Page under construction as fast as I can go.

Sgt D.J. O'Leary 227744

A few months ago I was emailed through the site by a Mr Alan Spencer who wanted to know if I could shed any light on te soldier named above.  The orginal question was 'did I know why he had apparently two names'.  Since that time it has been quite a journey of discovery for both myself and for Alan.

The end result is we still don't know why he had two different names but we have uncovered a wealth of information about his remarkable military career. This has been possible because Alan's father kept a lot of the information about him and because his service records are amongst those that survived the fires following the bombings of WW2.

On the 6th Dec 1897 aged 18 years and 5 months he enlisted in the South Wales Borderers (S.W.B) in Tredegar, South Wales for 6 years Reserve service. He was given the service number 6621 and attained the rank of Private. On the 10th Dec 1898 he transferred to the Royal Monmouth Royal Engineers Militia. (R.M.R.E.) as a Sapper with a new service number of 2153. He volunteered for active service with the regular forces abroad and subsequently was posted to South Africa on 6th June 1900.