Company Quartermaster Sergeant Arnold Penman
643810
Born 1878 Ashton, Underlyne, Lancashire, England
Lived in Orillia, ON
Killed in Action - Dec 31, 1917
Buried at Mazingarbe Communal Cemetery Extension
Where does the line exist between duty and expectation when it comes to enlisting to fight and serve? Is it dependent upon when the line is to be drawn or the urgency and need for men to replace those who have fallen? What about married men? Men with children? Should they be called upon to serve? A cause as righteous as the Great War for Civilization (as it was referred to at the time) would it matter one’s age? For some men, the cause was too great and they felt it was their duty to forgo their familiar responsibilities and join the war. One such gentlemen was a man named Arnold Penman.
Arnold Penman was 37 years of age. Just a few years prior, he uprooted his family from their home in England and moved all the way across the world to end up in the sleepy lakeside town of Orillia. Alice, his wife and two young daughters, Lilian and Vera, would hope to establish a new home and life in Canada. Within two years of arriving, however, war broke out and two years after that they came looking for men to sign up and fight ‘over there’. The 157th was the local battalion and long queues of men sought to partake in the big adventure. One would expect that he looked out of sorts when he took his place in the line. Arnold was at least double the age of most of the lads. He would more easily have known the fathers’ of the boys signing up than the young lads themselves. Yet, the draw of expectation and duty was too great for the aging gent and Arnold Penman put pen to paper an joined the cause.
One can imagine the sight of the middle-aged father scaling the heights of the make-shift parapet or plunging his bayonet into the bag serving as the Kaiser. In basic training, the almost 40 yr old soldier would have had to accomplish the same physical exercises as the boys. Yet one could imagine that very morning his body would remind him of his true age. The battalion set off for England in the fall and continued their training at Camp Bramschott. It was here where the officers determined that Arnold would best suit a job fitting his both age and relative fitness…thus, he was appointed Company Quartermaster Sergeant.
For those unaware and unfamiliar with the structure of a battalion, each battalion consisted of about 800-1000 men and was split up into Companies consisting of about 200 men each. A company of 200 men required a significant amount of organization to transport, feed, house, cloth and supply with weapons and ammunition. This was the job of the Quartermaster. Whether the platoons of soldiers be in reserve or up in the line, Arnold had to make sure they were fed. He also needed to make sure they were equipped to fight and had blankets to keep them warm. From the lad’s perspective, Arnold would have been the fatherly figure who looked after them. From warm socks to a fresh pair of pants to replace the ones torn to shreds from crawling through the mud…Quartermaster Penman was their man.
He served as CQMS in both the 157th and in the 116th when they were deployed to France. Prior to every engagement, Penman would be the one who supplied the officers with their jugs of rum to give the men a little liquid courage. He would also be the one who had to adjust the food, clothing and supplies when the battalion reported so many of the men as dead, missing or injured after a night over the bags. That was the plight and burden of the quartermaster…to know the fresh faces, clothe them, feed them and protect them with arms….and to be one of the first in the morning to know their loss when they did not report back for their rations or a change of fresh clothes.
The records do not tell the story of his death…other than “1 other rank wounded, now died.” The battalion has just moved from the line to their Billets in the areas of Houchin. This was a village located west of the town of Lens. It could have been an unlucky shell or the skilled work of a sniper as he supervised the movement of supplies to the front…one would never know. However, it would be certain that the loss of their Quartermaster, the now 40 yr old fatherly figure, Albert Penman would be felt greatly by the men.
Sergeant Penman gave it all…and some may say he gave too much.
Lest we forget.