David William Roberts was born in 1894 in Bargoed. His father was a stoker (Boiler man) on the surface of one of the local collieries whereas Roberts was a collier and his elder brother Thomas was a haulage engine driver. Someone who he would have been very familiar with in Deri was Samuel Hawkins, who was the same age, lived in the next street and had the same job as Roberts. Their fathers were both boiler stokers as well. Roberts and Hawkins enlisted together in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry on 8 September 1914 and both were posted to the 8th Battalion for training at Sutton Veny Camp near Salisbury. Both of them ran foul of military authority during training and each was awarded ‘company punishment’ and loss of pay on several occasions.
  The two young men from Deri landed at Boulogne with the 8th Battalion DCLI on 22 September 1915 but the Battalion didn’t see action on the Western Front as with the rest of the 26th Division they travelled to the South of France, to Marseilles, where they embarked for Salonika at the beginning of November.
  Neither Roberts or Hawkins sailed with the rest of the 26th Division. Like other former Welsh miners in the Division they were transferred to the Royal Engineers to become tunnellers. Along with the other men they probably spent several weeks at the RE deport or with another tunnelling company before joining 253 Company when it was formed in January 1916.
  253 Company began operating at Sailly Labourse and the front line areas of the old Loos battlefield, north of the Vermelles-Hulluch road where tunnellers were badly needed to counter the German miners who were very active. Before 253 Company’s arrival in the area two enemy mines had already been fired and shortly after they started work two more enemy mines were fired, under the British infantry in the front line. Ten tunnellers from 253 Company were killed in their first month of operation, five of whom were Welsh. Samuel Hawkins was one of the five men killed 20 January 1916. His body was never recovered and so he is remembered on the Loos Memorial. He was 21 years of age.
  The underground battle against the Germans would continue apace for several months to come but like his friend, David Roberts did not live to see its conclusion. On 13 March 1916 he was killed in action along with two other men from 253 Company. There is some ambiguity about how he and the other men died. The war diary for the Company makes no mention of fatalities on that date but does record that an officer, NCO and several men were affected when gas from one their own mines fired that morning blew back into an adjacent trench. Such an incident would not seem to tie in with the fact that Roberts has no known grave and is remembered on the Loos Memorial, unless he was perhaps buried very close by and his grave was later lost? He was 21 years of age.

Research Peter Walker – for more on local Tunnellers see GHS Journal Vol. 23 (2016)