Other Information:Thomas was the son of Jenkin and Elizabeth Parry. He was 29 years and 11 months old, a shop assistant by trade, and living with his wife, Edith Ann Heskins and five children at 43 Bryncynon Terrace, Aberdare when war broke out. Thomas enlisted into the 2nd Welsh Divisional Field Ambulance TF on the 18th February 1915. He underwent a medical examination on the same day at the Cardiff RAMC (T) Depot that revealed he was 5' 4 1/2" tall, had good eyesight and good physical development, with a chest exspantion of 36" and a range of expansion of 3". Thomas is recorded as joining the 2/2nd Welsh Field Ambulance, which was a home service unit. He had an anti tetanus inoculation in Cardiff on the 1st March 1915 but had moved to Aberystwyth by the 15th, where he had his 2nd inoculation on the 21st, the same day as his son Reginald David was born. Thomas is known to have served in Gallipoli and Egypt so appears to have transferred to the 2/1st Welsh Field Ambulance, however his MIC states that he first entered a Theatre of War on the 20th November 1915 in France. At various times between the 11th June 1917 and the 22nd February 1919 Thomas was admitted to hospital suffering from dysentery. He was invalided to England on the 11 April 1919 and admitted to Kitchener Military Hospital in Brighton on the 20th. Thomas was disembodied on the 27th June 1919 with an Army pension. He became a corn merchant and lived to the age of 79. Thomas died in the East Surrey Hospital, Redhill, Surrey on the 29th April 1964 of broncho pneumonia and cerebro vascular thrombosis. [Informatiion and photograph kindly provided by family]
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