6th Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment
Arthur Henry Smith was born on 13 April 1899 to Peter and Lucine Smith in Sheepscombe where his father worked as a cattleman. They lived near the The Green in 1901. Arthur had seven siblings and he went to school in Sheepscombe from 1904 to 1913.
Arthur enlisted in the Essex Regiment Reserve Battalion as number 46075 but later moved to the Northamptonshire Regiment as number 41305.
Arthur was reported missing in May 1918 and a wounded man on return to England reported that Arthur had been killed on 24 April 1918: We went over the top at Hangard Wood and of course being strange we all got mixed up together and Smith was by my side when we were going over. All went well until they opened their machine guns on us and it was then that he got hit. I couldn’t say where but I looked at him and saw that he was dead although I hadn’t any time to get his disc because the firing got too stiff and it was everybody for himself so I had to make a run for it.
The Red Cross advised the family to keep hope since these reports were not always reliable. On 24/25 April Arthur’s battalion was at Cagny and not engaged in action, but on 5 April the battalion was in the line north of Hangard. It is possible Arthur went missing and was killed on that day.
Arthur was buried at Hangard Communal Cemetery Extension and official records state that he was killed in action on the Somme on 25 April 1918, aged 19.
Taken from The Wayside Cross published by the Sheepscombe History Society