The Swansea University Student’s Union organised the annual poignant service on the steps of the main Fulton House building to honour the courage, heroism, pain and terror endured by those who fought in the Great Wars, and more recent wars and to remember and acknowledge the fortitude, fear and suffering of the families and friends who they left behind.

The service included songs from the Student’s Union Choral Society, a commemorative address by Raymond Ciborowski, Swansea University Registrar, the re-dedication of the University’s War Memorial plaque and the reading of the names of former students who died in service in World War II. A remembrance poem, written by him, was read out by former student Geoffrey Ackhurst. The University Chaplin, the Reverend Nigel John, addressed those paying their respects before the 2 minutes silence and the service concluded with the sounding of the Last Post.

Professor Rhys Williams of the College of Medicine has been closely involved with the re-dedication of the war memorial plaque situated on Singleton Campus. During the refurbishing of Fulton House, the plaque was removed and sent for safe-keeping in the University’s Richard Burton Archives.

Professor Williams recalls the history – and his personal story - behind one of the men named on the plaque.

Rhys begins, “Just before my father died, I had taken him into Fulton House and stood him in front of the war memorial plaque, showing him the name (second on the list) of his best friend in school – Reginald O. Clee – who was lost, presumed killed, in July 1944. There was a tear in his eye. He didn’t realise that the University had a memorial to his best friend. But it did, and also to others who had perished with Reg in the same war.

“The re-siting of the plaque and re-dedicating it, on 11^th November this year, is in memory not only of Reg Clee, but also of the other 27 students of the University College of Wales Swansea (as it was then) who perished in the war of 1939-45 and who should never be forgotten.

 “Reg Clee was like a family member for us, despite the fact that he was killed 4 years before I was born. My parents often talked about him since he was not only my father’s best friend but had also been at school (Gowerton Grammar School) at the same time as my mother. His father was the head master of Pontlliw Junior School. Reg entered the College in 1937 and was awarded his BSc degree in 1940. He then joined the RAF, becoming a Mosquito pilot and was lost, his body never found, after his aircraft went missing in the Mediterranean north of Corsica on 27^th July, 1944. The photograph is of Reg when he got his wings.”