Private John Joseph Sweeney and the Flanders poppies
Ross Annabell
A former Wairarapa bushman, a Tasanian serving with the Otago regiment in France in World War I, was executed by firing squad in 1916 although some senior army officers regarded the court martial evidence as unsatisfactory.
Army files, kept secret for 72 years, indicate that the soldier, Private John Joseph Sweeney, was shot to help improve discipline in the New Zealand division, facing massive losses on the Western front.
Private Sweeney was a former bush contractor in the Pirinoa district of Wairarapa, of whom the officer commanding the First New Zealand Infantry Brigade, Brigadier General F.E. Johnston, wrote: “Leaving the trenches and remaining absent for 42 days is an offence which cannot be passed over and I regret to have to recommend that the sentence be carried out”.
Brigadier General Johnson’s memorandum to New Zealand Division Headquarters said: “In addition to punishing the offender, the seriousness of the offence will then be brought home to the men of the brigade. The state of discipline in the Otago regiment is very fair.” Fifteen officers and men of Sweeney’s unit, the First Otago Regiment, were ordered to shoot him, and the sentence was carried out at 5.44am on October 2, 1916.
Details of Private Sweeney’s court martial files have been released to the Wairarapa Times-Age by the Judge Advocate General, after a long series of negotiations through the Ombudsman.
The court martial file shows that Private Sweeney, who pleaded not guilty, claimed he had no intention to desert, “and on finding his battalion gone, intended to join up with the second tunnelling company and, by travelling with them, endeavour to rejoin his unit”.
At the court martial, on September 13, 1916, two men from Sweeney’s unit gave evidence that he’d gone missing on July 25, 1916, and two British officers testified that they’d arrested him in a house near an unoccupied gun position on September 3.
Sweeney’s file indicates he was not a “model” soldier. He had been absent without leave on two previous occasions, and had several convictions for drunkenness, once while on “active serve”. He had also spent many weeks either in hospital, or in convalescence, during and after the Gallipoli campaign.
But there seems to have been some doubt whether his last fatal misdemeanour warranted the death sentence. Certainly, had he been serving with his own Australian countrymen, he could not have been shot for desertion. The Australian Army did not allow capital punishment, and opposed British attempts to persuade them to introduce it during World War I.
But five men serving with the New Zealand forces were shot for desertion. Two of them were Australians. Access to Private Sweeney’s files was refused in July 1987, but later granted, in November 1987, after negotiations through the Ombudsman. But the Defence Department refused access to the court martial file, and released only Sweeney’s personal army records.
After further negotiations through the Ombudsman, the Judge Advocate General, Mr Justice Savage, agreed to release the court martial file to the Times-Age only and the go-ahead was finally given on September 16, 1988. The file was brought in an envelope to a room at the National Archives, in Wellington, where it was permitted to be seen with the door kept closed and National Archives staff not supposed to enter.
Sweeney’s record is of particular interest to Wairarapa, because he was a leader of a gang of Tasmanian bush fellers in the Haurangi ranges before World War I, and a creek in the Haurangi Forest Park, is still named after him.
Sweeney enlisted on October 15, 1914, at Trentham. At that time he was aged 35, and his medical history sheet shows that he was tallish, at 5 ft 10 inches, and slim, at 132lb (60kg). New Zealand had been at war for only two months and nine days. According to his file he’d passed the fourth education standard.
His last employer was Pain and Sutherland, of Pirinoa, where he was engaged on a bush-felling contract. He was attached at first to the Wellington Regiment, but was transferred to the Otago Infantry Battalion in December, 1914.
According to his file, some of his records, including a “history sheet” went missing, and details of his early service are sketchy, but he was posted to 8th Coy, Cape Helles (Gallipoli) on April 9, 1915, and was presumably there, or close by, during the historic landing of April 25, 1915. But Sweeney’s Gallipoli service was punctuated by bouts of sickness. He was admitted to No 2 general hospital, Cairo, suffering from colitis, on August 30, 1915, and spent early September in a convalescent depot at Helwon (Egypt) before joining a training battalion and re-embarking for the Dardanelles from Alexandria on October 19, 1915.
He’d no sooner rejoined the unit in the Dardanelles than he was again back in hospital. Entries on his record sheets show he was sick from October 26, 1915 to November 7, when he was admitted to a casualty clearing station at Lemnos, but was discharged and sent to the Anzac Advanced base at Mudros on November 11. He rejoined his unit at Murdros on December 6, and by January 9, 1916, had embarked to return with his unit to Egypt after the allies evacuated Gallipoli.
By February 11, 1916, Private Sweeney was back in Cairo General Hospital with hemorrhoids, was convalescent through to March 21, when he was discharged to duty, but on April 8 was back in Cairo hospital again with enteritis. He was discharged fit again on May 10, in time to embark with New Zealand troops for France, where he went on leave.
On July 10, Sweeney was sent to the notorious Etaples base depot, where he spent a week before joining his unit, Otago’s I Battalion, at Armentieres, on July 18, 1916. He made his will at Etaples, the day before he rejoined his unit. A copy is still on his file.
He appointed Ron Edward Sweeney, of Sydney, as his sole executor and trustee, and left all his property “real and personal” to his mother, if living, and if not, to his father or next of kin. It was the time of the Allies’ “Big Push”, said by the confident propaganda of the time to be going to drive the Germans back along the whole front, but in fact it achieved little more than massive slaughter on both sides.
Sweeney managed about a week in the lines, and vanished, on July 26.
His court martial was presided over by Major C.B. Brereton, of First Battalion, Canterbury Infantry Regiment, with Captain C.L Knight, of First Battalion, Auckland Infantry Regiment, and Captain E.S. Harston, First Battalion, Wellington Infantry Regiment.
Sweeney’s last statement, made at his court martial, claims that he was trying to join the 12th battalion when he was arrested by Lieutenant Finch of the Fourth Seaforth Highlanders near Armentieres. He said Finch asked him where he was going. “I answered to the 12th battalion. When he asked me who they were, I answered South Australians and Tasmanians”. Lieutenant Finch told the court martial he arrested Sweeney after hearing that a man had been seen loitering about an unoccupied battery position on September 3, 1916.
Sweeney gave his name, and said he was with the 12th battalion, South Australians and Tasmanian contingent attached to the second tunnelling company. Sweeney had no badges or titles. Lieutenant Finch said he handed him over to the military police at Houplines. Sweeney told Finch that he had permission to remain in the house, and could go for his rations when he needed them, or buy food in the town. He told Finch he had never had any badges issued to him.
The house in which Sweeney was found, according to Sergeant J. Skene, of the Royal Field Artillery, who helped arrest Sweeney, had been used as a cookshop, and food was lying about. Sweeney had no army kit with him, and when asked for further identification, referred them to a Sergeant Major Stevens, at a dump some distance away. Nobody apparently contacted Sergeant Major Stevens, and he gave no evidence at the trial.
The court martial records give no indication that Sweeney was represented by anyone at his trial.The only question asked of any of the prosecution witnesses was by Sweeney himself. There is no record of anything said in Sweeney’s defence at the trial.
The verdict: “Sentenced to suffer death by being shot”.
Death of a bushman
AFTER his court martial death sentence on September 13, 1916, the fate of former Pirinoa bushman John Joseph Sweeney hung on the recommendations of various high ranking officers to whom the file was sent.
Sweeney’s conduct sheet, presented at the hearing, showed a fine of two days’ pay for drunkenness “when on active service” at Heliopolis (Egypt), 10 days CB (confined to barracks) for being in the canteen during prohibited hours, loss of six days’ pay for going AWL from a troopship at Hobart and 168 hours detention for being AWOL and drunk from his camp at Zeatoun. Not everyone to whom the court martial report was circulated expressed satisfaction with the court’s recommendation.
But there was plenty of character blackening from his commander, Lt Colonel A.B. Charters, OC First Battalion Otago Regiment, between the trial and the execution. In a handwritten memorandum, dated September 20, a week after the court martial, Lt Colonel Charters said: “I regret I am unable to say anything in favour of Sweeney. This man came from New Zealand with the second reinforcements draft, of which I was in charge.” “His conduct until joining the main body in Zeitoun in January, 1915, was bad. We have no record of his conduct on Gallipoli, as conduct sheets were lost and in any case Private Sweeney was for most of the time with a tunnelling section. He was not with the unit again until two or three days before absenting himself from the trenches.
“I am of the opinion that he deliberately absented himself to evade service. When we came out of the trenches on the night of August 6/7, pickets were out by day and night to try to arrest Private Sweeney, as we had a good idea that he was hiding at Houplines.
“We were unable to find him, although we have since ascertained from APM 51st Division, which relieved us at Armentieres, that Private Sweeney was in Houplines on or about August 19, as he went into a cafe for a meal, but having no money, left his pay book with the proprietress.
The above, coupled with his absence of 42 days, is, in my opinion, evidence that he was trying to evade service”.
The first recommendation from Brigadier General F.E. Johnston, OC First NZ Brigade, dated September 20, opted for the death sentence, “to punish the offender and bring home the seriousness of the offence to the men of the brigade”. It is rather an odd coincidence that Brigadier General Johnston and Private Sweeney both had remarkably similar personal records of absence from the front line during the Gallipoli campaign.
Sweeney was sick for much of the campaign. And so was his commander. If Sweeney’s absence could be labelled as shirking, then so could Johnston’s.
Brigadier General Johnston was reported sick with “gastro influenza” on April 23, two days before the historic landing and again sick with measles at Lemnos from June 17 to June 25, after commanding a disastrous attack on May 2. He had another bout of sickness aboard a hospital ship from September 5 to September 9, was in hospital again from September 23 to October 2, and returned sick to Mudros from November 17 to December 19, after returning to Egypt on November 8 because his wife was dying.
Brigadier General Johnston sent his recommendation for Sweeney’s execution to New Zealand Division headquarters, along with the character-blackening report from Sweeney’s CO. Major General Sir Andrew Russell, commander of the New Zealand Division, wrote a further report recommending confirmation of the death sentence, but he criticised the conduct of the court martial.
His report, dated September 20, said:
“I consider that more definite evidence should have been given that the accused was actually absent from his battalion during the whole of the period in question. The statements of the two witnesses for the prosecution that the accused was not seen by them, from the time he absented himself until the day before the trial, is not sufficiently conclusive. “The evidence, however, does show that the accused absented himself whilst a member of the battalion guard, and thus could have been charged under section 6(I)b of the Army Act. The facts, together, in my opinion, prove the charge, and in view of the poor character given him by the accused’s commanding officer, and the gravity of the charge, I recommend that the sentence be enforced,” Major General Russell said.
On September 24 a Lt General commanding XV Corps, whose signature is unreadable, strongly criticised the court martial evidence. He said the evidence was most uncomplete. It did not show what guard private Sweeney was detailed for, or where or when. It was not clear from what date Sweeney was absent. “There is no proof this man ever had badges and was once properly dressed in the uniform of his unit. Under the circumstances, before expressing an opinion, I should like the advice of the deputy judge advocate general as to whether this evidence as written, is sufficient to warrant a conviction and the extreme penalty,” he said.
On September 25, Captain R.C. Hills, deputy acting advocate general for GOC fourth Army, commented: “The record is perverse but I should have thought that the evidence is sufficient to support the finding, especially in view of the failure of the accused to dispute the facts, except the inference as to intention”.
On September 26, the Deputy Judge Advocate General, Lt Colonel Gilbert Mellar, wrote: “The record is unsatisfactory, but I think that there is evidence to support the conviction”.
Lt General F.T.Horne, of XV Corps, commented on September 27 that the record of evidence was unsatisfactory, “but there is no doubt in my mind that it was the intention of the prisoner to evade service in the field. I therefore recommend that the sentence be carried out, provided that the legal authorities are satisfied that the evidence as recorded is sufficient to justify conviction”.
General Rawlinson, in a note to the Adjutant General, wrote from Fourth Army headquarters on September 28: “I recommend that the sentence be carried out as crimes of this nature have been prevalent in this division and I can see no extenuating circumstances.”
It was left to General Sir Douglas Haig, commander-in-chief of the British Armies in France, to give the final order for execution. He did so on September 29, with the simple words: “Confirmed … no recommendation to mercy.”
Events moved rapidly for Sweeney after Haig’s signature on the execution order.
Captain D. Kettle, APM New Zealand Division, promulgated the sentence at 5pm on October 1, 1916. The firing party of one officer, two non-commissioned officers and 12 men from Sweeney’s First Otago regiment assembled at 6pm on October 1, at Meaulte, along with a chaplain “of the prisoners denomination (Roman Catholic) and a medical officer”. Watches were synchronised at 6pm that night. At 5.44am next day, a Captain Norman Prior witnessed the shooting, and certified, in his own handwriting, that “death was instantaneous”.
It was all over for Sweeney, but the wheels of army discipline ground on inexorably.
In divisional routine orders, dated October 2, Lt Colonel H.G. Reid, QMG of New Zealand division, circulated a routine order paper giving details of such items as the departures and arrivals of officers, an order requiring horses to be clipped to prevent mange, and details of the court martial and sentence of Sweeney.
Sweeney had been dead and buried for five weeks before the GOC New Zealand Military forces Brigadier General A.W. Robin wrote on November 8 “with regret” to advise Sweeney’s parents that their son had been court martialled and executed for desertion. Brigadier General Robin said there had been no public announcement “and so far as I am able, you may rest assured that none will be made and I shall take all the steps I am able to prevent anything of this nature.”
But Sweeney’s parents must have been advised earlier that their son had been killed, because his father Bernard Sweeney, wrote on November 28 to the New Zealand Minister of Defence saying that he’d “got word” that his son had been killed at the front on October 2, seeking particulars, and asking whether anything had been left in his son’s will.
There was an exchange of army memos by high ranking officers deliberating whether Sweeney’s name should be released in a promulgation to the troops telling of his execution. One memo of November 16 carried an inked entry saying that his next-of-kin had not been informed. This dilemma got as far as the Minister of Defence who agreed that it would be a pity, for the sake of relatives, if Sweeney’s name got out to the press, but said that for disciplinary purposes the troops in training should be informed of the facts.
A plaintive letter from Sweeney’s father to Brigadier General Robin is still on the file, dated December 28, 1916.
It states: “Dear Sir, I must say it is a great blow to me to hear of my son’s death in that way. He was the last I would of thought would do such a thing. Would you kindly let me know if there is any chance of hearing any more particulars of the case, and if he left anything to come to me or his mother. The smallest article would be a comfort to us.”
It seems doubtful whether Sweeney’s relatives got anything “of comfort” to help soothe their grief. Memos on the file show that as late as January 17, 1917, various authorities were writing memos to one another about Sweeney’s “missing” effects. His pay book is still on the file, overdrawn by two pounds, six shillings and four pence. His “kit”, missing when he was arrested, and not recovered, was valued at 14 pounds, 13 shillings and 3 ½ pence.
There is a note on the file stating that “effects arrived Wellington April 17, 1917”, but nothing to say whether they were dispatched on to the Sweeneys in Tasmania.
The last entry in Sweeney’s file is dated September 2, 1920. It records the despatch to New Zealand of photographs of Sweeney’s grave, “Lot 2, Row B”, with an indecipherable grave number at Becordel’s Dartmoor cemetery, 2.5km east of Albert.
Word of the execution of five New Zealand soldiers was not made public until seven years after World War I. An announcement was made in the British House of Commons, but the names of the men were not released.
That same year, Sweeney’s father, Bernard Sweeney, committed suicide in Tasmania by taking strychnine. His last words to a relative, before going out in the bush and taking poison, were “I am a broken-hearted man,” according to the inquest evidence found by a family researcher, Darrell Waight, of Sydney.
The court martial file shows that Bernard Sweeney had known of his son’s execution for nine years before his suicide. As he died three months before the executions were publicly announced in the House of Commons, it seems unlikely that the execution was a major factor in his death.
Sweeney’s name lives on
EXTENSIVE media inquiries in Wairarapa and Tasmania have produced few personal details about Private John Joseph Sweeney, the Tasmanian soldier executed while serving with the New Zealand army in France in 1916.
One former Pirinoa resident, Mr Bill Busch, now of Dannevirke, can recall Sweeney’s time as a bush contractor in the Haurangis, but did not meet Sweeney personally. Mr Busch, now 88, was brought up in the Pirinoa district, where his father was a horse team contractor, and he can remember the Tasmanian gang working in the Turanganui area of the Haurangis between 1910 – 1913. “I’ve heard of Sweeney. He had three or four camps in the Turanganui area. He was the head man or ganger of the bush felling contractors,” Mr Busch said. He believes the gang was in the area for two or three years.
Sweeney’s army file gives Pain and Sutherland as his last employer. The bush he felled was part of a block farmed in partnership by William Sutherland and William Pain, but Pain later moved to Te Kopi, and the Sutherland family took over the Turanganui block until it was sold to the New Zealand Forest Service for erosion control and forest park.
Contract
Sweeney and his gang had a contract to fell 323ha of bush drained by what is now known as Sweeney’s Creek, a tributary of the Turanganui River.
Bill Busch recalls a “big row” that erupted when the co-owner of the bush block, Billy Pain, fell out with the Tasmanians after the contract finished. Mr Busch said that at the end of the bush contract, the tradition was that the land owner would buy back, at an agreed price, the camping equipment which would be of no further use to the contractors. “Billy Pain wouldn’t give the Tasmanians any compensation for their gear, so they destroyed it all when they left, to stop him using it. “They even smashed all the camp ovens, and they were lying around the camp sites all broken up. Pain would have sold them to other gangs, like the grass seeders, if they’d left them behind, so they broke everything up, according to the story.”
Mr Busch can remember seeing the broken camp ovens around the area when he hunted there in later years. He said that Sweeney was the head of three or four gangs camped in different areas, with a base camp at Sweeney Creek, downstream from the camping hut now known as Sutherlands, in Haurangi Forest Park. The creek is still marked on Wairarapa Catchment Board maps as “Sweeney Creek”.
Ridge
Mr Busch said that when he hunted the area as a young man, the most accessible ridge from the Turanganui up to the main water shed was known as Sweeney ridge. “It was one of the only ridges you could climb out of the river on.” There was also a Sweeney waterfall, he said.He used to see the Tasmanians “boozing up” in the Lake Ferry Hotel, but he didn’t think he ever met Sweeney himself. “I don’t think anyone knew much about Sweeney, only that it was Sweeney’s gang. The Tasmanians didn’t have much chance of getting out of there. When they got a cheque they came down to the Ferry Hotel and blew it out.
“The Tasmanians were among the leading bushmen in those days. They’d go round and undercut all the block, then scarf all the trees, and then start at the top and drop one tree. It would fall and hit the next, and they’d all go down in one big drive.”
Mr Busch said he remembered rumours going around that after World War I that Sweeney was a deserter, but he could never understand it. “We thought they meant he was a deserter hiding from the army in the Haurangis, but it didn’t make sense because we knew he was in there before the war broke out, and had gone before it started, so the story didn’t make sense. We never heard that he’d been executed.”
Sweeney’s execution was news to Mr Ross Sutherland, who farmed the area much of his life with his brother Ian, but he knew the areas as “Sweeney Creek” and the sheepyards at its mouth as “Sweeney’s yards”. Both brothers recall a strange family tale of “Flanders Poppies” springing up on the new bush burns in Turanganui valley.
Mr Ian Sutherland said he had seen the poppies growing on King’s ridge, above Waterfall Creek, the next big creek downstream from Sweeney’s, about 40 years ago. “They were bright red, just like the Returned Servicemen’s poppy.” Mr Sutherland said that the burned bush was sown with imported grass seed, which apparently came from France or Belgium, and the poppies had come up with the grass and grown wild in the area for some years.
He could remember seeing the remains of Sweeney’s base camp, at the mouth of Sweeney Creek, but considerable erosion in later years had changed the area, and almost buried the sheepyards built there by the Sutherlands. Mrs Edith Aburn, who lived for many years in the Turanganui Valley, said that the older Sutherlands had a great respect for John Sweeney when he worked for them.
Not Alone
While Sweeney’s execution may seem unjust in the light of today’s more enlightened times, the British Army put to death men with far better claims to clemency than Private Sweeney.
Of the 304, including five New Zealanders, executed in World War I, 245 were for desertion, seven for quitting a guard post, two for sleeping on guard duty, 17 for cowardice, five for disobedience, and four for striking a superior officer. Only 10 soldiers were executed for the “capital” offence of murder, and three for mutiny.
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British researchers have found a number of cases of shell-shocked men being executed, and some instances of executed men who should have never been in the army in first place.
One 35-year-old was executed in spite of a recommendation to mercy because of his “defective intellect”.
A man who had been wounded in 1915, gone back into action and then been admitted to hospital with a “nervous breakdown”, deserted after he was sent back again into action. He was shot.
A 23-year-old private who was gassed twice, and subsequently seemed to have no control over himself in the trenches, was court-martialled for desertion. His officers said his face and hands continually twitched in the trenches and he was “unfit for active service”. He was executed.
Some men with clean army records, whose officers spoke highly of their “soldierly qualities” were shot for sudden lapses.
Mother died
One of the more outstanding cases was that of a 1914 volunteer who deserted in July 1916. He gave evidence that his mother had died while he was training in England and his father was a prisoner-of-war and going blind. He had to leave his brother, 10 and sister 13, with a neighbour. He was shot.
Because of the secrecy with which the British authorities carried out their executions, there are not many authenticated records of what a condemned soldier like Sweeney faced after “ultimate” punishment had been promulgated.
But one New Zealander has left a written record of two executions he was forced to witness while seconded to a British unit in France. His commanding officer, a provost marshal, had lost his only two sons in the war in one week and could not face seeing other men’s sons shot by firing squad. He asked for the New Zealander to stand in for him. In a graphic letter, written the morning of the execution, the New Zealander described what happened, with the details fresh in his mind.
“The facts of the case were that a fellow of 25 led away two boys, of 18 and 20 on AWL. They were due for leave, but weekend leave to One Blanket Camp at Boulogne. This fellow got these two boys to try and get across to England”.
The three were caught and court-martialled. The ringleader was sentenced to death, while the two young soldiers got 28 days first field punishment.
“We went to a shed, with all the windows boarded up and two MPs outside. They opened the door and it was as black as pitch inside. They called the elder boy’s name and I heard him say ‘Well goodbye. I hope you don’t have to go through what I have to.” He came out and the light was too strong for his eyes – he had to cover them with his hand. “He said, ‘Please excuse me Sir, for a minute. The light is so strong.’ “He was not upset in any way at all. This was at 2.30pm. “I asked the Major what were they going to do with him. He said ‘I suppose you know? But I said ‘you can’t just take him out and shoot him. You have to prepare a place for him and the firing squad’. So they put him back. When he was going in the door he turned and said to me, ‘Thanks Sir. I felt kind of a rotten feeling.”
With typical Kiwi resourcefulness, the New Zealand officer set about organising an efficient execution. He had a sandbag wall erected for the firing squad to kneel at, outside a church wall, and a chair made at the Royal Engineers workshops for the condemned soldier to be strapped to. “We took the measurements of the height of his hocks – he didn’t know, he was standing talking to us – so that when he sat down his feet were off the ground. There were arms to the chair that had a strap to each, then a strap at the height of the shoulders.” The chair was put in place and a bell tent was erected beside it. The condemned man was brought to the tent about 8pm that night.
The firing squad of 14 men was briefed. Two of the rifles had blanks, but the men didn’t know which. “And now the rotten side of this affair. About 4.45am I went to see this chap. I wanted to know if he had a last request, as that was the Corps APM’s job. There were two MPs there. “The condemned man was sitting on the grass, and he jumped to attention and said ‘Have you come for me Sir?’ “I said ‘not yet’. I told him we were giving him a shot of morphia. He said he did not want it as he was not afraid to die. He said it was only now he realised his mistake; he had done wrong and was prepared to pay for it.
“Believe me, he had no sign of fear. He produced an old envelope, torn open, on one side was his mother’s address, on the other was ‘Dear Mum, I have been hard hit, I know I won’t make it. I love you so, what a pity other mothers have lost their boys, so don’t worry much about me. Harry.” “I censored that and put it in a special envelope and put it in his paybook in which the last entry was 7/6d for a blanket and ‘Killed in action’.
“I explained to him he ought to take the shot of morphia for his comrades’ sake, as he must not look at them, it might unnerve them. He agreed, and the doctor came in and told him to sit down. The boy pulled up his sleeve and took the shot. In one minute he was out, then he began retching on an empty stomach.
Carried
“The doctor told the APM (assistant provost marshal) to get him just after the next retching. The two MP’s had to carry him with his feet dragging to the chair. “He was strapped in and the volley came. They blew the white target out that the doctor had pinned over his heart. “The man was dead, but his lungs had two breaths left and they came up like a couple of snores. The assistant provost marshal, being inexperienced, ordered the officer of the firing party to give him the ‘mercy shot’. The officer of the firing party, being inexperienced, started to shoot from where he was standing. “The APM called out, ’Go right up to him’.
“There were two shots left, and he put the revolver against his forehead – that made an awful mess. I told the APM that the doctor should have examined the body before the ‘mercy shot’ was given. He said I never told him that. The doctor then pronounced the prisoner dead, the ambulance came out and the padre was waiting at the graveside. “This man never showed any sign of nervousness at all, he took it like a man. For the sake of future discipline, the two other boys had to witness the execution. They were sent to other regiments so that they could talk, but they did 28 days first field punishment first – that’s hard in the English army.”
The New Zealander said that one of the squad was found not to have fired his rifle after the execution. The Kiwi officer persuaded the acting provost marshal to keep it quiet, because the man would have got five years imprisonment. The firing squad was given the rest of the day off.
The New Zealander also attended an “exhibition execution” staged by the British to instil discipline into their troops. He described it in another graphic letter.
It was even more efficient than the one he organised himself. “It took place in a farm yard. Here they lifted a couple of cobblestones on one side of the manure pit and put in a post, with ropes attached. “Across the manure pit, or ditch, they erected a sandbag wall on which lay 14 rifles, 12 loaded with ball and two with blanks.
“The firing squad was instructed that if they did not aim and missed, the officer of the firing party would have to go forward and put two shots in the prisoner’s forehead. Since the firing party were men of his own platoon, they never missed.
“We could hear the man’s whole battalion being lined up outside, the tall wide gates being closed, just a muffled sound, no orders given, just signs. Then the firing squad came out in stockinged feet, not a sound.
“The officer of the firing party faced the pole, the firing party with their backs to the pole and lined up opposite, the rifles laying on the sandbagged wall. “The wall was just so high that when a man knelt to fire the butt of his rifle was just below his shoulders, giving a man ample time to pick up his rifle and aim.
No Boots
“The prisoner and military police were in stockinged feet – they came out of a door just outside the post, the MPs tied the ropes and went back inside the door, All this time was dead silence. “When the police came out with the prisoner, the officer of the firing squad raised his hand, the squad sprang to attention. When the police shut the door, the officer dropped his arm, the squad then turned and picked up their rifles, took aim and the officer of the firing party broke silence by calling out in a parade voice, ‘Fire’.
“The doctor and an officer of the firing party then went forward, the doctor pronounced the man dead as soon as the volley was fired.” “The body was put on a stretcher. “All this battalion saw was the stretcher being put in the ambulance and driven away. The blanket cost him 7/6d, the last entry in his paybook.”
The New Zealand Army had to spare Sweeney final disgrace. Examination of his pay book shows there was no debit for a blanket to cover his corpse, because his account was already in debit.
He’d spent the lot.
