Description

1914/15 Star, named R-3887 PTE M. THOMAS. K.R.RIF:C.; British War and Victory Medals, named R-3887 PTE. M. THOMAS. K. R. RIF.C. Comes with copies of service records (burnt), M.I.C.; medal rolls, newspaper articles and research.

Mansel Thomas was born in 1894 at Barry, Glamorgan, a clerk by trade he enlisted into the Kings Royal Rifle Corps on 8/9/1914 and posted to the 13th Battalion on 7/10/1914. He landed in France on 30/7/1915 and would have seen service at Loos and on the Somme. He was medically evacuated to England suffering from shell shock on 27/6/1916, remaining in England until 3/4/1917 when he was returned to France.

He was initially posted to the 17th Battalion K.R.R.C. on 4/4/1917 but transferred to the 2nd Battalion K.R.R.C. ‘D’ Company on 6/5/1917.

The battalion was stationed at Nieuport, preparing for ‘Operation Hush’, when the Germans launched their own spoiling attack ‘Operation Strandfest’ by the Marinekorps-Flandern on 10/7/1917. The British units in the bridgehead over the Yser were hit with artillery, gas and flamethrowers as the Germans pinched out the bridgehead. Out of a strength of 20 officers and 520 other ranks, 17 officers and 481 other ranks became casualties or prisoners of war.

Unfortunately Thomas was initially posted as missing and later confirmed as a P.O.W.

He was taken to the infamous Limberg an der Lahn camp, along with many Irish prisoners, including Roger Casement, who was one of the Easter Uprising leaders. When it became clear that very few of the prisoners would rally to the nationalist cause, the German guards began to treat them harshly. Thomas survived the ordeal of the camp and was repatriated, being discharged on 31 March 1919, he died at Swansea Hospital on the 3rd of October 1955.