Executed at Dawn (9 page)

† † †

As the war progressed, it became the accepted practice that at least one of the rifles, which were loaded usually by the APM and the officer in charge, was loaded with a blank cartridge. There are some orders concerning the execution of Private James Carr, of the 2nd Welch Regiment, who was executed for desertion on 7 February 1916, which state that ‘the officer should personally load the rifles, 9 with ball and one unloaded or loaded with blank'.

In addition, some officers then mixed up the rifles. All this was done to help alleviate any feelings of guilt on the part of those in the firing squad, although it is now accepted that an experienced soldier would not have been fooled, as evidenced by Rifleman Henry Williamson (Arthur, 2002): ‘We knew by the recoil if it was loaded with ball or not.'

Nevertheless, this practice did act as a palliative by allowing some of those compelled to be part of the firing squad to convince both themselves and others that whatever the strength of the recoil, they had not fired the fatal shot. An unintended consequence of this practice was that, as a result of the rifles being mixed up, those in the firing squad found themselves having to use a rifle that they were unused to, which did not lend itself to accurate shooting.

Babington (2002) summed this practice up well when he wrote: ‘Right up to the moment of taking aim each member of the firing party could continue to hope that he alone might be absolved from playing a part in the killing of a comrade.'

† † †

One soldier, Corporal Alan Bray, recalled that while he was in the trenches he was told that he would be one of six men detailed to form a firing party to shoot four men from another battalion who had been accused of deserting. He said that this left him very worried because he did not think it right that Englishmen should be shooting other Englishmen, as he thought he was in France to fight the Germans. A further cause for concern was that he thought he understood why these particular men had deserted, given that they had been in the trenches without a break for several months under conditions that would affect any man, adding that consequently, he had no appetite for shooting them.

In letter No.2 that was sent to Ernest Thurtle, the author wrote about the execution, on 26 April 1916, of Private Henry Carter from the 11th Middlesex Regiment, who had been found guilty of desertion. He had deserted after six days and nights of continuous bombardment and was known by his comrades to be ‘a bundle of nerves'
.
The condemned man had joined the army when just 17 years of age and was executed eighteen months later while still underage.

Letter No.5 is in a similar vein, as the writer makes plain that he considered Private William Scholes of the 2nd South Wales Borderers, who was executed on 10 August 1918 for desertion, to have been no coward and ‘one of his best pals'.

Even more disturbing is the case of Private James Smith of the 1st Battalion of the Lancashire Fusiliers, who was found guilty of wilful disobedience and sentenced to death. According to his great-nephew Charles Sandbach (Warren, 2009), most of the firing squad who sympathised with Smith first of all refused to shoot the condemned man and, when forced to do so, deliberately missed the marker over his heart, leaving him wounded but alive. Incredibly, his friend, Private Richard Blundell, was then ordered to shoot him because the officer in charge, Lieutenant Collins, could not do it himself. This story was repeated in the House of Commons during an adjournment debate in 2009, the full text of which is included as Appendix 3, where additional detail about the case of Private James Smith can be found:

Early on the morning of 5 September, a small patrol of soldiers from Jimmy's own unit entered a barn at Kemmel Château in Belgium to clean their weapons prior to re-engagement with the enemy. They were told that, first, they had a special duty to perform, and they were taken outside into a courtyard where they found their friend, Jimmy Smith, blindfolded and tied to an execution chair in front of a wall, with a white target pinned to his tunic, just above his heart. Protesting furiously to the commanding officer, the 12-man firing squad – 11 privates and a non-commissioned officer – was summarily ordered to execute Jimmy. The lads aimed and fired, the majority deliberately missing the target. However, Jimmy was wounded, the chair was knocked over and he lay writhing in agony on the ground.

The young officer in charge of the firing squad was shaking like a leaf, but he knew now that he had to finish Jimmy off by putting a bullet through his brain with his Webley pistol. He lost his nerve, however, and could not fire the pistol in his hand as Jimmy continued to writhe in agony on the ground.

One of Jimmy's friends, 23643 Private Richard Blundell, who hailed from Everton in Liverpool, was then ordered by the commanding officer to take the Webley pistol and kill Jimmy. Jimmy's death was recorded on that day at 5.51 am. The 12 members of the firing squad were given 10 days' leave after that tragic event in the heat of battle. That was unusual.

Private Blundell lived until he was 95 and carried the memory of that day with him until he died. He was heard to utter, when he was near to his own death, ‘What a way to get leave.'

In an article in the
Boston Sunday Globe
(12 November 2000), a veteran by the name of John Laister recalled being part of a firing squad when he was a teenager, and when the time came for him to take aim he saw that the soldier he was about to shoot was younger than him: ‘There were tears in his eyes and tears in mine.'

† † †

Victor Silvester is now known as a famous dance band leader, but in 1914 he was just a boy of nearly 15 years of age who had managed to enlist. His true age was only discovered in 1917 after he was wounded, and he was subsequently sent back to England. He was to claim shortly before his death in 1978 that he had taken part in the execution of five soldiers, because when recovering from his wounds at Étaples in 1917 he was detailed to act as a messenger for the commandant's office. A sharp-eyed officer saw the crossed-rifle badge on Silvester's sleeve, which denoted that he was a first-class marksman, and commented that he would be useful for what he described as ‘special duties'. Silvester was subsequently to find out that this meant having to be a member of a firing squad, and he described one such occasion in graphic detail (Allison and Failey, 1986):

The tears were rolling down my cheeks as he went on attempting to free himself from the ropes attaching him to the chair. I aimed blindly and when the gunsmoke had cleared away we were further horrified to see that, although wounded, the intended victim was still alive. Still blindfolded, he was attempting to make a run for it still strapped to the chair. The blood was running freely from a chest wound. An officer in charge stepped forward to put the finishing touch with a revolver held to the poor man's temple. He had only once cried out and that was when he shouted the one word mother. He could not have been much older than me. We were told later that he had in fact been suffering from shell-shock, a condition not recognised by the army at the time.

Silvester recalled the effects of taking part in an execution as disturbed sleep and physical illness, claiming that he had been hospitalised and strapped to a bed to stop him from deserting. There is, though, some doubt about his recollections, as Corns and Hughes-Wilson contend that his story bears no relation to the facts.

† † †

The condemned prisoner did not always meekly make his way, or allow himself to be easily led, to the stake or chair to be used in his execution, thereby creating further horrors for the firing squad, as was contained in Ernest Thurtle's letter No.1. This letter appears to refer to the death of Private George Ward, 1st Berkshire Regiment, who was executed on 26 September 1914. (The letter gives the date of the execution as 30 September 1914, but the list in Corns and Hughes-Wilson has no executions listed for that date, although Ward was from the 1st Berkshire Regiment so the details appear to match in all other respects.)

The men of the firing squad would already have been feeling somewhat aggrieved by the time Ward was brought to the place of execution, as they had been tricked into being the ones detailed, as was covered earlier in this chapter. Ward, though, was not about to cooperate, and broke free of the sergeant of the guard and ran off. The story is picked up in the letter: ‘…the firing party fired at him on the run, wounding him in the shoulder. They brought him back on a stretcher, and the sergeant of the guard was ordered by the Provost Marshal to finish him off as he lay wounded.'

To the horror of having to shoot one of their own was added the fact that they had not killed him outright and then had to watch him despatched by the sergeant.

† † †

Those involved in a firing squad had a variety of experiences. One soldier recalled being detailed to be part of a firing squad for the execution of a deserter. The prisoner on this occasion was dressed in a set of civilian clothes, and the men were told to shoot at a piece of white cloth pinned over his heart.

Another recalled a Sunday when the whole battalion was made to parade to witness the humiliation of Privates Beverstein and McBride, who had deserted and as a result were to be shot. The two men had their caps and all insignia removed, as part of the army's ritual humiliation of the condemned, told they were to be shot next day, and that they were each to be shot by a pair of their comrades. There was sympathy in the platoon for the two men but even more sympathy for their parents, who were told only that their sons had been killed in action. The soldier added that every man took punishment as a fact of life, as they did death.

Firing squad in 1917.

Sylvia Pankhurst knew Mr and Mrs Beverstein and took up their son's case. She published his letters and protested against the injustice of executing a 19-year-old volunteer who had been in the trenches for eight months and had only just come out of hospital with injuries and shell shock. There was a question in the House of Commons about the case, but the only outcome was that from then on executed soldiers were simply said to have ‘died of wounds'.

Private William Hunt, of the 18th Manchester Regiment, was executed on 14 November 1916 having been found guilty of desertion, and Private P.J. Kennedy, MM, later recalled that he and five others were detailed to form the firing squad. Once the sentence had been promulgated, Kennedy said that the military police took over control of the proceedings, and in an attempt to make the whole business easier for all concerned, they tried to ply the condemned man with alcohol in an attempt to get him drunk – but Hunt refused.

On the eve of the execution, the firing squad was marched to the designated site for the following morning's grim event. While the officers discussed various matters, the men were able to get their first sight of the ‘heavy kitchen chair' that Hunt would be sat on. When the discussions between the officers were finished, the men were briefed and were then taken through a rehearsal, when their officer said, ‘Right. Shall we try it now?'

Hunt was not cooperative the next morning and refused to walk to the stake, ensuring that his would not be an execution marked by quiet dignity as he was dragged into position. Hunt was not blindfolded, either as a result of further non-cooperation or because it was simply overlooked in the rush to get it over and done with.

The men's rifles were taken from them and loaded, one with a blank, and the officer urged them to aim carefully at Hunt, who would be sitting in a chair fewer than ten paces in front of them, as he did not want to have to finish matters off. But the emotion of the occasion got to the men and the officer was required to finish Hunt off with a revolver shot to the head. Maybe as a punishment for not doing their job properly, Kennedy and the others were then detailed to take down the body, clean up the area around the stake and then bury Hunt. When they removed Hunt's body from the chair, Kennedy recalled that one of the men noticed that the dead man's hair was ‘standing up stiff and straight from sheer terror'. To add to their woes, they discovered on arrival at the cemetery near Bailleulment that no grave had been prepared. They then had to borrow some tools and dig the grave themselves, wrapping the body in a waterproof cape.