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6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers
6th (Service) Battalion, South Wales Borderers was raised at Brecon on the 12th of September 1914 as part of Kitchener's Third New Army and joined 76th Brigade, 25th Division which assembled in the area around Salisbury with the 6th South Wales Borderers based at Codford..they spent the winter in billets in Bournemouth. In February 1915 they converted to be a Pioneer Battalion Moving to Hursley Park in April for a short while then moving to Aldershot for final training. They proceeded to France, landing at Le Havre on the 25th of September 1915, the division concentrateing in the area of Nieppe. Their first action was in defence of the German attack on Vimy Ridge in May 1916. They then moved to The Somme and joined the Battle just after the main attack, with 75th Brigade making a costly attack near Thiepval on the 3rd of July. The Division was in action at The Battle of Bazentin, The Battle of Pozieres and The Battle of the Ancre Heights. In 1917 they were in action at The Battle of Messines attacking between the Wulverghem-Messines and Wulverghem-Wytschaete roads. In the Third battle of Ypres were were in action during The Battle of Pilkem. In 1918 they were in action on The Somme, in the Battles of the Lys. On the 2nd of July they transferred to 30th Division. They were in action during the Advance in Flanders and by the Armistice had crossed the River Scheldt with advanced units reaching the line between Ghoy and la Livarde, north west of Lessines. In January 1919 30th Division took up duty at the Base Ports of Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and Etaples and demobilisation began.
26th Sep 1914 On the Move
16th Oct 1915 The Derby Scheme
5th Nov 1915 Trench Work 
1st Dec 1915 Derby Scheme Armlets
11th Sep 1915 Last day of Derby Scheme Recruitment
10th Jan 1916 Group System Reopens
9th February 1916 Call Ups
16th of May 1916 Heavy Bombardment
23rd of January 1917 Work on Damaged Trenches
9th of April 1918 A Busy Day
10th Apr 1918 In Action
10th of April 1918 Under Attack
11th of April 1918 Quiet...and then...
12th of April 1918 Enemy Advances
13th of April 1918 Under Heavy Attack
14th of April 1918 A Counter-Attack
15th of April 1918 A Quiet Day
17th of April 1918 HQs Move
18th of April 1918 Relief for Some
19th of April 1918 A Quiet Day
20th April 1918 A Divisional Withdrawal
25th of April 1918 Another Busy Day
27th of April 1918 Holding at All Costs
30th of April 1918 Reliefs and Attacks
28th May 1918 Hard Fighting
18th of June 1918
22nd of June 1918
24th of June 1918
25th of June 1918
26th of June 1918
26th of June 1918
29th of June 1918
1st of July 1918
1st of July 1918
5th of July 1918
6th of July 1918
7th of July 1918
If you can provide any additional information, please add it here.
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| Want to know more about 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers? There are:5267 items tagged 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers available in our Library
These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War.
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Those known to have served with6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers during the Great War 1914-1918. - Beashel Nicholas. Pte. (d.10th Jul 1916)
- Bennett Albert James. Pte. (d.30th Apr 1918)
- Coggins John Bernard. Pte.
- Cooper William. Pte. (d.16th April 1918)
- Davies Cadwaladre. Pte. (d.27th August 1918)
- Delves William Henry. Pte. (d.3rd Aug 1917)
- Donovan Timothy Ernest. Pte. (d.24th Aug 1916)
- Hughes William. Pte. (d.12th April 1918)
- Mercer Samuel. Pte. (d.11th Nov 1918)
- Price James A.. Pte.
- Stapleton Albert Leonard. Pte. (d.9th May 1918)
- Williams Albert. Cpl.
- Williams William Thomas. Pte. (d.30th May 1918)
- Woodward Herbert. Pte. (d.13th Feb 1917)
All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed,
please Add a Name to this List
Records of 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers from other sources.
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Pte. Samuel Mercer 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers (d.11th Nov 1918) Samuel Mercer was born in Widnes in Cheshire in 1901 to Samuel Mercer and Maria Cain. He served with the 6th South Wales Borderers
He died in France on 11th of November 1918-11-11 and is buried in Pont De Nieppe Communal Cemetery, Nieppe, near Armentieres, France.
I believe he may have been my grandfather's brother, I am searching for a definitive answer as Ancestry DNA evidence evidence is continuing.
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Pte. Cadwaladre Davies 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers (d.27th August 1918) Calwaladre Davies worked as a grocer's assistant in Maesteg.
In WW1 he joined up at Brecon and served with the 6th Battalion, South Wales Borderers. He died 27th of August 1918 aged 22 years and is buried
Terlincthun British Cemetery at Wimille in France.
Son of John and Hannah Davies of Llanelly.
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Pte. William Thomas Williams 6th Battalion South Wales Borderers (d.30th May 1918) William Williams enlisted at Ystradgynlais.
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Pte. Timothy Ernest Donovan 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers (d.24th Aug 1916) Timothy Donovan served with 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers.
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Cpl. Albert Williams 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers My great grandfather left for war leaving a pregnant wife behind (carrying my grandfather). He never returned and never met his baby boy. All we know is his name, Albert Williams and that he was a Corporal in the 6th Battalion South Wales Borderers at the time of my grandfather's birth (12/8/1915). Great grandmother never talked of her husband, so we know nothing about him.
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Pte. William Hughes 6th Bn South Wales Borderers (d.12th April 1918) William Hughes was the son of John and Mary Hughes of Hazelwood, Richmond Terrace, Everton; husband of Bertha Lloyd of Denbigh.
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Pte. Herbert Woodward 6th Battalion South Wales Borderers (d.13th Feb 1917)  Herbert Woodward came from Everton, Liverpool to South Wales, as a young man looking for work, finding lodgings in Cwmbran. He married Ethel the youngest daughter of the household and they had two children Martha and Ellen (my great grandmother). He died on 13th Feb 1917 age 34. Below is a small part of the letter he wrote to his brother the day before he died;
Dear Bro, I might tell that we are having it a bit rough at the present, but never mind, it is all in a good cause, but I wish it would finish soon so that we could get home and see you all .....
He served with the 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers a pioneer regiment with 75th Division, II Anzac Corps (who were near the Ontario Farm mine, during the 1917 Battle of Messines.)
I found the following from an on line war diary while searching for more information about him :- "No.3 Tunnelling Coy.,Canadian Engineers.
Tuesday, February 13, 1917
Location: From Rivers Lys to Douvre.
Entry: Due to the pressure of swelling clay at Seaforth Farm several of
the castings have broken in the "I" beam sets.- At the St.Yves M.G.
subway, the right drive is in for 20', and the left has been started. Both
faces are good. The enemy placed several minenwerfer bombs close to
the main entrance to the subway - killing one S.W.B. Pioneer and wounding
another.- We do not suspect that the enemy has noticed our work here, and
it is almost certain that his target is the Heavy T.M. emplacement in
the vicinity. Lieut. Roodhouse was wounded in the head by a machine gun."
Editor's Note - Herbert is interred in the Berks Cemetery Extension. His medal card shows that he was initially Private 78 Monmouthshire Regiment. He is then listed as Private 36257 and 39257 in the South Wales Borderers.
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Pte. Albert James Bennett 6th btn. South Wales Borderers (d.30th Apr 1918) Albert Bennett served with the South Wales Borderers 6th Battalion. He died on 30th April 1918 and is remembered on the Roll of Honour at Bush Hill Park United Reformed Church, 25 Main Avenue, Endield.
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Pte. Nicholas Beashel 6th Btn. South Wales Borderers (d.10th Jul 1916) Nicholas Beashel was born in Rush, County Dublin, and enlisted in Barry, Vale Of Glamorgan, Wales. He was killed in action during the Battle of Albert in the Ovillers and La Boisselle area of France, and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial in France.
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Pte. John Bernard Coggins 6th Service Battalion (Pioneers) South Wales Borderers  My father, John Coggins, was shot in the neck and gassed on the 10th of April 1918 in the River Lys area during the German offensive. On recovery in Blighty he attended a Gas Instructors Course and his notes (122 pages long with coloured crayon diagrams) are currently on indefinite loan at Winterbourne Gunner (the NBC Instructors training school) and are used for training to this day. Frank Baldwin, Chairman of the Battlefields Trust, also uses them as an aid in his WW1 tours with Sandhurst cadets and the The Western Front Association has a flicker page link to them on their website.
John Bernard Coggins joined the young soldiers' unit of South Wales Borderers on 23 September 1916 Regimental Number 41722. He transferred to 6th (Service) Battalion (Pioneers) which was attached to 75th Brigade, part of the 25th Division. He was with his Unit throughout almost all the German offensives in the Spring of 1918 and eventually when his Unit became decimated he attached himself to French Canadians and was severely wounded in the neck and jaw on the 10th of April 1918.
The following action (part of the German Luddendorf Offensive) is probably when neck and jaw wound were received (extracts from the Official History of the 25th Division).
The Battle of Estaires (first phase of the Battles of the Lys) - 74th Brigade was in Divisional Reserve when the enemy attacked the British positions to the south (between Armentieres and Givenchy) on 9 April 1918. It was ordered to join the defence south of Steenwerck and held on only with difficulty.
The Battle of Messines, 1918 - The enemy attack broke through the British line at Ploegsteert and advanced along the Ypres road, endangering the garrison holding Ploegsteert Wood. Ordered to counter attack, 75th Brigade, the Royal Engineers, Machine Gun Battalion and other elements of the Division became involved in heavy fighting. With the enemy infiltrating on either side on 10 April, losses at the Catacombs of Hill 63 were serious although there were many remarkable acts as some units managed to extricate themselves and withdraw. Further retirements were forced upon the Division - which also had 100th Brigade of 33rd Division under orders - on 12 April; the forward position on this day ran through Kortepyp. The army's line of defence that ran in front of Dranoutre and Kemmel, was held by a hastily organised composite force of units and men of the Division.
The Battle of Bailleul - By the morning of 13 April, 74th Brigade was established on the high ground east of Bailleul. Coming under bombardment from 9.30am onwards and attacked by infantry two hours later, the Brigade fought a staunch defence - as did 7th and 75th Brigades nearby. Fighting continued throughout the 14th, and next day the high ground and the town of Bailleul itself fell to the Germans. The Division was by now thoroughly shattered: broken up, exhausted by continuous fighting for five days, and fragmented by heavy losses. A sad composite formation of what was left of 7th and 75th Brigades withdrew through Boeschepe on 16 April but were ordered up to the area south of Mont Noir in support of 34th Division.
The First Battle of Kemmel - By 17/18th April it had been withdrawn to Abeele. 74th Brigade came out to Proven on 20/21 April.
According to my father when he was shot, he fell into a trench where barbed wire ripped off his gas mask and he was gassed. A Canadian dragged him back to a first aid station. He was invalided home (apparently all head wounds went back to Blighty). He recovered sufficiently to rejoin his reserve Battalion of SWB and after certain moves on drafts joined as a prospective NCO of 53rd Young Soldiers' Battn (SWB). When this Unit was being prepared for service overseas the now Cpl Coggins was promoted in Battalion Orders to Sergeant but on appeal was permitted to revert to his rank of Corporal seeking early demobilization to return home to his very aged parents. He qualified as a 1st Class Anti-Gas Instructor at Western Command Course, Prees Heath, nr Whitchurch, Shropshire and Drill Instructor and when his Unit left (South Wales) for the Rhine Army of Occupation he was transferred (category B2) to North Elham in Norfolk as Senior NCO of the Guard of POWs until demobilization in 1919.
Anti-Gas Instructor 1st class 6th Jul 1918 and NCO Drill Instructor 1st class Oct 1918.
He served from Jul 1919 until 13th Nov 1919 at POW camp in North Elmham, Norfolk. Acting Corporal. Discharged 31 Mar 1920. Initially received a disability pension of 8'8d pw terminated on 7th Dec 1920 when he passed a medical.
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