Bevin Boys

Bevin Boys were young British men conscripted to work in the coal mines of the United Kingdom, between December 1943 and March 1948. Chosen by lot as ten percent of all male conscripts aged 18–25, plus some volunteering as an alternative to military conscription, nearly 48,000 Bevin Boys performed vital but largely unrecognised service in the mines, many of them not released from service until well over two years after Second World War hostilities ended.

Creation of programme

The programme was named after Ernest Bevin, a former trade union official and then British Labour Party politician who was Minister of Labour and National Service in the wartime coalition government. At the beginning of the war the Government, underestimating the value of strong younger coal miners, conscripted them into the armed forces. By mid-1943 the coal mines had lost 36,000 workers, and they were generally not replaced, because other likely young men were also being conscripted to the armed forces. The government made a plea to men liable to conscription, asking them to volunteer to work in the mines, instead, but few responded, and the manpower shortage continued.

South Wales

South Wales (Welsh: De Cymru) is the region of Wales bordered by England and the Bristol Channel to the east and south, and mid Wales and west Wales to the north and west. The most densely populated region in the southwest of the United Kingdom, it is home to around 2.2 million people. The region contains almost three-quarters of the population of Wales, including the capital city of Cardiff (population approximately 350,000), as well as Swansea and Newport, with populations approximately 240,000 and 150,000 respectively. The Brecon Beacons national park covers about a third of South Wales, containing Pen y Fan, the highest mountain south of Snowdonia.

The region is loosely defined, but it is generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, sometimes extending westwards to include Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire. In the western extent, from Swansea westwards, local people would probably recognise that they lived in both south Wales and west Wales — there is considerable overlap in these somewhat artificial boundaries. Areas to the north of the Brecon Beacons and Black Mountains are generally considered part of mid Wales.

World War II

World War II (WWII or WW2), also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of "total war", the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust (in which approximately 11 million people were killed) and the strategic bombing of industrial and population centres (in which approximately one million were killed, and which included the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it resulted in an estimated 50 million to 85 million fatalities. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history.