Private, 44418, 'C' Company, 8th (Service) Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Died of heatstroke, aged 32, on 23 July 1917 at Sindiyeh, Mesopotamia (Iraq) at the Asiatic Theatre of War.
The battalion was formed at Wrexham in August 1914 as part of K1 and attached to 40th Brigade, 13th (Western) Division. It moved to Mudros in July 1915 and subsequently served in Gallipoli, Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Private Humphreys enlisted at Holyhead on 27 September 1916 and was previously employed as a Goods Porter for the L&NW Railway. He arrived at Bombay on 6 March 1917 and onto Basra on 12 May 1917. He joined his unit on 29 May 1917. The Regimental history records that this draft was made up of recent recruits with limited training, including little musketry practice, which had to be made up under very adverse conditions. The Company were in tents and living conditions were appalling. Extremes of temperature, vermin, etc all contributed to very high levels of sickness and disease which remained a concern for the high command throughout the campaign. In one account, a newspaper reporter, Edmund Candler, wrote "The flies were unbelievable. You could not eat without swallowing flies. You waved your spoon in the air to shake them off: you put your biscuits and bully beef in your pocket and surreptitiously conveyed them in closed fist to your mouth, but you swallowed flies all the same....".
He had reported ill on 19 July but seemed to recover. However, he collapsed in the evening of 22 July and died the following day. The inquest into his death determined that he was "unable to withstand the climate conditions". Many other soldiers would seem to have suffered the same fate. His younger brother William Humphreys had been killed earlier on 16 May 1915 at the Battle of Festubert whilst serving with the 1st Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Born at Holyhead the son of the late Robert and Mary Humphreys (nee Roberts) of 21 London Road, Holyhead, Anglesey. In 1911 he lived with his widowed father (54), sisters, Hannah Jane (32) and Ellen Catherine (24) and brother, William (22).
Awarded the Victory Medal and the British War Medal.
Buried in the Bagdad (North Gate) War Cemetery. Grave location XX.C.13. May have initially been buried at Sindiyeh (60 miles from Bagdad).