Shot at Dawn

Private Herbert Burden had lied about his age to enter the army at 16. He suffered suspected Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (or shell shock as it was then known) after witnessing the carnage of the Battle of Ypres. He was executed by firing squad after being charged with desertion and given no legal representation at his court martial.

Of the 306 executed thus, 4 were only 17.

Private Harry Farr, after three years of brave and gallant service, eventually succumbed to "shell shock" and refused to go over the top. "I can't go on". His wife and daughter were deprived of his army pension and it took a year's legal battle by his daughter to win a posthumous pardon in 2001.

On November 7th 2006, the British Government granted a posthumous pardon for those executed for military offences in the First World War.

This is the Shot at Dawn memorial in the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire.

I wanted to see this relatively new memorial and I asked the way of the helper at the entrance. She said that it was a long way and she was right - it is well off the central track. It is very moving, with the statue set in the middle of wooden posts with simple inscriptions. I was disappointed that it was not more prominent and told the lady on my way out.

Her reply : It was placed there so that it can catch the first rays of the sun.

P.S. The great British poet Wilfred Owen was diagnosed with "shell shock" and sent to Craiglockhart hospital where he met Siegfried Sassoon (also there for the same reason but for political reasons). It was the making of him as a poet.