Shot at Dawn: Killed by those they served

 By Bernard Thompson

Published in The Big Issue in Scotland

Times were hard for the British people in October 1917. The First World War, once expected to have been a brief, glorious affair, was in its fourth year.

The relatives of the men fighting lived in daily fear of the piece of paper telling them that their loved one had become yet another casualty.

Few knew of the conditions on the Western Front where months of constant artillery bombardment, dysentery and trenches awash with mud were the daily norm.

Of all the victims' relatives, none endured a greater pain than the parents of Private Charlie Nicholson and his twin brother, John. Charlie and John were killed within two days of each other. But Mr and Mrs Nicholson received only one bronze commemorative medal.

While John was honoured for sacrificing his life, Charlie's death was to signal disgrace. He was one of 306 soldiers who were "shot at dawn", their crimes ranging from cowardice to striking a senior officer.

The death penalty was removed from such offences in 1929, but details of WWI courts martial were kept secret until 1990. That partly explains why Doris Conroy, who now lives in Glasgow, only learned of the fate of her uncle by chance, three years ago.

Doris's parents took the secret to their graves but she is determined to see all of the men pardoned. She explains, "While on holiday, I read that my Uncle Charles, who like many thousands more, was enticed by the pointing finger of Lord Kitchener, had been one of those executed. I had to do something about it."

The entire transcript of Private Nicholson's Court Martial, is less than 700 words. Although suffering from shell-shock, he was unrepresented and not examined by a doctor.

"Even a passing glance at the Court Martial transcripts condemns the British Army hierarchy as nothing less than war criminals," Doris insists, "Reading my uncle's transcript, it gives the vision of a young lad watching his life ebb away, death a foregone conclusion, no one to speak on his behalf."

Cases such as this inspired the Shot at Dawn campaign founder and leader, John Hipkin. Now 75, Hipkin knows something of the perils of conflict. In WWII, as a 14 year-old in the Merchant Navy, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war.

However, he never planned on leading an international campaign, "I tried to bury those experiences, but I never thought in my wildest imagination that I would pick up a paper in 1990 and read that my uncle's regiment had taken a 17 year-old boy and shot him."

That soldier was Private Herbert Burden, of the Northumberland Fusiliers, one of three under-age soldiers to be executed. "I was brought up to believe that if you took the King's commission, you became an officer and a gentleman," says Hipkin, "and I just couldn't square that with officers sitting in judgement on 16 and 17 year-old boys and sentencing them to death."

While the cases of the underage soldiers appal him most, Hipkin wants to see pardons given to all the men whose offences later had the capital penalty removed. He is scathing of the British military establishment and particularly the fact that they took almost 75 years to release the official records: "It was one of the biggest establishment cover-ups in the first world war. Among the cases were about 60 teenagers."

The official explanation for this delay is that it was intended to protect the accused and their families but Hipkin is dismissive of this: "There's no protection for the families of the executed. You don't just punish the soldier, you punish the family because the army pay stops. At least one family was evicted afterwards."

But, according to Hipkin, there was one good reason for keeping the files secret, "The names, ranks and regiments of the court martial officers are on the front. It's their families who were protected."

There is some evidence to support Hipkin's conclusion. In the notes passed up the chain of command, officers expressed their opinions on the condemned soldiers quite frankly. In the case of Private James Archibald, of the 17th Royal Scots, one officer commented that he was "a typical slum product of low intellect".

Another officer observed that "an example is necessary in the interests of the brigade." As Hipkin emphasises, "These comments were for the officers' eyes only. Private Archibald never saw what was being written about him."

Such attitudes and the fact that only two officers were executed for such crimes has caused Hipkin to formulate a specific view on the subject: "I've never been class-conscious but, after going through a hundred court martial files, it became quite obvious to me that it was a matter of class."

On Remembrance Sunday, this year, veterans will march to the cenotaph alongside Hipkin and his supporters. In only the second year that the S.A.D campaign has been allowed to attend the ceremony, there will be more than a hundred supporters in attendance.

Yet sympathy from the public and veterans; a New Zealand parliamentary pardon for their executed soldiers and support from Canadian Prime Minister, Jean Chrétien, for similar moves in his country, have left the British government unmoved.

The last time the government addressed the issue, former Armed Forces Minister, Dr John Reid, declined to even have a debate on the subject, despite having voted in favour of a pardon while in opposition.

"Reid says that he would like to see the names up on war memorials but that's got nothing to do with him. All the war memorials are run by local city councils," says Hipkin, "The relatives just want a blanket pardon - not compensation - and the thing finished."

While Hipkin insists that the men deserve to be recognised as soldiers wronged by their own side, rather than simply victims of war, a sculpture at the National Arboretum, in Staffordshire, at least provides a fitting memorial.

The centre-piece is a figure of a boy, blindfolded and bound, awaiting the volley of shots. Behind him are 306 posts with plaques bearing the names of all the soldiers killed.

If the mental strain of combat finally broke some soldiers in World War I, many had thrown themselves headlong into the horror of combat and were no cowards. Neither could that charge be levelled with any justification against Doris Conroy or John Hipkin, who has been arrested four times during his dogged campaign.

However, if his dream of a blanket pardon for the 306 soldiers is to be realised, the government will have to capitulate. But in the world of modern politics, do they have the courage?