King and Country. So good was he that he was quickly promoted to the rank of a lance corporal. But the circumstance of his execution left Tom with a firm conviction that a major miscarriage of justice had occurred. With each additional piece of evidence, the more intense was his sense of outrage and anger. Little wonder, he surmised, that the authorities kept the records locked away from public scrutiny for so long!
Will Stones was born into the mining community of Crook, County Durham in 1892. A coalminer, he married a local girl named "Lizzie" in 1913, and a year later they set up home together. They had two lovely girls; the second was born in 1916.
At first, the British Army refused to accept recruits under 5' 6" tall, and coalminers were exempt from call-up altogether. However, following a period of desperate carnage and heavy losses on the battlefields, the height restrictions was lowered. Will Stones immediately volunteered and Joined the Durham Light Infantry, he served in a battalion of ‘batmas’ in October 1915. Following a period of training he was sent to
of advancing German soldiers who were on a trench raid. Suddenly a shot rang out and Munday fell back fatally wounded as he shouted to Stones, "My God, I'm shot. For God's sake, sergeant, go for help and tell Mr. Howes."
Today, Tom Stones thinks his great uncle could understandably have just dropped his rifle and surrendered into the relative safety of the enemy. Instead, with the quick thinking of veteran, he rammed his useless rifle across the narrow trench to impede the advancing Germans, and shouted warnings to his comrades. When he reached his own men he was too terrified and confused by what had happened to join the counter-attack.
As far as the army brass were concerned, he had deserted Lieutenant Munday, cast his arms in the face of the enemy and retreated. He was a coward.
At his courts martial he was uniquely defended by a Captain Wormington. Although there were five witnesses for the prosecution, their evidence was confused, and importantly, at no time was any evidence for the defence challenged. Entirely unchallenged, the captain stressed Stones did not run away. His whereabouts were known to all throughout the time. He did not throw his weapon away. Instead, he used it to delay the enemy advance. In Stones' words, "To give myself a few yards start against the huns." He was also acting under the direct orders of Munday to go back and raise the alarm.
Company Sergeant Major Holroyd gave evidence as to character and said, "He is the last man I would have thought capable of any cowardly action." One lieutenant observed, "He behaved very well during the Somme and has always been a good soldier." Another lieutenant said, "I would never have thought he could commit a cowardly act." And a Lieutenant Rider pointed out that Stones had been promoted over the heads of senior NCO's in the company, "He has done good work on patrols and when in charge of wiring parties. I have personally been out with him in no man's land and always found him keen and bold. For the trenches, he never showed the least sign of funk." All of this counted for nothing. He was to be executed by a firing squad of his own comrades.
At the time that Sergeant Stones raised the alarm, Corporal's John McDonald and Peter Goggins, who were nearby in a one-man observation post ran back to the main trenches. They too, were charged with quitting their post, court martialled and sentenced to be shot.
Their triple execution was unique in the history of the British army, and as we have already noted in the "Not Guilty - But Shot" page, Brigadier General O'Donnell had serious doubts about the convictions but still recommended they be shot in order to set an example and to show that cowardice in the British army would not be tolerated. Despite the fact he had never met any of the three soldiers, it did not prevent Major General H L Landon from adding, "In view of the mental and physical degeneracy of these men I consider the sentence to be a proper one."
Although their death certificates states death was instantaneous, an eye-witness later recounted they were examined by the doctor who said they were still alive. Another officer armed with a .45 Webley hand pistol had to deliver the fatal shot to the head. The attending Chaplain later wrote mournfully, "Braver men I never met."
Private Albert Rochester, a military prisoner witnessed the scene, "A crowd of brass hats, the medical officer and three firing parties. Three stakes a few yards apart and a ring of sentries around the woodland to keep the curious away. A motor ambulance arrives carrying the doomed men. Manacled and blindfolded, they are helped out and tied up to the stakes. Over each man's heart is placed an envelope. At the sign of command, the firing parties, 12 for each, align their rifles on the envelopes. The officer in charge holds his stick aloft and, as it falls, 36 bullets usher the souls of three of Kitchener's men to the great unknown. As a military prisoner, I helped clear the traces of the triple murder. I took the posts down. I helped carry those bodies towards their last resting place. I collected all the blood-soaked straw and burnt it. Acting upon instruction I took the belongings from the dead men's tunics, discarded before being shot. A few letters, a pipe, some fags, a photo. I could tell you of the silence of the military police after reading one letter from a little girl to "Dear Daddy", of the blood-stained snow that horrified the French peasants, of the chaplain's confession that braver men he had never met than those three men he prayed with just before the fatal dawn. I could take you to the graves of the murdered."
Currently, a leading academic professor on military law thinks Stone's case should be re-examined and using the royal prerogative - pardoned. Gerry Rubin, Kent University, Law School, observes, "By any reasonable standard, the case was bad law, even by the rough and ready standards of military justice in the trenches of 1916. It is a clear example of one of the cases that should be re-examined and the finding quashed using the royal prerogative."
Will Stone's widow, twenty-one year old Lizzie, was told at first he had been killed in action. Later, when she went to collect her Army Widow's pension she was bluntly informed, "There is no pension for you, The British Army does not give pensions to coward's." It was a shattering blow that plunged the whole family into a dark despair.
Today, Tom Stones has every reason to be truly proud of his brave and bold great uncle, who rests in peace alongside McDonald and Goggins at the St. Pol Community Cemetery Extension.
