Soldier Record

Charles Thomas Lewis, my grandfather (known to me as 'Gramps'), was born in Laugharne, south west Wales, in October 1895.

At the outbreak of war, he travelled to Shrewsbury to enlist with the King's Shropshire Light Infantry, as this was a regiment of the line in 1914, and he believed he would see action before the war was over.

His regimental number was 16035, and his certificate of employment shows that he was a Maxim gunner Oct 1914 - 1915; Vickers gunner Jan 1915 - 1916, and Lewis gunner from 1916 - 1918.

Throughout the war he served as a machine gunner with A Company, 1st Battalion K.S.L.I. His rank at the end of the war was Lance Corporal.

He saw action in the battles of Ypres (Hooge), Loos, the Somme (Beaumont Hamel), Arras and Cambrai.

On 21st / 22nd March 1918, near St. Quentin, he was wounded in the leg by a piece of shrapnel from a gas shell during the last major German offensive and was taken prisoner. His wounds were treated in a hospital in Berlin, and he remained a prisoner of war in a camp in Mecklenburg, northern Germany.

He was awarded the 1914-15 Star, the War Service Medal 1914-20 and Victory Medal 1914-19.

He died of pneumonia in hospital in Llanelli, at the age of 86, on Christmas day 1981.