#6044 Private William Fenton
5TH (PRINCESS CHARLOTTE OF WALES’S) DRAGOON GUARDS
BORN AT CASTLEBLANEY IN COUNTY MONAGHAN, right on the border with County Armagh, 23-year-old William Fenton was a cabinetmaker. His family having relocated to Scotland, he had actually enlisted in the cavalry in Stirling almost immediately on the outbreak of war. Posted to an illustrious regiment of Dragoon Guards, he was sent to Aldershot for training before joining it at the front in October 1915.
Military attitudes to the cavalry were already changing prior to the Great War. There had been calls to disband it altogether and the regiments were already trained to wield a rifle, unlike their French and German counterparts. Yet the opening throes of the Great War had seen it involved heavily in a more traditional sense. Reputedly the first British troops to fire a shot in anger, the first to sight the enemy and the first to kill a German, the mobile nature of the opening weeks of the conflict saw them somewhat in their natural element. However, by 1916, circumstances and technology had overtaken them on the Western Front at least. The rise of the airman saw them taking on the traditional cavalry role of reconnaissance, the static nature of industrial warfare rendering the reality of a charging body of horsemen obsolete. The cavalry fought dismounted, or languished at the back waiting for an opportunity to ride into action. In all history, cavalry had been proudly instrumental in warfare; now their influence was waning in front of them.
Swathes of cavalrymen wait to the rear on the Somme. (Authors’ collection)
At the beginning of August, William Fenton’s regiment was in bivouacs almost as far back as Amiens. But, if there was no need to use them in their dwindling, traditional sense, there was categorically never enough manpower available on the Western Front. Thus, on the 5th it was not unusual that William was summoned to join a digging party. Recent work carried out by the battalion had included helping to build an ammunition railhead at Corbie, but on this occasion the men would be going right up to the front lines. As they went about their work, the party came under a bombardment of enemy artillery and a shell plunged into their ranks. Three men were killed outright and William Fenton was mortally wounded. Although he was taken to a nearby casualty clearing station, the 23 year old died later in the day and was laid to rest at Dernancourt Communal Cemetery, plot J.25.