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The fantastic tale of daring and bravery shown by Private Robert Phillips has been painstakingly pieced together nearly a century later and can now be told for the first time.

The courageous Welshman, like so many veterans from his era, had kept the details of his heroic escape from his family for decades.

But after researching her grandfather’s military record , his grand-daughter Lynda Osborne, 64, was stunned to discover the epic ordeal he went through to get back home to Wales after being captured during the height of The Great War.

She discovered that after her grandfather Robert signed up as a fresh-faced 21-year-old in August 1914, he was sent to the Western Front with the Welch Regiment in early 1915.

Here he had to endure the horrors of trench warfare alongside thousands of other British troops.

They were forced to live in atrocious conditions while constantly fearing death from German snipers.

Tommies like Pte Phillips would often have to fight alongside the rotting corpses of their fallen comrades often knee-deep in mud and filth.

But things were only about to get worse for young Pte Phillips after his platoon were gassed by the Germans during the Second Battle of Ypres in May 1915.

The town was a strategically important spot on the frontline in western Belgium and marked the first mass use by Germany of deadly poison gas on the Western Front.

Incredibly, Pte Phillips managed to survive the attack by holding a wet handkerchief to his face and lived to fight another day.

In total more than 59,000 Brits died during the battle, but Pte Phillips was one of the lucky ones.

He was eventually wounded and captured by the Germans while fighting in Vermelles a short time later. The small Belgian village was made famous by writer Robert Graves in his classic book Goodbye to All That. In it he infamously described the folly of the war by explaining how the village was “taken and retaken eight times” by both sides in just one month.

After being captured, Pte Phillips was shipped to Germany as a prisoner of war and was passed between camps in Munster and Mettingen before finally being dumped at a camp in Homsburg in western Germany.

He was held there for 15 months, alongside 40 other Brits as well as hundreds of French and Russian allies who had also been captured in battle.

In documents uncovered by his grand-daughter, Pte Phillips described the hellish conditions in the camp and the sadistic regime run by the German commanders.

He explained how the prisoners were regularly beaten by guards with the butts of their rifles and were forced to work gruelling shifts lasting 14 days straight – no matter how tired or ill they became.

All the Germans gave them to eat was one small loaf bread to be divided among 10 men.

A miner by trade, Pte Phillips kept his spirits up by refusing to dig coal for the German Navy. He defiantly hid his skills from his captors by pretending he was a simple musician.

But he was caught out talking to another prisoner about his job in Wales and was immediately forced to work in back-breaking conditions in a nearby mine.

Prisoners in the mine were often forced to work in freezing conditions in nothing more than shirts and trousers and, if they complained, they would be brutally beaten by guards with the sheath of their bayonets.

They were watched by wounded German soldiers back from the frontline who were more than keen to seek revenge on the enemy that injured them.

Pte Phillips wrote in one letter: “We had the worst treatment from wounded German soldiers who were on either furlough or unfit for military service.

“About a dozen of them would get onto one man, take him to a disused part of the pit and knock him about with their picks and kick him.

“On the whole I had a miserable time. No justice, one long weary record of brutal ill-treatment for 15 months.”

The conditions grew so bad in the camp Pte Phillips decided to do the only thing he could – escape.

Various plans were hatched by Pte Phillips and his fellow prisoners, but they thought they were all too risky so brave Pte Phillips decided to make a break for it himself.

He realised the camp was vulnerable during the changing of the guard each day.

So he watched and waited, learning the routines of the guards, until he knew them so well he audaciously walked out of the front gate during one late-night shift change and fled to a nearby forest for safety.

Alone and hunted in enemy territory, Pte Phillips relied on the simple survival skills taught to him as a rookie soldier in the British Army.

He travelled by night, navigating northward by the stars, and staying off the roads in the hope he could get to Holland where he might get help from families who hated the Germans.

He survived by raiding homes for food during the night or killing chickens and stealing eggs from farms he came across along the way.

But his epic journey of more than 200 miles was not without danger and he came close to capture on many occasions but quick thinking often saved him from revealing his true identity. He wrote: “I travelled as far as I could and got into difficulties once by taking the wrong direction. I found I was walking up a private drive and I hurriedly retraced my steps, passing several Germans on the way.

“I continued my journey that night, avoiding all intercourse with passers-by, and to disarm suspicion began to whistle some German airs which I had learnt.”

After months on the road sleeping in holes he had dug for himself, Pte Phillips eventually came to the border with Holland.

But he had one more heart-stopping encounter before he could flee the German homeland.

He said: “At length I found I was approaching the frontier.

“Ahead of me I could see a German soldier patrolling, and with my heart in my mouth, I crawled on my stomach within ten yards of the soldier and over the border.”

Linda believes Pte Phillips then found help with a family in Holland who took him in and either returned him to British forces or arranged for passage back to England smuggled aboard a ship. He eventually reached Britain in rags, bowed but unbroken.

She recalls her late father Glyndwr Phillips, Pte Phillips’ son, telling her how his father was rancid, covered in fleas, suffering from trench foot but supremely happy when he made it back to Wales on Christmas Day 1916.

Amazingly, someone in Cardiff had the presence of mind to take a picture of him after he had bathed and out on some new clothes on the day of his return

Looking at the remarkable picture Lynda said: “You can only imagine some of the things that young man in the picture has just been through, but there he is, a little thinner then his army picture but defiant and happy to be home, it makes me so proud to be able to call this man my grandfather.”

Following his return, 1,000 people turned out to see him at a ceremony in his home town of New Tredegar – but not before he discovered all of his clothes and his beloved motorcycle had been sold because no-one ever expected him to survive.

There he was presented with a gold watch by local dignitaries with an inscription inside which read: “Presented to Private Robert Phillips by the inhabitants of New Tredegar & district to commemorate his wonderful daring and resource in escaping from Germany.”

After his triumphant return, Pte Phillips was diagnosed with the shakes, or what would be more commonly known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) today.

He also had damage to his lungs and nervous system due to his exposure to poison gas.

He was treated at a military hospital in Yorkshire before being discharged from the army and put on the reserve list, although he never had to return to war.

He eventually went back to mining but not before the war dealt him one final blow with the death of his younger brother Eli on the Western Front in 1917.

Pte Phillips was devastated by his brother’s loss but went on to start a family with the love of his life Mary Jane Howells in 1921.

They had one son, Glyndwr, who died last year, but passed on the story of his father’s heroism to his daughter Lynda.

In the years that followed the war, Pte Phillips struggled with depression and often had nightmares about his escape from Germany.

But according to his granddaughter, he was a model husband and life was good until tragedy struck in 1934 when Pte Phillips was just 40 years old.

While working deep in Bedwas Pit, a colleague noticed the roof was slowly caving in.

He desperately tried to warn Pte Phillips, but he sadly suffered from a stammer and could not tell him in time.

It was a tragic end for a man who had endured and overcome so much in his short life but for Lynda his memory lives on as strong as ever.

She said: “It is terrible to think he died in this way after overcoming so much.

“But that is not what I take from this story, I get an immense about of pride knowing that my grandfather was a true hero who defied the Germans single-handedly in their own backyard.

“His bravery is a lesson to us all and I am just so thankful I finally know what he went through nearly a hundred years ago and want the world to know the sacrifices young British men like him made for the rest of us.”