Arthur was the older child of Carnarvon and Kate Whittaker. Carnarvon was recorded as a Mariner of the Seas in 1901 and as a Yachting Mate in 1911.

Arthur joined the 1st Hampshire Regiment. His Military Records also state he was a Trooper in the Hants Yeomanry.

The timing of his death would suggest that he was killed in a late offensive by the German army.

On March 21, 1918, near the Somme River in France, the German army launched its first major offensive on the Western Front in two years. 

At the beginning of 1918, Germany's position on the battlefields of Europe looked extremely strong. German armies occupied virtually all of Belgium and much of northern France. With Romania, Russia and Serbia out of the war by the end of 1917, 

conflict in the east was drawing to a close, leaving the Central Powers free to focus on combating the British and French in the west. Indeed, by March 21, 1918, Russia's exit had allowed Germany to shift no fewer than 44 divisions of men to the Western Front.

Winston Churchill, at the front at the time as the British minister of munitions, wrote of his experience on March 21: There was a rumble of artillery fire, mostly distant, and the thudding explosions of aeroplane raids. And then, exactly as a pianist runs his hands across a keyboard from treble to bass, there rose in less than one minute the most tremendous cannonade I shall ever hear. It swept around us in a wide curve of red flame

By the end of the first day, German troops had advanced more than four miles and inflicted almost 30,000 British casualties. As panic swept up and down the British lines of command over the next few days, the Germans gained even more territory.

Arthur’s Medal Entitlement was the Victory Medal and the British War Medal.

 

Lesley Fitt