Sgt 15287 Sumter Arnold

• Age: 31
• From: Cleveland, Ohio
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 17th Btn
• K.I.A Saturday 1st July 1916
• Commemorated at: Thiepval Memorial
  Panel Ref: P&F1D8B &8 C.

Sumter Arnold was born in January 1885 in Cleveland Ohio, the son of the Rev. Carl (Charles) Otto and Mrs. Sophia Arnold.  His father was born in Germany and his mother in New York.

In 1900  the family is living at 116 Main Street, Dalton, Berkshire, Massachusetts.  His father is an Episcopal rector.  Sumter is 14. He has younger siblings Lilian, Edith, and Paul.  He attended Worcester Academy (high school), in Worcester, Massachusetts, and graduated in 1905.  He was a member of the Episcopal Church and worked as a travelling salesman after graduation.

He married Anna Ethel Phillips, when he was 26, on 21^st August 1907 in Detroit, Michigan.  Anna was from Chicago, then living in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The 1910 census shows the couple living at 1923 Aldrich Avenue South, in Minneapolis. Sumter is an assistant manager working for a lighting fixture company.  They have a live-in maid.  They later moved to New York where Sumter worked for an electrical company.  

Sumter embarked for Liverpool from New York and enlisted in Liverpool on 01^st September 1914  as Private 15287 in the 17^th (Pals) Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment. His service record has not survived, but we do know that he would have trained with his battalion locally,  at Prescot Watch Factory and at Knowsley Hall, then onto Grantham in Lincolnshire at Belton Park, and for final infantry training at Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain.  Sumter shipped to France with his battalion on 7^th November 1915. 

In mid-December the 17^th Bn is sent to Englebelmer on the Somme front and in the new year the Pals battalions take up positions in the south of the Somme line, near Carnoy.  By this time he has earned promotion to Sergeant. During preparations for the ‘Big Push’, at the end of May Sumter is granted leave, from 27^th May until 5^th June.  The first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1^st July 1916, is the deadliest day in British military history, with nearly 20,000 men killed and tens of thousands more wounded.  Sumter’s date of death is recorded as between 1st and 2^nd July, however most of the men killed with the 17th Battalion on 1st July are officially recorded as having died between the 1st and 2nd July 1916. He was 31 years of age.

17^th Battalion Diary

3.30 am the Battalion in position in assembly trenches -Battalion frontage from Maricourt – Briqueterie Rd to 100 yards west of Maricourt – Montauban Rd – 1^st wave, 2 platoons of A Company on the right and 2 platoons of B company on the left. 2^nd wave remaining platoons of these companies. 3^rd wave C Company and 4^th wave D Company in parallel trenches at about 100 yards distance. 3^rd Battalion 153^rd French Infantry on our right and 20 KLR on our left. The Battalion’s objective was Dublin Trench from Dublin Redoubt exclusive to a point 400 yards west.

7.30 am – “Zero Hour”. The assault commenced, some shelling but very slight infantry resistance and little machine gun fire encountered, the work of our artillery having been very effective on the German trenches.

8.30 am – the objective was taken at 08.30 am the French on our right gaining their’s at the same hour. Lieutenant-Colonel B C Fairfax and Commandant Le Petit commanding 3^rd Battalion 153^rd Regiment arrived together in Dublin Trench. A and B Companies dug in almost 100 yards south of Dublin Trench which the Germans shelled intermittently all day hardly touching the new trench. Casualties up to 12 noon, Captain E C Torrey commanding C Company, Lt D H Scott commanding A Company and 2^nd Lieutenant P L Wright wounded 100 other ranks. Later in the day the 90^th Brigade took Montauban and the 20^th KLR captured the Briqueterie. Lt Scott died of wounds in a French hospital at Cerisy where Captain Mirascou commanding the left Company of the French also lay wounded. Perfect liaison existed between the French and ourselves the above two officers commanding respectively our right Company and the French left Company being in constant touch. Shortly after the attack commenced the Battalion Headquarters moved to a German dugout in Favieres Support under Briqueterie Road where Commandant Le Petit also established his H.Q. During the remainder of the day there was intermittent bombardment of Dublin and Casement and  Favieres Support trenches. Rations were brought up safely at night. Disposition of the Battalion – 2 Companies in Dublin and 2 in Casement.

Sumter's body was never recovered and he is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. 

On 01^st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.”

His death was announced in ‘The Churchman’, Vol.114:

 “Son of the Rev. Otto and Mrs. Sophia Arnold, New Lennox, Massachusetts.  Killed in action in France, July 2, 1916.” 

Sumter earned his three medals. 

Pension went to his widow Anna Ethel Arnold, 2740 Humboldt Ave S, Minneapolis and his effects went to a John. N. Jarvis.  

Sumter Arnold is commemorated on Worcester Academy Roll of Honour, and on the Official Roster of Ohio Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the World War.

 

We currently have no further information on Sumter Arnold, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.

Grateful thanks are extended to Peter Threlfall for his kind permission to use the photograph of Sumter Arnold.