206208 Pte. John Ellis British Army 1st Battalion King's Shropshire Light Infantry from:Llanfairfechan, Wales (d.12th Oct 1916) My great uncle enlisted in Bangor, North Wales into the 284 Denbigh Yeomanry. He had been working with horses on a farm in Anglesey, where his mother thought he was. It was not until she received the telegram to say that he had been killed did she know that he had enlisted. He died aged 22. As her first language was Welsh she had to take the telegram down to the village Post Office so that it could be read to her. Apparently her hair turned white overnight.
Her other son was serving with the Navy. Whilst on deck one night during an attack he heard a voice telling him that he would survive the War but his brother would not. He had no idea that his brother had enlisted. After the war he became a lay preacher.
At some time John changed his unit to the King's Shropshire Light Infantry 1st Batt. He was killed on 12 October 1916 during the Battle of Transloy attacking Zenith Trench. All this information came to light when I visited the Thiepval memorial. My sister and I were the first in the family to read his name on the Memorial. It is good to keep these names alive and to remember that these were real people.
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