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Private Arthur Dillon

 

This North Irish Horseman was probably the Arthur William Dillon born on 5 May 1896 at Connellmore, Newbridge, County Kildare, the fourth of five children of land steward Thomas Dillon and his wife Anne (née Batterton). By the time of the 1911 Census he was living at Greatconnell, Newbridge, with his parents and two siblings.

Dillon enlisted in the North Irish Horse on 3 February 1916 (No.2100). He trained at the regiment's Antrim reserve camp until November 1916, when he and around 100 other North Irish Horsemen volunteered to transfer to the Royal Irish Rifles. The formal transfer took place on 7 December (Dillon was issued regimental number 40867), and on that day the men embarked for France. There they were posted to the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles, joining it on the Somme front on 12 December.

Dillon was wounded during the Battle of Passchendaele (Third Ypres), probably on 16 August 1917 at the Battle of Langemarck. The battalion war diary for the day listed 27 other ranks killed, 7 wounded and missing, 170 wounded, and 63 missing.

The injury was severe enough to prevent any further active service. On 15 June 1918 he was discharged, being 'no longer physically fit for war service' (paragraph 392(xvi), King's Regulations).

According to records on Ancestry.com, after the war Dillon emigrated to Canada, on 2 June 1923 marrying Ida May Joyce in Essex, Ontario. He died in June 1967 in Pasadena, California.