Executed at Dawn by David Johnson Page B

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.
    Private Kennedy, like many of his comrades, felt confused, as just eighteen months earlier they had received praise from Sir Douglas Haig, and now the battalion had a stain on its good name when the fact of the execution was publicised on parades and in routine orders.
    The death of Private Hunt was reported in the Manchester Evening News on 30 November 1916. It said simply that he had died of his wounds.

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    Private Stephen Graham, of the Scots Guards, wrote a book in 1919 about his experiences on the Western Front, and included a description of an execution which is thought to be that of Private Isaac Reid. Graham’s book starts with the sentence: ‘The sterner the discipline the better the soldier, the better the army’, which gives a clue as to his stance where executions were concerned.
    Graham’s battalion was ordered to parade around three sides of a square to witness this execution, and this necessitated the men getting up an hour earlier to put on their full fighting kit in the dark. Private Reid was in his ‘walking out attire’and appeared relaxed and free to talk to his friends. Graham wrote that volunteers had been unsuccessfully called for to form the firing squad, which he saw as a sign that Reid was viewed as not having disgraced the regiment. As a result, Reid was to be shot by the battalion’s ten snipers and Reid encouraged them, ‘ Don’t miss. Fire through my heart.’Then, having lit a cigarette, he took up his place against the tree that had replaced the more traditional stake. Reid asked not to be blindfolded but his request was turned down. With that, the parade was brought to attention and the snipers took up their positions and a deadly volley ensued.
    Perhaps wisely, the officers then had the men sent out on a long route march, which would have had the effect of burning off any anger that they may have had.

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    Faced with horror and bloodshed, some men noticed different things where executions were concerned, as was the case with Private Sidney Suffield, who had only just arrived on the Western Front when he was ordered to form part of a firing squad. The man to be executed was Private Frederick Slade of the 2/6th London Regiment. Private Slade had arrived on the Western Front in early 1917 and was a stretcher bearer. However, on 26 October 1917 he had refused to parade prior to the regiment moving up the line and was consequently arrested. At his court martial on 14 November 1917, Private Slade claimed mental incapacity due to his exposure to the horrors of the war, but this was refuted by a captain from the Royal Army Medical Corps, which effectively sealed his fate. He was executed for disobedience on 14 December 1917, and Private Suffield was struck by the way the execution was carried out in complete silence apart from the rifle volley fired by the firing squad.

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    Each firing squad had an officer in charge; this was a role that was usually undertaken by junior officers, and was summarised by Crozier (1937) in his usual blunt and forthright manner, when briefing a young subaltern:

    ‘You will be in charge of the firing party … the men will be cold,