Pte. Henry Hampton 108267

3^rd Canadian Mounted Rifles/ 2^nd C.M.R

Regimental Number 108267

Henry Hampton was born on April 8^th, 1888 in Dummer Township, Ontario. He was the son of William and Elizabeth (Baignet) Hampton.  The family farmed in Dummer until at least 1901.  Sometime after, as a young man, Henry and his two brothers, Isaac and William, travelled west to farm.

Henry was living in Alberta and working as a famer when he enlisted in the 3^rd Canadian Mounted Rifles in Medicine Hat on December 18^th, 1914.  He was nearly 27 years old, stood 5 feet, 11 inches tall and had a fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair.  Henry was a member of the Church of England, unmarried and had no previous military experience.

Henry trained with the 3^rd C.M.R.s in western Canada until early June 1915, at which time they left Alberta by train for Montreal.  After arriving, the troops boarded the S.S. Megantic on June 12^th and sailed for England, arriving there ten days later.  

Though the 3^rd Mounted Rifles had trained in Canada as horse-mounted troops, they landed in France on September 22, 1915 as infantry.  They began indoctrination into the trenches in parties of around a hundred men in late September in a quiet sector of the line at Ploegstreet-Messines.   Much of October was spent in the capacity of working parties in the same region, though Henry spent a week hospitalized with Influenza from the 11^th to the 17^th.

By November the 3^rd C.M.R.s were holding stretches of the front lines at Hill 60, six miles southwest of Ypres.  Though no major actions were fought here during this time, the Mounted Rifles sustained a steady loss of men through November and December from enemy shelling.

The 3^rd Mounted Rifles went through a reorganization in January of 1916, and Henry’s Regiment the 3^rd, was reorganized into various other Mounted Rifle Battalions.  Henry was taken on strength into the 1^st Canadian Mounted Rifles on January 3^rd 1916.  He began training behind the lines with his new battalion in January, but again fell ill, this time with tonsillitis from January 22^nd to 29^th.

By February, Henry and the 1^st Mounted Rifles moved into the trenches near Sanctuary Wood in the Ypres Sector.  They would spend the next four months in and out of the front lines there.  His unit suffered steady casualties, referred to as “trench wastage”, the daily loss of life through enemy shelling, sniping and accidents.  Their time there came to disastrous culmination on April 2^nd, when the Germans launched a massive attack on the line in that area.  Proceeded by the detonation of four mines under Canadian lines and a massive artillery barrage, the German troops overran the remnants of the 1^st and 4^th Mounted Rifle Battalions who had been holding the front lines.  The fighting was vicious, often hand-to-hand and would claim 80% of the Mounted Rifles as casualties.  Henry Hampton was one of the few of his battalion who made it out of the battle without a scratch.  The battalion, which had been reduced to less than a quarter of its size, was pulled off the line and spent the summer being put back together and training the new recruits that filled its ranks.

By September 1916, Hampton and the First Mounted Rifles were back in the line, this time in front of the ruined village of Courcellette and preparing for their turn in the Somme Offensive.  The first major assault came on September 15^th when they were charged with capturing the enemy trenches in front of a position referred to as Monquet Farm. During the night prior to the attack, leading elements of the 1^st Mounted Rifles crept into No Man’s Land under the cover of darkness, hoping to narrow the ground that would have to be covered during the assault.  The men waited in the cover of shell holes at the edge of the area where a creeping barrage was to start and move forward towards the German trenches.  Almost immediately things went awry when the barrage fell short and landed on top of the Mounted Rifles in No Man’s Land causing heavy casualties.  The barrage lifted and fell on the enemy lines, but did little to crush the opposition that the Rifles faced when they advanced.  The assault through heavy machine gunfire and counter shelling, eventually captured the fortified trenches in front of Monquet Farm by midday, at a cost of 80 men killed, 179 wounded, and 11 missing.  Though Hampton’s Battalion was cut up in the assault they would continue to fight on the Somme until the end of October, at which time they were pulled out of the line and sent to the Vimy sector to regroup and train for the assault that would take place there the following spring.

There are no records of Hampton being wounded during these two major assaults, which is short of miraculous.  While stationed at Vimy, Hampton received a well-deserved leave to the U.K.  He left his unit for ten days beginning on December 12^th.   There is no record of how he spent his time in England, but one could imagine it was a welcome reprieve from the misery of the trenches. 

Hampton returned to the Mounted Rifles at Vimy in time to spend Christmas of 1916 in France.  He cycled into the front line on December 29^th and during this stretch of time in the trenches Hampton’s luck ran thin.  He was one of eight men wounded (6 others were killed when their dugout collapsed on them) by enemy shelling on the 31^st of December.  Henry was immediately evacuated by the 8^th Field Ambulance where shrapnel wounds to his leg were dressed.   Further down the line at the Casualty Clearing station, he received an operation to cut away the damaged muscle and tissue on his left calf.  After stabilizing Hampton was evacuated to the Canadian Hospital in Le Treport, France on January 3^rd, before being further transported back to the England.  He remained in the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington a month before being discharged on February 19^th 1917.  Hampton was declared permanently unfit for further military service and was ordered to return to Canada to receive further rehabilitation for his leg.

Hampton sailed on the hospital ship S.S. Esquibo on February 25^th for Canada. 

A photo which accompanied the medals of Isaac and
William Hampton.  On the reverse was written
 "Ike and Bill Hampton".  I think that it is
most likely Henry and William (Bill)  though,
but it cannot be  certain.  Both Henry
and Bill were wounded in France. 

 

After arriving in Canada he remained in Kingston, Ontario while he received treatment for his wounds and rehabilitation services.  Doctors recorded his progress as follows:  “Leg is weak, cannot walk without a boot, leg swells after walking, can only walk 2 miles at a time.”  On August 31, 1917, after several months of care, Henry signed himself out of care, against doctor’s wishes.  He returned to Medicine Hat, Alberta, to farm with his brother William, another First World War Veteran.  Henry Hampton died in Cawston, British Columbia on August 26^th 1953.

Sources

Archives of Ontario. Registrations of Births and Stillbirths – 1869-1913. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Series: MS929; Reel: 89.

Library and Archives Canada. Census of Canada, 1891. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Census Place: Dummer, Peterborough East, Ontario; Roll: T-6363; Family No: 111

Library and Archives Canada. Sixth Census of Canada, 1921. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: RG 31; Folder Number: 8; Census Place: Medicine Hat, Alberta; Page Number: 1

Canada. "Military Service File of Henry Hampton." Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa: Record Group 150, Accession 1992-93/166, Box 9692-57. Item Number 269279.