Pte 34301 David Cadwaladr Rowlands

• Age: 28
• From: Colwyn Bay, N. Wales
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 20th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Henin Crucifix Cem
  Panel Ref: A.50

David Cadwaladr Rowlands was born in Colwyn Bay in the September quarter of 1888 the son of Richard Rowlands and his wife Elizabeth (nee Evans), who married in Conway in 1882. 

The 1891 Census shows the 2 year old David living with his parents at 2 Penyfford, Colwyn Bay. His father Richard is 37 and is a quarryman,  born in Llandrillo, Denbighshire his mother Elizabeth is 33. He has two brothers Robert aged 8 and Richard aged 4, and two sisters Elizabeth aged 6 and Jane aged 2 months. 

By the time of the next Census in 1901 he has three more siblings – Ellis aged 7 , Catherine aged 4 and Hugh aged 1. Their father, Richard, aged 48, is described as a road contractor. All eight children are living at home which is Bod Ifor, Erw Wen Road, Colwyn Bay. 

David’s mother Elizabeth died, aged 50, in 1907.

The 1911 Census records the family living at 13 Rhiw Bank Avenue with his father Richard heading a household of five of his children. His son Richard is a plumber, Ellis is an apprentice electrician, Elizabeth is a housekeeper (possibly keeping house for her own family) Catherine is a ‘servant at home’ and Hugh is at school. David, now aged 22, is away from home working as an ironmongers assistant and living in a boarding house in Llanrwst. His brother Robert is married and living in Liverpool,

David enlisted in Liverpool and was serving with the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment as Private 34301 when he was killed in action on 09th April 1917 aged 28. This was the opening day of the Battle of Arras.

Everard Wyrall records the events of that day for the 17th, 19th and 20th battalions in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19th King's on the right and the 20th King’s on the left. The 17th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19th and 20th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10th April.

Of the 17th King’s - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

David now rests at Henin Crucifix Cemetery in France at plot A.50 where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"I HAVE FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT FINISHED MY COURSE AND KEPT THE FAITH" 

Henin-sur-Cojeul was captured on 02nd April 1917, lost in March 1918 after an obstinate resistance by the 40th Division, and retaken on 24 August 1918 by the 52nd (Lowland) Division.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery is named from a calvary standing on the opposite side of the road. It was made by units of the 30th Division after the capture of the village in 1917.

Henin Crucifix Cemetery contains 61 burials and commemorations of the First World War. Two of the burials are unidentified and eight graves, destroyed in later fighting, are now represented by special memorials.

The cemetery was designed by G H Goldsmith.

His family recorded the one year anniversary of his death by inserting a notice in the Liverpool Echo on the 09th April 1918:

Rowlands – In loving memory of Private D.C. (Dave) K.L.R. who was killed in action on Easter Monday April 9th 1917.

A loving son, a brother kind

A beautiful memory left behind;

We have lost, heaven has gained

One of the best the world contained

Sadly missed by father, sisters and brothers, Bod Ivor, Colwyn Bay.

There was also another notice:

Rowlands – In loving memory of Pte D.C. Rowlands (Dave) Liverpool “Pals” who fell in action April 9th 1917 (sans changer)

Only goodnight tho all takes flight;

Never goodbye

Lovingly remembered by Gertie Drumskill

David is commemorated on the Colwyn Bay Memorial.

His father died, aged 68, in 1923 in Bangor.