Major-General Frederick Drummond Vincent Wing, CB (29 November 1860 – 2 October 1915) was a senior officer of the British Army during the First World War and was one of three British divisional commanders killed in action in the space of a week in the aftermath of the Battle of Loos. Wing had served in the army for over thirty years at the time of his death, having been commissioned into the Royal Artillery in 1880. He had served with distinction in the Second Boer War and been an aide de camp to Lord Roberts in 1903.
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Military career
Frederick Wing was born in Christchurch, Hampshire in November 1860, the son of Major Vincent Wing and Gertrude Elizabeth Wing (née Vane). In May 1880 aged nineteen, Wing joined the Royal Horse Artillery after graduating from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Wing rose in prominence in the regiment, and was promoted to captain on 12 September 1888 (or 13 October 1893?), and major on 31 March 1898. He was on 25 April 1892 appointed as an aide-de-camp to Lieutenant General Sir Evelyn Wood.
He served in South Africa for the Second Boer War between 1899 and 1902, where he took part in operations in Natal in late 1899, including engagements at Talana. The following year, he took part in the defence of Ladysmith and was present at the Battle of Lombard's Kop, where he was slightly wounded, and for which he was mentioned in despatches and received a brevet promotion as lieutenant-colonel on 29 November 1900. In early 1902, he was again wounded, but discharged to duty shortly before the end of hostilities, in May 1902. In a despatch dated 23 June 1902, Lord Kitchener wrote that Wing had "high reputation for boldness and dash" and had "rendered good service." He left Cape Town on board the SS Dunvegan Castle in late June 1902, and arrived at Southampton the next month. For his service in the war, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in the October 1902 South Africa Honours list.



