3258 Sgt Evelyn Guy Whiteman of the 4th (Royal Irish) Dragoon Guards was killed in action 95 years ago today: 6th September 1914. He was 24 years old and the son of Nelson and Eliza Hannah Whiteman of Dover.
Sergeant Whiteman's number indicates that he must have joined the 4th Dragoon Guards - the regiment credited with being the first British unit to fire a shot in the Great War - in late April or early May 1909. According to Soldiers Died in The Great War he was born in Sandhurst, Kent, was living in Dover and enlisted at Canterbury.
Evelyn Whiteman arrived in France on 16th August 1914 and had therefore been overseas for under three weeks before he was killed. He was serving with B Squadron at the time of his death, and is buried in Perreuse Chateau Franco British National Cemetery in France. He was the seventh man from the regiment to be killed, and died in the arms of his squadron sergeant major. The cemetery, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, "contains 150 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 24 of them unidentified, and all brought in from the surrounding battlefields." Evelyn Whiteman's grave reference is 1.D.34.
In October 1920, Nelson Whiteman applied for the clasp and roses for his late son's 1914 Star, and these were duly issued on 13th November that year and sent to Mr Whiteman at 18 Buckland Avenue, Dover.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.
Sources:
Ancestry.co.uk (MIC)
Army Ancestry
Army Service Numbers 1881-1918
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
WW1 Cemeteries for the photo of Perreuse Chateau cemetery
Nic Taylor, for medals and headstone image, and details about Sgt Whiteman's death.
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