Accidental shooting of an officer

[themonsstar]

If you post there names I will have a look for you.

 

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

1 hour ago, themonsstar said:

If you post there names I will have a look for you.

Thank you very much for this offer, but I'm reluctant to post names, as I would wish to respect my grandad's decision to refer to this man (or these men, if we are talking about two different men) only as "X". Actually, there's only one man who might possibly be mentioned in the "self-inflicted wounds" records, the one who faced a s.18 charge. Do you have access to the self-inflicted wounds records during lockdown, by any chance? My understanding is that they are not digitised.

[themonsstar]

Hi

Yes I have a full copy of the SIWs and a lot of other parts of the collection in MH106,  I spent a long time digitising them. However I made a decision years ago that research is research warts and all we are  the custodians but if we hide behind people's opinions from 100 years ago nothing would ever get done so I don't do secrets if you're not prepared to post the research I'm not bothered to produce it so hopefully all the best in your endeavours with your research.

 

Roy

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

No problem at all, Roy, I completely understand what you are saying. In this instance I would prefer to respect my grandad's decision not to name the man or men in question, but thank you anyway for pointing me in the direct of something that might be worth exploring if I ever make it down to Kew.

[themonsstar]

All the best with your research.

 

Both sides of my family had a Great grandfather and grandfather with the 5th Bn LF.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Thanks very much. I wonder if they knew each other - I don't think I said in this post, but my grandad was Norman Hall, with the 2/5th LF in France from 03/05/15 to 09/09/16, and then with the 1/5th LF in Belgium and France from 22/06/17 to 31/07/18.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

On 04/05/2020 at 21:00, RaySearching said:

2nd Lieutenant Cecil Henry Moffatt discharge papers are on Ancestry 

He enlisted on the 31/8/1914 Pte 6531 Manchester Regiment 

discharged from the Manchesters  on the 2/4/1915 as he was granted a commision with the Lancashire Fusiliers

I was looking at the MICs for the Moffat brothers yesterday (copies attached below) and worrying that the information n the Leicester Memorial Project's website mentioned in # 6 might have been incorrect (to the effect that both brothers had first enrolled as privates in the Manchester Batallion), and also that my grandfather might have been mistaken about Leslie saying to him just after Cecil's death, that they had never been apart for very long. Then I realised that Ray Searching had already answered this query in the post quoted above (thank you Ray!), which actually underlines how close the brothers were, as their Regimental numbers were consecutive. And, sadly, also attached below, the photograph of the Memorial of the Robert Smyth School, Market Harborough, shows them still side by side.

I mentioned in # 10 that the CWGC has Leslie as being in the 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, and gives no details of his parents, in contrast to the details they have for Cecil. Does anyone have any experience of correcting the CWGC records? Is it worth writing to them? I realise that they won't be able to put any incription on the headstone unless they find that they had had a request from the next of kin which had not been acted upon, but it would be nice if the Battalion on the headstone could be corrected to 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, and if details of the parents could be included in the records..

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Just posting an update on this thread - someone had a look at the service record of Cecil Moffatt at Kew earlier this week, but it contains no additional information regarding his death or what happened to the man responsible, merely confirming that the death was accidental. Maybe nothing did happen to the man responsible, just as he wished. 

[keithmroberts]

I recall reading of another young officer 2nd Lt Arthur Barker RGA who was accidentally shot and killed on 20 December 1918. His death after investigation was treated as accidental, and I think no disciplinary action was mentioned in the remainder of the file. It is some years since I photographed it, but I think this letter (from WO 339/115502 at the National Archives), provides a summary.

 

Keith

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

11 hours ago, keithmroberts said:

I recall reading of another young officer 2nd Lt Arthur Barker RGA who was accidentally shot and killed on 20 December 1918. His death after investigation was treated as accidental, and I think no disciplinary action was mentioned in the remainder of the file. It is some years since I photographed it, but I think this letter (from WO 339/115502 at the National Archives), provides a summary.

 

Interesting to see how the similar situation was dealt with in 2nd Lieutenant Barker's case. Sad that, having survived the war, he then died less than 2 months later in such unfortunate circumstances,

There is no similar letter in Cecil Moffatt's file, in fact no mention of any investigation at all, but the timing of the accident (when they had just come into the Somme front line area) might account for that, as it must have been difficult, if not impossible, to keep on top of administrative matters; and it is also quite possible that the man responsible may himself have died within a few days.

[keithmroberts]

The file on Arthur Barker had a few pages on the subject. I only came upon it by accident while looking for another young officer of the same name.

It's hard to think of the parents, whose son had survived 2 or 3 years of war, and then to lose him at that time. The first time my stepson went to Iraq  my ex was truly tense throughout every day that he was there. Once he was on the way home, everything seemed much easier, and parental love was surely no different 100 years ago.

 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

20 hours ago, keithmroberts said:

It's hard to think of the parents, whose son had survived 2 or 3 years of war, and then to lose him at that time. T

 

Yes, it's a truism that you never cease to worry about your children, however old they are, but parents who had had several years of intense worry about their sons serving abroad during WW1 must surely have felt that they were entitled to just a short breathing space of not worrying about them after the Armistice. But it wasn't to be for young Arthur Baker's parents.

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

Reverting to the question that I posed in my very first post on this thread (also, incidentally, my very first post on this Forum) regarding the FGCM that my grandfather attended on 11 September 1917, it occurred to me at some point during the intervening two years that some of my grandfather's contemporaneous pocket diaries, which he used as an aide memore for the full-length diary which he began writing immediately after the war, have survived. It occurred to me that my GF might have written the actual name of the man who was dealt with at the FGCM in a pocket diary, rather than merely referring to him as "Private X", as he does in his main diary, since the pocket diaries would have been completely private (not that I think that he himself intended to publish his main diary, but I suppose he thought it likely that his friends and ex-comrades might read it).

The pocket diaries, like the full length diary, are in the IWM in London, so looking at them had to await my first post-covid visit to the IWM. That took place earlier this month, and, as I had anticipated, the name is stated in the pocket diary. I won't post it here, as, as I said earlier in the thread, I prefer to respect my GF's decision to keep the name confidential, but the name is indeed one of the three I had identified as potential candidates in my first post. The man in question was charged under s.40 of the Army Act 1881, and received a penalty of 50 days' Field Punishment No 1 (I previously misread this as 56 days).

As s.40 outlaws  "any act, conduct, disorder, or neglect, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline", I am still no wiser as to what the actual offence was. The record of the FGCM refers to "s.40 (2)" , or possibly "s.40 (?)". I think that the former is more likely, but s. 40 has no sub-sections, so I am not sure what the "2" could refer to, I am aware that this thread https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/240642-the-army-act-in-effect-during-the-conflict/#comment-2417203 refers to s.40/2, and @Knottysaid at one point, after referring to the Manual of Military Law 1914, "The /2 refers to the charge using the correct wording that should be used as per specimen charge sheets Nos.75 to 77, there are then a further 6 pages of offences (including murder, rape, desertion", but I can't see that the thread went on to state specifically what the "/2" designated - maybe it was still not clear even after reading the 6 pages!

I have come to believe that it is very unlikely that the man who faced an FGCM on 11 September 1917 was the same as the man who accidentally shot and killed Lieutenant Moffatt in August 1916. I now realise that accidents with firearms were not uncommon, though the consequences in this case were extreme, and also I am of the view, rightly or wrongly, that if the man's offence was believed to be  negligence or neglect rather than any deliberate act (certainly my GF' was convinced that it was purely accidental), and he was going to be dealt with at an FGCM rather than a more formal Court Martial, he would most likely have been dealt with very swiftly, and would not have had to wait a year to discover his fate, even if my GF was regarded as being a key witness.

Therefore, it is probable that the man who was dealt with at the FGCM on 11 September 1917 was a different man whose transgression, whatever it was, might have caused him embarrassment if the folks back home had known about it, and therefore my GF chose to refer to him also simply as "X".

 

[Chasemuseum]

On 21/07/2022 at 04:16, A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy said:

"any act, conduct, disorder, or neglect, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline"

For the Australian Army, this charge was still in use in the 1970s when I wore green. It meant that the officer was annoyed with you. It is a beautifully ambiguous charge. There is no possible defence, you are automatically guilty, and you have to just accept the punishment. In my case I added to it when I knew it was coming, may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb.