SECOND LIEUTENANT WARREN KEMP FENN-SMITH
ROYAL FLYING CORPS
18TH JANUARY 1918 AGE 18
BURIED: CHOCQUES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
This beautiful, melancholy inscription comes from Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which dwells at length on the transient nature of all things. Warren Fenn-Smith was 18 when his plane was shot down. Lieutenant Seton Montgomerie's diary records the details:
'Fenn-Smith and Cornforth shot down at 10.25 near Hulluck but in our lines. Both killed, probably a shot from the ground or may have been two Huns – fire broke out, and bombs went off. Smith had one of our machines and nearly took mine as his own flight was short of machines'. The next day Montgomerie records matter-of-factly that he 'went to Smith and Cornforth's funerals at Chocques in the afternoon'.