World War One Veterans voices: Pte Robert Owen

Remembrance Day this year has special resonance as it also marks the centenary of the early months of World War One.

All the soldiers from Wales who returned are now dead but the stories of those who survived were recorded for the archives of the Imperial War Museum in the 1980s.

Here is an extract from Robert Owen, from Llandudno.

A private who served with 5th Battalion of the South Wales Borderers on Western Front, 1917-1918, he had been a telegram boy before the war.

His recollections include deaths of comrades, avoiding German snipers and rats in the trenches.

Here he reads the poem Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen (pictured), which Robert used to read at Remembrance services.

You can hear more of the archive interview on the Imperial War Museum website.

  • Wales