Refusing to take part in a firing squad

[Sgt Stripes]

Has there ever been a case of someone refusing to take part in a firing squad and if there was, what would the punishment be. 

[mancpal]

Yet another WW1 topic of which I know at best very little though I imagine no right minded soldier would volunteer therefore I feel they must have been ordered to take part and failure to do so would be viewed as defying orders hence punishment must follow. Would it be the fear of being 'next against the wall' for refusing, or was their conscience salved by being told that not all the death squad were issued with live ammunition therefore they could have fired the blank? I look forward to following this thread as I really know nowt about the subject though, while I'm at it, how were the men who took part in the execution received by their pals on their return? I'd have hoped with deepest sympathy in that they had no option but it isn't too difficult to imagine a popular man becoming victim to the prevailing system and those who actually took part, being far less or even thoroughly unpopular, becoming a bit of a target among already stressed comrades .

 

Simon

[MaureenE]

There perhaps might be something in the books available online

 

 

Shootings at Dawn: The Army Death Penalty at Work by Ernest Thurtle MP. Published 1920s. Archive.org. Ernest Thurtle Wikipedia. He campaigned in the 1920s to bring about the abolition of the death penalty for cowardice or desertion in the British Army.

 

The Men I Killed by Brigadier General F P Crozier 1937 Archive.org, Public Library of India Collection. Frank Percy Crozier Wikipedia. He commanded the 9th (Service) Battalion of the 107th (Ulster) Brigade and subsequently commanded the 119th (Welsh) Brigade. Biographical details, including obituary theauxiliaries.com.

 

For the Sake of Example : Capital Courts-Martial, 1914-1920 by Anthony Babington 1983 Archive.org Lending Library. Executions in the British Army.

 

Maureen

[peregrinvs]

1 hour ago, mancpal said:

or was their conscience salved by being told that not all the death squad were issued with live ammunition therefore they could have fired the blank?

I’ve read elsewhere that this is a myth. It would have been quite obvious to the firer whether their rifle had been loaded with a blank due to the minimal recoil compared to firing a ball round.

[mancpal]

These were my thoughts also, I've never fired anything more serious than my.22 air rifle but even then you can tell between firing a pellet and shooting it without. If as we both suspect there is no truth in the blank round theory I wonder where the story began? Was it a rumour spread to the troops to appease the potential backlash of having to shoot their own, could there be truth in it though from a previous conflict? When did the British begin execution by firing squad and is there anything in past archives that suggests the blank theory existed prior to WW1. 

None of this answers the original question. I would like to think that an element of sympathy may have crept in if dealing with say, the condemned man and the firing squad member coming from the same village/town or other similarly close connection . I hope I haven't deflected away from the original topic and look forward to reading the responses.

 

Simon

[Coldstreamer]

Having fired blank and live 303 rounds using lee Enfield for example here is a huge difference.  You would have to know the difference

[WhiteStarLine]

37 minutes ago, Coldstreamer said:

You would have to know the difference

Spot on, think of the phrase "kick like a mule".  I cannot understand why this myth persists.

[healdav]

51 minutes ago, Coldstreamer said:

Having fired blank and live 303 rounds using lee Enfield for example here is a huge difference.  You would have to know the difference

In the BBC 1960s series on the war, a man who took part in a firing squad said they were told that one of them had a blank. He never said that you could tell the difference after the firing, but his face said that he didn't fire the blank.

[ianjonesncl]

5 hours ago, Coldstreamer said:

Having fired blank and live 303 rounds using lee Enfield for example here is a huge difference.  You would have to know the difference

Would the rifles need to be pre-loaded with a clip and handed to the firers ?  If not they would know when they loaded the clip. 

[chaz]

I was always led to believe the rifles were pre loaded by another soldier and the squad were given  the rifles so not having to load  themselves

[ilkley remembers]

A few days ago a link to the BBC Archive came up on my Facebook page which showed an interview with a WW1 veteran who stated that he refused to go on a firing squad. The original may have come from the documentary series 'The Great War' but cannot be absolutely sure without some research. This link may work but if not then perhaps it is on BBCi Player.

 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=853203772092667

[ianjonesncl]

I came across this book on a forum post which may be of interest:

 

Executed at Dawn: British Firing Squads on the Western Front 1914-1918: Amazon.co.uk: David Johnson: 9780750959179: Books

[Sgt Stripes]

The Link provided by ilkley remembers sheds a bit of light of someone refusing to join a firing squad. I found the soldier who was being interviewed gave a really honest opinion as to why some men would refuse to undertake this order. 

[Steven Broomfield]

In his book, The Middle Parts of Fortune. (a fictionalised memoir in many ways), Frederic Manning discusses a deserter who escapes and it caught, being returned to the battalion. The men have no sympathy for him and, IIRC, believe he should have been shot the first time.

 

I wouldn't necessarily assume that the average Tommy was overburdened with compassion for blokes who left their mates in the lurch.

 

I also suspect that, were a man to refuse to take part, he would be shot. There were plenty of other punishments. 

[ilkley remembers]

4 hours ago, Steven Broomfield said:

n his book, The Middle Parts of Fortune. (a fictionalised memoir in many ways), Frederic Manning discusses a deserter who escapes and it caught, being returned to the battalion. The men have no sympathy for him and, IIRC, believe he should have been shot the first time.

 

Read the book in its censored version, 'Her privates we' but I know the passages that you are referring to when Bourne first ruminates on the possibility of having to shoot Miller as part of a firing squad. Despite his slightly convoluted thought process Bourne doesn't really come to any real conclusion as to his feelings should he have to do it.....a bit like Hamlet really, who likewise couldn't make his mind up and with whom I suspect Manning rather identifies. 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

6 hours ago, ilkley remembers said:

A few days ago a link to the BBC Archive came up on my Facebook page which showed an interview with a WW1 veteran who stated that he refused to go on a firing squad. The original may have come from the documentary series 'The Great War' but cannot be absolutely sure without some research. This link may work but if not then perhaps it is on BBCi Player.

 

I'm so glad that @ilkley remembers remembered this one, as when I first saw this thread I recollected someone reminiscing that they believed that taking part in a firing squad was the one thing a soldier could refuse to do, but I couldn't recall immediately the source of my recollection. I thought it was something I had read at first, but had just come to the conclusion that it was almost certainly an interview I had heard on the BBC at about the time of Remembrance Day last year when Ilkley's post popped up, which was indeed the interview I was thinking of, and I am now certain that it was in an omnibus edition of the Voices of the First World War. Following the link given by Ilkley reveals that the interviewee was Allan Bray, and googling him brings up the original source https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80004017 , from which it transpires that he was an NCO with the 1st Bn Wiltshire Regiment, 7th Brigade, 3rd Division, and that the incident occurred during a period of rest at Dickebusch in May 1915. I know that others have doubted whether you could in fact refuse, In the course of flicking through With A Machine Gun to Cambrai where I initially thought I might have seen the account of refusing to take part, I found that George Coppard says when talking of executions for desertion that he was "horrified at this terrible military law and scared stiff that one day (I) would be picked for a firing squad". He wonders whether he would have been able to fire at a fellow soldier, but then concludes "To be honest, I don't think that I would have refused", and goes on to talk about a "code of slavish obedience to orders".Did he think he had a genuine option to refuse if he felt sufficiently strongly about it, or only at the risk of bringing severe punishment on himself? I can't be sure either way.

[healdav]

17 hours ago, chaz said:

I was always led to believe the rifles were pre loaded by another soldier and the squad were given  the rifles so not having to load  themselves

That was the impression I got from the veteran's account.

[QUEX]

I've always assumed the pre-loading and one one blank round thing was intended to achieve the effect that up to the moment of pulling the trigger a soldier could believe that there was a chance he was not going to shoot the prisoner - as others have pointed out the difference between ball and blank would be immediately obvious to the firer. 

[chaz]

but were there blanks, with the charge but without the projectile, this would give the effect needed?

[Matlock1418]

 

1 hour ago, chaz said:

were there blanks, with the charge but without the projectile, this would give the effect needed?

So far as I understand it blanks were/are typically designed, without the bullet/ball, to make a noise to simulate the firing of a weapon during training, not to project anything or to increase recoil - but because there is no bullet they do not produce the recoil that is created by a bullet passing down the barrel.

So far as I can tell there is typically no point in increasing the blanks charge just to increase the recoil which is usually a rather annoying side effect.

In fact blanks require a temporary blank firing device/attachment for automatic and semi-automatic actions to cycle for multi shot without recocking the weapon to manually cycling the action along the lines required by a bolt action rifle.

If you wished to project something else like a rifle grenade then I believe they often involved a bullet trap rather than an increased blank charge.

If there were special higher charged blanks for firing other types of rifle grenades I don't think the Army would have been so sensitive so as to provide them, just for the purpose of increasing the recoil so as to assuage the feelings of a firing party member.  Not least since they had military law to dissuade any non-compliance by such members.

Happy to be otherwise/further educated.

:-) M

 

 

 

Edited 25 March , 2021 by Matlock1418

[WhiteStarLine]

2 hours ago, Matlock1418 said:

the recoil that is created by a bullet passing down the barrel

Your post is spot on but the pedant in me is compelled to point out that Newton's Third Law applies and it is the recall caused by the explosion in the chamber and the propellant / projectile action and reaction.  The barrel is a convenience to guide the direction of the projectile.

 

2 hours ago, Matlock1418 said:

charge but without the projectile

A rocket-propelled weapon would achieve this effect but the first demonstration of these was a few days before Armistice, so they were not available in the timeframe.  My experience is decades out but the Carl Gustav 84mm anti-armoured weapon was rated to ruin the day of any tank commander within hundreds of metres and it had zero recoil.

[Matlock1418]

9 hours ago, WhiteStarLine said:

Your post is spot on but the pedant in me is compelled to point out that Newton's Third Law applies and it is the recall caused by the explosion in the chamber and the propellant / projectile action and reaction.  The barrel is a convenience to guide the direction of the projectile.

Pedant away!

Accuracy is better - so happy to have been reminded about physics long lost/forgotten and to have a more accurate explanation!

;-) M

Edited 26 March , 2021 by Matlock1418
shortened

[Ron Clifton]

I have read an account, probably in one of the standard works on capital courts-martial, where men selected for a firing squad were pleading with the sergeant who chose them, and even offering bribes, hoping to be let off the duty.

 

I don't think that taking part in a firing squad was something that a soldier could refuse to do. It is not mentioned as such in the Army Act, and it would certainly be a case of disobedience of a lawful order. Although this itself carried a potential death sentence I very much doubt that such a sanction was ever imposed during the Great War.

 

I understand that the rifles were loaded by another soldier, but as others have pointed out, whatever the soldiers were told, they would know whether they had fired a live round or a blank.

 

As to the use of a firing squad, there is the classic 18th century case of Admiral John Byng, who was shot on his own quarterdeck by a squad of Marines. There is also the case of Marshal Ney, who was shot after the overthrow of Napoleon. He was hit by eleven bullets by a squad of twelve but, as one source pithily remarked, "one soldier had the good taste to hit the top of the wall."

 

Ron

[kenf48]

Thank you Ron for steering us back on topic, the issue of 'Shot at Dawn' on the GWF has always been controversial but a specific question has been asked.

 

No soldier would or could refuse to undertake the duties of a firing party.  The literature has many accounts where men who were struck off for the duty  pleaded with their officers and NCOs not to undertake it, but outright refusal would, as Ron says, would mean disobedience to orders. 

 

Whilst there was a lack of consistency as to the process, once the sentence had been promulgated a number of accounts describe how the Battalion was called on parade and formed a square.  The prisoner was brought out and the Assistant Provost Marshal read the offence and the sentence, the prisoner was then led away.  After promulgation events moved rapidly.  The firing party might be formed from his Company, or the four Companies of the Battalion, and often they themselves were defaulters.  On occasion their first job was to dig the grave the night before, and it was often at this point the realisation of their task dawned on them.  The advantage of using defaulters is that they were themselves under close control.  On other occasions Company Commanders might be ordered to detail a couple of men, given the nature of the task and the fact they were shooting one of their own human nature is they would detail men who had caused them grief in the past.

 

I have not read any account where blanks were used, or where the rifles were loaded by another soldier. That's not to say it didn't happen but it begs the question why would they? In one account the men selected were told not to hesitate or flinch as the most humane course for the condemned man was to shoot straight and accurately. 

 

The whole point of the grisly pantomime was to instill discipline, one of the criteria that was used to influence the final decision of the C-in-C was a recommendation from the Brigadier as to the discipline in the Brigade.  George Coppard describes how before his Battalion first went into action they were formed into a square and the names of all those who had previously been shot for cowardice or desertion were read to them.  The obvious implication, and the one drawn by George, being stand and fight or else this could happen to you.

 

In his diary the Reverend Bickersteth recounts his presence at his first execution and describes the whole process, from promulgation to digging the grave and then as Padre sitting with the condemned man through the night. Once the prisoner is led out the actual execution is over in minutes.  The prisoner is led out and bound to a stake and, "it takes just three or four seconds for the firing party to do their work." He notes, " Poor lads - I was sorry for them.  They felt it a good deal and I followed them out of the yard at once and spoke to them and handed them cigarettes."  He then arranges or the body to be taken away for a  'Christian burial' in the prepared grave at the nearest cemetery. 

He does not recount the second occasion in such detail save to say of all the deaths he witnessed none affected him as much as the young soldier who was executed on that occasion.

 

Returning to the original question and notwithstanding how the men were selected for the firing party the wider implication is the whole structure of the Army depended on the discipline afforded by the class structure at the time.  The fact that other ranks knew their place meant they would carry out the most unpleasant tasks if ordered to do so.  In part this subservience had implications for all they were asked to do.  The majority came from the working and lower middle class and well used to being told what to do, they might grumble and complain but in the end they just got on with it.  Organised labour may have existed at home but not in the BEF.

 

[ianjonesncl]

I have a list of 11 Gunners.

Gunners - Shot at Dawn - Northumbrian Gunner meanderings - Great War Forum

 

Anyone any idea what the procedure was with non-infantry units ? 

 

I checked one looked at one case, Driver Hamilton of 38 Brigade RFA executed 3rd October 1916. The war diary of 38 Bde RFA for that day records;

"GUILLEMONT Normal firing carried out by day & night on trenches in Brigade Zone"

 

Being engaged providing fire support would they need to send men back to form a firing squad ?