Fenton John Aylmer

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Sir Fenton John Aylmer, 13th Baronet VC KCB (5 April 1862, Hastings Sussex–3 September 1935) was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross. He was in command of first failed efforts to break the siege of Kut in 1916.

Fenton was 29 years old, and a captain in the Corps of Royal Engineers, British Army during the Hunza-Naga Campaign, India when he won the Victoria Cross in 1891. He was part of the Chitral expedition in 1895. Appointed Lieutenant General. During World War I he was put in charge of the first effort to end the siege of Kut.

General Aylmer was in command the Tigris Corps, consisting of the 7th Indian Division (the Meerut), the 12th Indian division and a number of other smaller military units. All told he had more than 20,000 men. They left Basra in late December 1915 and arrived at Sheikh Sa'ad in January 3, 1916. While the 12th Indian (under command of General Gorringe) made a diversionary move near Nasiriyeh, the 7th (under the command of General Younghusband) staged a direct assault on the Ottoman positions on January 6 (the Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad). After two days of fighting, the Ottoman army withdrew. British losses were some 4,000 casualties - much more than the medical units could cope with.

The Ottoman troops, under the expert generalship of Baron von der Goltz only withdrew some six miles up river and occupied another defensive position near the edge of the Suwaikiya Marshes. A British assault on this position on January 13 was partially successful, the position was carried but again with significant losses (some 1,600 casualties) (the Battle of Wadi).

By now, a third division had been added to Aylmer's Tigris Corps, the 3rd Indian Division (Lahore). This new division, along with the weakened 7th Division, attacked Ottoman defensive works at Hanna on January 21 (the Battle of Hanna). This assault was a complete failure. The Ottoman troops held their trench lines while some 2,700 British soldiers were killed or wounded.

General Aylmer was reinforced with another division, the 13th Division. The next month was spent resting the troops and probing the Ottoman defensive positions. With time running out on General Townshend's garrison in Kut, Aylmer finally launched a two pronged attack on the Ottoman positions, one attack at the Sinn Abtar Redoubt, the other attack at the Dujaila Redoubt. The attacks were launched on March 7, 1915. Both attacks failed due to lack of initiative and an inability to coordinate the timing of the assaults (they ended up being sequential, not simultaneous). The British lost some 4,000 casualties.

Fenton Aylmer was replaced by the former commander of the 12th Indian division, General George Gorringe. He did not command in battle again, retiring from the army in 1919. However from 1922 till his death he was the Commandant of the Royal Engineers.

[edit] The Victoria Cross

Fenton won the VC for the following deed:

On 2 December 1891 during the assault on Nilt Fort, India, Captain Aylmer, with the storming party, forced open the inner gate with gun-cotton which he had placed and ignited, and although severely wounded, fired 19 shots with his revolver, killing several of the enemy, and remained fighting until, fainting from loss of blood, he was carried out of action.

His Victoria Cross is displayed at the Royal Engineers Museum (Chatham, Kent, England)