16th Aug 1916 - 16th Aug 2006

[Martyn Gibson]

The 16th August 2006 it is exactly 90 years to the day that the 3rd Battalion The Monmouthshire Regiment ceased to exist.

Their first port of call when the war began was Abergavenny, their last was to be the Somme.

They had been in France and Flanders since Feb 1915, they had been involved in the mining at Hill 60, the 2nd Ypres serving with distinction at the Battle of Frezenberg. They suffered a heavy casualty toll when parading prior to moving away from the front on 29th Dec 1915 at Elverdinghe Chateau. A salvo of 17" shells fell in between B and C Coy's killing 39 of them.

Replacements were increasingly hard to find and the descision to break up the 3rd Battalion was made on the 5th Aug 1916. A brave body of men who were distributed to their sister battalion's of the 1st and 2nd Monmouth's, 9th (Service) Battaliion Welsh Regiment and the 9th Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

Gone but not forgotten.


Martyn