24:43The boy I was courting was called up in 1916
0:24:43 > 0:24:46and before that he was,
0:24:46 > 0:24:49you know, nice, kind and very thoughtful,
0:24:49 > 0:24:56but when he came back after it, I found him aggressive.
0:24:56 > 0:25:01He was very short with people, you know, not like he used to be.
0:25:02 > 0:25:07I think he resented the war, he resented everything, I think.
0:25:07 > 0:25:08He changed.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14Well, I was in the choir, in St John's Choir
0:25:14 > 0:25:18and one of the singers was a young man named Parker.
0:25:20 > 0:25:28And he put his age on from 17 to 18, volunteered to join the Navy.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Away he went. I didn't see him again for many, many years.
0:25:33 > 0:25:38When he came back to Aberdare, he'd go to the pub and get drunk...
0:25:40 > 0:25:44..and he wanted to forget all about the boys
0:25:44 > 0:25:47who'd been torpedoed all around him,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51screaming in the water to be saved and picked up.
0:25:52 > 0:25:55But he didn't register it in his mind.
0:25:56 > 0:26:00And these comrades there, it seems so terrible to leave them
0:26:00 > 0:26:04but that's what happened to them.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07And then he got drunk and drunk and drunk.
0:26:07 > 0:26:11His father would come down and beg of him,
0:26:11 > 0:26:15"Harry, come on. Come along. Mother wants you. Come."
0:26:15 > 0:26:18He wouldn't move. Wouldn't go.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25For many women, the war had opened up new horizons.
0:26:28 > 0:26:33The first war changed women, I think, because the girls,
0:26:33 > 0:26:37they wouldn't go back to service once they'd had
0:26:37 > 0:26:45a taste of a porter on the railway or bus conductress or in munitions.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49We didn't want to go back to service again.
0:26:49 > 0:26:50They were free.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55But many who'd witnessed the war at first hand were
0:26:55 > 0:26:57overcome by a sense of waste.
0:27:00 > 0:27:06The age between 17 and 23 or 24
0:27:06 > 0:27:08is a lovely time of your life,
0:27:08 > 0:27:12and you had to be fighting in a war, and your friends
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and hundreds of them being killed.
0:27:15 > 0:27:17Thousands of them being killed.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20There's no doubt about it that the cream,
0:27:20 > 0:27:26the cream age were killed unnecessarily. What for?
0:27:26 > 0:27:37I don't think ever there should be any wars. I don't believe in them.
0:27:37 > 0:28:03When I went to France, we were told that it was a righteous war,
0:28:03 > 0:28:09Let them go and fight it amongst themselves.
0:28:09 > 0:28:15The First World War transformed society,
0:28:15 > 0:28:18about politics, class and religion.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21It left an indelible mark on a generation
0:28:21 > 0:28:25that had seen friends, family and comrades
0:28:25 > 0:28:27make the ultimate sacrifice.
0:28:38 > 0:28:41that's the people that should be honoured.
0:28:41 > 0:28:47Those that didn't. They gave their life and that is it.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50And they're the people that are worthy of thinking about.
0:28:50 > 0:28:58They're the people that really did the job.