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Refugee Week

By Phil Treseder
Swansea Museum Education & Participation Officer

On the 30th of March 2021, His Excellency, Libor Secka, the Czech Ambassador to the UK attended the Wales V Czech Republic football qualifying match for the 2022 World Cup.

Whilst in Wales he took the opportunity to visit several graveyards to pay his respects to fellow countrymen and refugees to Britain who paid the ultimate price whilst serving in the Royal Air Force (RAF) during World War 2.

The visit included St Hiliary’s in Killay. There are a number of RAF personnel buried there from various countries including the USA, South Africa, Canada and two from the Czech Republic.

Rudolf Rohacek and Josef Janeba were both part of 312 Squadron based at Fairwood Common during 1942.

Rohacek was born in 1914 in Marianske Hory. Following the fall of Czechoslovakia, he joined the Polish Air Force, then the French and finally the RAF.  He was killed on the 27th of April 1942 when his Spitfire crashed very near to Axbridge Railway Station.in Somerset. The most likely cause of the accident was oxygen equipment failure.

Janeba was born in 1915 in Kralove. He was killed on the 2nd of May 1942 when another Spitfire caught and broke off the tail of his Spitfire on take-off. He managed to bail out but had not gained enough height for the parachute to work. The spitfire crashed into Kilvrough farmyard, close to the South Gower Road. Janeba kept a diary, and the last entry is written by his friend and fellow pilot, Vojtech Smolik.

“He died in a plane crash on the 2nd of May 1942. He used his parachute, but the crash happened at a very low altitude, so the parachute could not save him.  He was my best friend. Honour to his memory”.

Photograph of the graves of Josef Janeba and Rudolf Rohacek

The Czech Ambassador also paid his respects to some of the fallen from another Czech Squadron, 311, a bomber squadron based for a while in Pembrokeshire, seconded to Coastal Command. One of the members of the squadron Vaclav Bozdech ended up being a refugee twice. Following the fall of Czechoslovakia he joined the French Air Force. Whilst serving with them he adopted a puppy who he named Antis and on the fall of France escaped with the dog and joined 311 Squadron, where the dog became the squadrons mascot. Unusual for a mascot, Antis went on the combat missions. On his return home, Bozdech had to escape again, this time from the communists and become a refugee for the second time. Antis saved him by first alerting him to a patrol of border guards and later pinning one of them down to allow them to escape and get back to Britain. In 1949 Antis received the Dickin Medal (a Victoria Cross equivalent for animals). In December 2024, the medal sold at auction for £50,000, plus commission.

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International Women’s Day

By Phil Treseder
Swansea Museum Education & Participation Officer

In December 2024, Wales International Women’s Team qualified for the first time for a major international tournament. Women’s football has had a difficult journey. The First World War provided a major boost, but the Football Association worried about its growing popularity effectively banned it in 1921 by threating to ban any clubs from membership that allowed women’s teams access to grounds and facilities.

Women’s football does date earlier than World War 1 and at times there was considerable resistance. A touring team named the British Ladies’ Football Club were in Swansea in July 1896.  A game was held against a men’s team (apparently the first ever such game in Swansea) which resulted in 4 – 4 draw. However, the gate was rather small and as a result the team could not afford the fares to Cardiff, their next destination.

The team did manage to get to Cardiff eventually, but the news was covered by the South Wales Daily Post on the 7th of August with the following commentary.

“So, the British Ladies’ Football Club managed after all to get out of the awkward predicament in which they found themselves on Tuesday and bade Swansea farewell for ever on Thursday. No one could but help sympathise with the poor girls in their sad plight, but at the same time I hope their severe lesson will drive home the conviction that football is not a game for women no more than darning stockings is an occupation for mortals of the masculine gender. The ordinary species of the new woman is almost intolerable, but when females turn out in bloomers on the football field the whole business becomes positively disgusting, and if a slice of bad luck, such as that experienced by the British lady footballers at Swansea, will have the effect of crushing out the practice I shall rejoice exceedingly over it. By-and-by there will be no holding these masculine females”.

One of the earliest known teams in Swansea was Baldwins United, formed during WW1. The team were women working at the National Shell Factory.

The woman who organised the team was Nancie Griffith Jones employed as a welfare officer at the factory. A keen sportswoman, she played football, hockey and water polo.  Later in life she would be awarded an OBE for services in the education sector. She would also spend WW2 as a prisoner of the Japanese as at the start of the war in the Pacific she was running a school in Singapore.

SM MI 6877.2 is a photograph of the team taken at St Helens ground pre or following a match and probably for a game played against Newport in April 1918 to raise funds for the Prisoners of War Fund. Nancie is sitting fourth from left in the front row.

National Shell Factory (Baldwins) taken in front of the old pavilion at St Helens ground.

The team surnames are given along with an initial.  However, some of the newspaper reports provide us with a first name. It is therefore possible to speculate on the full name and address of some of the team.

If anyone recognises them as an ancestor or know of anyone else in the team and can provide further information, please contact Swansea Museum via phil.treseder@swansea.gov.uk

The possible names given along with Nancie Griffith Jones are:

N Dalhgrin
L Quick (captain)
D Wise
D Thomas
E Griffiths
A Davies
G Gower
A Guy
K Roper
M Forrester
In a later game there is an E Mountfield

A few possibilities include:

The captain is named as Lizzie in a newspaper report. Possibly Lilian Elizabeth Quick born in 1895 in Wolverhampton and living in Margaret Terrace, St Thomas in 1911.  If so married Evan Gordon Davies in 1924.

K. Roper in the newspaper is named as Katie. There is a Catherine Roper born about 1900 living at 3 Wandsworth Street with her brother and uncle.