Private 4540336 Kelsall West Yorkshire Regt - "Shot At Dawn" 23/12/1941

Hi,

Just had a quick scan read through the CMP War Diaries linked in this topic -

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/62038-whos-the-forums-corps-of-military-police-expert/?view=getnewpost&fromsearch=1

Link to War Diaries here -

http://www.corpsofmilitarypolice.org/


In WO169/2558 - 203 Provost Company Aug Dec 1941 I noticed this entry for 23/12/1941 (date rang a bell as my father taken POW in Libya that day).

"4540336 Pte Kersall West Yorkshire Regt executed by Firing Squad under direction APM."

Precise location not given

Probable mistranscription of surname as CWGC search confirms all above details but gives surname as Kelsall.

He is commemorated Alamein Memorial - surprised he isn't buried in a "known grave"?

Wonder what he did?

Steve Y

 

That is interesting. For some reason I thought firing squads had stopped in WW2. CWGC isn't working for me-Post a link to his details.

 

Got it, he was 2nd Battalion.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/2122997/KELSALL,%20EDWARD

 

The regimental history has the battalion in Cyprus at the time of his execution.

 

Thanks Owen.

I've just had a quick look at Stephen Staffords site. Noticed the soldier executed in UK for "treachery" in 1945 does not have a marked grave but is on Brookwood memorial.

I wonder if a conscious decision was made in WW2 not to bury executed soldiers in marked graves (unlike WW1)?

Steve

 

As Theodore Schurch was tried for treachery and executed in HM Prison Pentonville, he would have been buried in an unmarked grave inside the prison boundaries, like any other executed criminal. Not sure why the anonymous treatment with the others?

 

We've had a thread dealing with this - The Brookwood memorial seems to have a number who had received the death penalty as the army failed to notify that they had been discharged prior to the sentence being carried out....If they were sentenced in the UK for civil crimes then this should have been done.

http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/1284-murders-during-the-war/

Firing squad seems to have been unusual to say the least for a British serviceman (rather than native / colonial).

 

Thanks Rich.

I can understand a policy to "discharge" on the day death sentence was carried out was intended to preclude military burial for those not executed in Prison grounds or a listing on a "Memorial to the Missing".

It looks like the "discharge" of those commemorated on "Memorials to the Missing" was overlooked. We won't know for definite until we have researched all the names of the examples listed on Stephen Stafford's site - if those names are in the public domain.

I wouldn't like to draw any conclusions based on the above 2 named examples.

Steve Y