On Friday 4th of February 1916, around 250 theological students and ministers from around Wales stood on the parade ground at Rhyl and voluntarily signed up for the army. They were, as commentators of the time put it “answering the nations call”, but many of them were, or became, conscientious objectors.

James Thomas, from Llandissilio, Pembrokeshire was one of these men who joined what was known as the Welsh Ministers Company of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Their recruitment was voluntary, but at least partly to secure a non-combatant, and thus morally acceptable, place in the Army before Conscription threw them into opposition to forced service in a combatant battalion. At the Rhyl parade ground gathering, the men of the Welsh Ministers Company heard from the Reverend John Williams, one of the men responsible for assembling them together, that as “members of the RAMC they would not only witness to great suffering, but would be able to render aid to the sufferers... they would be in a position to soothe the pain and ease the affliction of many, and in so doing follow the footsteps of the great Master”.

The men of the Welsh Ministers Company were motivated by their Christian belief that killing was wrong, and their non-combatant medical work provided life-saving aid to thousands of wounded around the many fronts of the war. They themselves could not take life, but non-combatant service was morally acceptable. Made up of Theological students and unofficial ministers of small churches around Wales, they came from many backgrounds, and while James Thomas was a Baptist student training to be a minister, others were Presbyterian, Methodist and Jewish.

Life as a non-combatant in the Army was not easy, and James would have been put through rigorous training before being thrown into the terrible conditions of field hospitals behind the front lines. After training in Llandrindod Wells and Sheffield, he was sent to the Balkans to serve on one of the forgotten fronts of the First World War. He worked as an orderly at the 85th Field Ambulance near Rupel Pass in what is now Macedonia, until late 1919 when the slow demobilisation of men in the Balkan theatre began. His Conscientious Objection to warfare was not shown through Tribunal and Court Martial, but through his actions in working to undo the terrible damage done in war - saving lives, and determined never to take them.