Executed at Dawn (24 page)

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 twelve members of the firing squad were given ten days' leave after that tragic event in the heat of battle. That was unusual.

Richard Blundell died in Liverpool seventy years later in February 1989, when he was well into his nineties. As he fell in and out of consciousness, his son William heard him utter the words, ‘What a way to get leave.' Eventually the story that I have just told about Jimmy's execution emerged, and Richard Blundell's final request to his son was to seek forgiveness from Jimmy Smith's family for what he had done. His action on that morning in September 1917 had clearly been on his mind for seventy years. It was the first time that his family can recall his speaking of his experiences in the Great War. The author of a book on the Liverpool pals had tried unsuccessfully to interview him about his experiences. In my view, Dickie Blundell also faced a life sentence, perhaps worse than the fate of Private James Smith – we will never know.

For a long time after the great war of 1914–18, shame hung over the families of soldiers such as Private James Smith and their names were not added to those of their comrades on our war memorials or rolls of honour, or written into our books of remembrance. However, Mrs Freda Hargreaves has told me that her family felt no shame and that they proudly owned a photograph of Jimmy, which stood over the mantelpiece for many years after the war ended.

After a long campaign, the Labour Government pardoned those soldiers who were shot at dawn, like Private James Smith in 1917. An amendment to the Armed Forces Bill was introduced in the autumn of 2006 to pardon 306 soldiers, and the measure received Royal Assent on 8 November 2006. I am pleased that several colleagues who played an important role in bringing that about are present in the Chamber, and I thank them for being here.

However, Private James Smith's name has still not been added to the book of remembrance in Bolton Town Hall, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary believes that it now should be. I believe that Jimmy Smith was the only soldier from Bolton to be shot at dawn in the Great War. At least today we have recognised him for what he obviously was – by no means a coward, but an extremely brave soldier who was made seriously ill by his traumatic experiences in several battles in the Great War. He is buried in the military cemetery at Kemmel Château in Belgium in grave M.25. On the grave are the words, ‘Gone but not forgotten'. I hope that he will always be remembered by the people of Bolton and that his bravery will finally be recognised. In a different way, he also paid the ultimate price for the rest of us. He, too, laid down his life for our freedom, albeit in a different way.

As a footnote, I can tell my hon. Friend that tomorrow evening I expect that Bolton council will agree to add Private James Smith's name to the roll of honour, and that a ceremony will be held later this year. We have suggested that an appropriate date would be 27 June, which is Armed Services Day.

Bolton council has let it be known that it is prepared to add any other names to its roll of honour that have been missing to date for any reason. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that all local authorities should be encouraged to follow suit.

8.58 pm

John Reid (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab):
I was not aware of the subject of the debate until about twenty minutes ago. I heard the opening words of my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South-East (Dr. Iddon) as I left the Chamber, and came back precisely to identify myself with his comments.

I was the Minister who reopened the subject in 1997–98, and I remember it well. In all my years in Government and in the nine posts that I held, I cannot think of any more heart-wrenching task that I took on or was given to me. I personally examined about half the 306 cases, and I am eternally grateful to the officials who went through them, including my military adviser at the time, Simon Gillespie, who sat up, night after night, going through individual cases.

I will not rehearse some of the heart-breaking stories, but I will say this. First, recognising the suffering undergone by those who were executed at dawn and their families is in no way to minimise the equal sacrifices of those who went over the top. I believe that they were all victims. Secondly – this is the only respect in which I differ slightly from my hon. Friend – we should not issue a carte blanche condemnation of the military hierarchy. The truth is that there were some 30,000 cases that could have qualified for a death sentence, but 90 per cent of those concerned did not receive one. Of the 3,000 who did, 90 per cent of those sentences were commuted by the military hierarchy. The records were destroyed, I think in 1924. However, it is extremely likely that the reason why those 2,700 sentences were commuted and only 306 individuals were condemned to death – that is a large number, however, because it is 306 tragedies – is, I believe, although I cannot prove this because the evidence has gone, probably that in many cases the medical and the mental condition of the person who had been sentenced to death was recognised.

Dr. Iddon:
If I gave the impression that I was being critical of the military at that time, it is the wrong impression. They were different times and they were difficult times. People were in the heat of battle and I recognise that they did what they had to do.

John Reid:
Perhaps I phrased my comment wrongly. It was not meant as a vicarious criticism of my hon. Friend; it was about whether people recognised shell shock or post-traumatic stress, or whatever it was at the time. I believe that many people did, albeit not because of medical evidence, but because of their personal experience. I think that that is why 2,700 death sentences out of those 3,000 cases were eventually commuted.

Having said those two things, I do not think that there is any doubt that each case was a tragedy. I said earlier that I would not mention any of them, but two stick in my mind. The first involved a young boy in his teens whose last words were: ‘Don't tell my mother.' Facing an execution squad, he could think only of the effect that it would have, not on him, when the bullets landed, but on his mother, when the word reached home. The second case was this. At the back of one of the files that I went through, I found, as latterly I found in my father's file – he fought in the Second World War – a little bit for the soldier's will. Soldiers could leave all their worldly possessions in their wills. I recall that the total possessions of one of the soldiers who was executed were the three days' wages that he was owed up to the day of his execution, which he left to his fiancée in Northern Ireland. Such cases deeply moved me.

I was told on the highest legal advice at the time – I can say that now that I am not a Minister – that I could not give a legal pardon. As it was explained to me, I understand that it is impossible to give such a pardon, first, because there were no surviving witnesses, and secondly, because there was no real evidence to overturn a duly arrived at verdict. Thirdly, of those 306 people, even if there had been sufficient evidence in the numerous pages of brown foolscap paper – often they were not transcripts, but summary records of what had happened in the field general court martial – we would have had to test perhaps fourteen cases and left those in the remaining 280 to 290 cases re-condemned. I took the decision at the time that we could not give a legal pardon, but that we should go as far as we could. I will return to that in a second.

I was very grateful to get a second chance at the Ministry of Defence some years later, when I returned as Secretary of State for Defence. During the interval between being Armed Forces Minister and being Secretary of State, I discovered that New Zealand had apparently managed to accomplish that which I had been told was impossible in Britain. Naturally, and in my normal delicate fashion, I interviewed some of my officials who were still there about why that which we had found impossible had been found possible elsewhere. We re-opened the inquiry, and I am glad to say that my successor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Des Browne), did a great deal of work on the matter as Defence Secretary. The result is as is known.

The reason that I am supporting my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South-East tonight is that even at the first stage, in 1998, when we were saying that there was no legal pardon available – I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) was deeply disappointed by that – I said that, although I found it impossible to give a legal pardon, we would redefine ‘pardon' as something other than a legality, and say that, in the eyes of all humanity in this country, those people who had suffered such a terrible fate would indeed be pardoned, in substance if not in legality. Subsequently, of course, we were able to add a legal pardon to that.

At that time, I did three things simultaneously. The first was to say that, as those people had been pardoned, their names should be added back into the books, and on to the memorials and cenotaphs. Secondly, I said that they should be recognised as victims of the Great War, just as everyone else who had fallen in that war was recognised. In that way, their relatives would have a cloud lifted from them. Thirdly – although it was hardly noticed at the time – I announced the abolition of the death penalty in the British armed forces, which was enacted by the next Armed Forces Bill. Yet, some ten years later, some of those names have apparently not been added back in that way.

I hope that what my hon. Friend said tonight was true, and that the case of Jimmy Smith is about to be rectified by having his name added back on to the memorials. I hope, moreover, that that will be an example for other councils and authorities throughout the country, and that they will now recognise what has been recognised over two stages in Parliament, over ten years – namely, that the names should be added back and that the families involved should have no shame.

Having been a Minister, I now have this rare opportunity to say thank you to those who pricked the conscience of Ministers and cajoled, persuaded, drove and whipped them into line. That includes several Members who are here tonight. There cannot be many more worthwhile causes to which they could have applied their minds throughout that period, and I am delighted to be here tonight, no longer as a Minister, but as someone who is part of a group who fully support what my hon. Friend is asking for.

9.07 pm

Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab):
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South-East (Dr. Iddon) on his debate. I mean it from the bottom of my heart when I say that he has written a page in Bolton's history tonight. One thing that emerged from the campaign to grant pardons, which lasted fourteen years in this place, was the fact that this part of British history had been suppressed, and not explained. I believe that history has to be written with clarity and precision, and that includes the parts with which the establishment are unhappy and uncomfortable.

One of the delights of getting the pardons in 2006 was the fact that so many of our countrymen and women – and school students in particular – had learned more about the First World War as a result of the campaign. Through my hon. Friend, I want to congratulate Bolton council on its initiative. I have visited the town hall at Poperinghe, where this soldier's first trial took place, on many occasions, and I have seen a post of execution there. Many people were executed in Poperinghe town hall's courtyard. I have also been to Kemmel. I hope that those on Bolton council, and many of the schools there, will take that short trip across to Belgium, so that people can reflect on this soldier and the many others from the Bolton area who lie buried in sacred territory there.

Dr Iddon:
I have a great deal of respect for my hon. Friend, especially regarding the campaign we are discussing tonight. He might like to know that I intend to send this speech to the secondary schools in my constituency, so that they are made aware of a little part of their history.

Andrew Mackinlay:
I think that that is a wonderful initiative, and I know that other Members of Parliament will want to follow suit in according respect to soldiers with roots in their constituency.

The Minister of State and his predecessor went to great lengths to mark the ninetieth anniversary of the Armistice – and they did so very successfully, as three veterans were in attendance. That means that this is not ancient history: those people, living beings from the great conflict, were actually there. My follow-up point – my hon. Friend's contribution this evening endorses it – is that just as the American Civil War has become a part of the American psyche, so has the First World War become part of ours. The conflict in which the soldier we have commemorated tonight took part represents a seminal moment in our history. When this soldier went to war, there were cavalry participating and many of the combating forces wore bright uniforms; yet by the end of the war, we had seen weapons of mass destruction and bombers. At the same time, there was tremendous social change with the extension of women's suffrage and greater popular representation in this place after the war.

We cannot, therefore, overdo this issue. My hon. Friend has reinforced the importance of the First World War tonight – it is something we need to understand and we need to reflect more on the brave soldiers who fought just like the soldier from Bolton – so I would encourage the Minister to do more to widen access to information about World War One and to encourage school students to study it, to reflect on it and to commemorate the brave struggle of men who did their very best on behalf of their country in this most awful conflict, which still has its resonance today.