John Hipkin, 74, retired Newcastle schoolteacher is well known in the North East for his determined efforts to get pardons for soldiers executed during the First World War. But his reputation stretches further still. Particularly close to his heart is the fate of young boys who were shot for alleged desertion and cowardice. John has good reason for having an affinity with "my boys'" and he so fondly refers to them, since he himself was the youngest boy prisoner during the Second World War. .
With the outbreak of the Second World War, he joined the Merchant Marine as a 14-year-old Cabin Boy on the oil tanker Lustous. On his first trip into the Western Atlantic he found himself under deadly fire from the German Battleship Scharnhorst. Taken a prisoner of war, he was sent to a 30,000 strong prison camp at Sandbostel, Germany. It was an experience that was later to touch him more deeply than he could have imagined.
Casually reading the Newcastle Journal in December 1990, he found that the court martial files of executed soldiers in the First World War were being released for the first time to public scrutiny. What he found hard to stomach was the reference to a 17-year-old
local boy who was shot. "I couldn't believe that the British Army could shoot under-age boy soldiers", he recalled. More than anything, this proved to be the turning point that set him on his present intense quest. John now began to carry out his own research to discover what lay behind so many sordid executions.
As the SAD Campaign intensified, John has turned his home into a campaign headquarters from where strategy and communications are planned. His efforts have taken him into the inner circles of power at Downing Street where he met Doctor John Reid, the Armed Forces Minister 1997-98. The hope at that time was to push the issue of pardons to the forefront with the new Labour Government. They had, after all, repeatedly promised changes when they got into power.
In the presence of several specially invited World War One Veterans, John expressed particular concern to the Minister about the boy soldiers who had been so cruelly shot. John Reid responded by saying he had personally studied more than 100 files and in his view two problems were evident. It was the first indication of a change of heart by the Labour Government. First, he said there was insufficient evidence in many cases. The SAD Campaign seriously disputes this. Secondly, where sufficient evidence exists there may be cases that would result in the soldier being recondemned, which would create another injustice. The Minister concluded by saying, "I share with you the deep feeling of remorse." It was an unwitting indication of what was to come and John was fearful the executed soldiers would be betrayed once more.
In a later statement to the House of Commons the Minister was to conclude that, "...the passage of time means that the grounds for a blanket legal pardon on the basis of unsafe conviction just do not exist."
Wynne Hipkin, who has fully supported her husband was dismayed and exclaimed, "When the Conservatives were in, Labour were all for it, and then Labour got in, all the people who said they were going to vote, changed their minds. I don't think this country is run by politicians. I think it's run by the MOD [Ministry of Defence] and ministry of whatever."
John could not conceal his disappointment. "The thing that really makes me very angry." he continued, "is that in every debate in the House of Commons, in every ministerial statement, nobody ever bothers to mention that among the executed soldiers were 16 and 17 year old boys. My boys don't even merit a mention in this Mother of Parliaments. They were betrayed in the last hours of their lives and they were betrayed again by British politicians."
Undaunted, John, is attracting an increasing circle of active supporters, and will continue to lead the SAD Campaign in new directions to secure millennium pardons for those wretched souls who were treated with such contempt. He considers that the execution of boy soldiers was one of the most heinous crimes of the First World War. Under the Army's King's Regulations they should have been returned home. As for the 75 years of secrecy, he thinks this was intended to protect the families of offending officers and not the soldier victims, who continue to be stigmatised. "I can't believe that the British Army could shoot shell-shocked soldiers, could shoot underage boys and get away with it. That's the bottom line for me. They will not get away with it. Doctor Reid has blocked the pardons as the Conservative Government before him blocked the pardons. And all this talk about compassion is just so much hot air. If you want to know where the cowards are, in my opinion they are in Whitehall and in the highest positions of power and influence in government."
News of the pardons for the New Zealand soldiers has come with great surprise. John has no doubt they have done the proper thing in posthumously pardoning the five young men who were shot. He concludes this has already had a marked effect on the relatives of the British troops who were executed. "The morale of the UK relatives has been tremendously boosted by the news of the impending pardons for the five soldiers. When will the British Government show a similar boldness? All the letters I've had from the Ministry of Defence have been totally lacking in compassion, honour and justice."
