Charlie Ieuan Leah

Inspired by the chilling final words penned by Fusilier Ellis Humphreys Evans—'Their blood mixed with the rain'—Charlie Ieuan Leah’s Blood Mixed With Rain stands as a tribute to a lost Welsh—and honorary Welsh—generation.

Newtown-born history teacher Charlie Ieuan Leah traces the extraordinary journey of the 4th, 6th, and 7th Territorial Battalions of the Royal Welch Fusiliers during the Second World War. Inspired by the service of Leah’s own great‑grandfather—one of the fortunate few who landed in Normandy and survived to see the war’s end.

In 1939, these fusiliers were far from career soldiers. They were farmhands, apprentices, quarrymen, miners and even teenagers, who trained part‑time alongside their everyday occupations. They were care‑free, sometimes near mutinous, and often suspicious of the regular adjutants sent to impose discipline and prepare them for war.

Yet by late June 1944, everything had changed.

The three Territorial battalions of the Royal Welch Fusiliers followed in the bloody wake of the D-Day landings, enduring the hedgerow carnage of Normandy, chaotic street fighting in the Netherlands, and the frozen forests of the Ardennes. They ended the war amid the ruins of Hamburg—having fought, without respite, every step of the way.

This is not a traditional battalion history. Blood Mixed With Rain tells the story of the everyday infantry soldier on the ground, through the voices and accounts of the men who were there. It retells the forgotten stories of personal tragedy, loss, pain and sometimes the humour that was found on the frontline. Truly, a Welsh—and honorary Welsh—Band of Brothers: 

'War does produce the greatest comradeship ever seen,' recalled Major Ken Williams, 7 RWF, '... supporting each other, and willing to risk your life for each other.'