Private Rogers

Private John Thomas Rogers No. 26028, 2nd Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment

John Thomas Rogers, a seaman from Liverpool, his wife Harriet (nee Davies) and their four young children were living at 34, Luke Street, Toxteth, when he enlisted as a Territorial on 2 August 1915 and began his military service.(1) Between 6 October and 7 December, he served as a Driver with the West Lancashire Divisional Ammunition Column but he constantly went absent without leave.

His first offence was committed on 14 August, when Rogers went absent from the 3rd Battalion South Lancashire Regiment’s depot at Great Crosby in Liverpool. He remained at liberty for eleven days until he was arrested by the police in Liverpool, and was punished by his commanding officer with a week’s confinement to camp and the loss of thirteen days’ pay.(2) Thereafter, he went absent or escaped from the depot for a few days a further nine times, on each occasion either surrendering himself or being arrested by the Liverpool Police.

Rogers’ only other kind of misdemeanour while stationed at Great Crosby involved him being confined for a week after making an improper reply to an NCO. Two explanations may plausibly account for this pattern of his offences: either he wished to avoid being punished for the preceding absence or he was concerned about his family’s welfare. Given the paucity of the Army’s dependents’ allowance and loss of pay arising from repeated absences, it is likely that the latter figured more strongly than the former. On average his battalion commander punished Rogers with a fortnight’s confinement and loss of pay for each day’s absence but on 3 April 1916, a District Court Martial sentenced the soldier to 56 day’s detention.(3)

By the end of June 1916, Rogers had been undergone a total of more than 6 ½ months’ punishment and lost circa 4 month’s months’ pay. Thereafter, while serving with A Company, he appears to have been an obedient and dutiful soldier until he was drafted overseas at the end of November.(4) Rogers disembarked at Le Havre on 2 December 1916, where he enjoyed a good drink and at 9.30 p.m. the following day he was arrested by the military police. He was summarily punished by the Commandant, No.6 Infantry Base Depot for having been absent for a couple of hours. Rogers was fined three day’s pay and confined to camp for a week before being despatched as a reinforcement to join 2nd Bn. South Lancashires, part of 25th Division.(5) In mid-January, he was laid low with enteric fever and associated debility and was nursed for a week by 76th Field Ambulance.

The offence for which Rogers was to pay with his life was committed on 15 February 1917. Rogers and the remainder of his platoon were billeted at Pont de Nieppe when they were warned a 11.30 a.m. by their sergeant that in a couple of hours’ time they had to march off for a routine spell of duty in the front line. When the rest of the platoon moved out, Rogers could not be found and a search of the billets failed to disclose his whereabouts.(6)

On 22 February, at 9.00 p.m. Rogers was stopped on the road at the rail crossing near Armentieres railway station by a couple of military policemen who were on guard duty. One of the latter later testified:

I asked him what he belonged to. He said, ‘The Artillery’ and then said it was the 3rd Battery. The accused failed to produce an identity disc or pay book when I asked him… The accused had no badge or numerals on. He was very dirty and he had about a week’s growth of beard. He had no rifle and no equipment of any kind.(7)

The duo promptly arrested Rogers and after searching his pockets, discovered his pay book and identity disc and established his correct military affiliation. After a couple of days in custody, he was escorted back to his battalion and tried by Field General Court Martial at the end of the month.

All three officers assigned to pass judgement on Rogers were from the South Lancashire Regiment and one member of the court; Captain William Arthur M. Montgomery was an officer from the defendant’s battalion. They were advised in their deliberations by a barrister, Captain Oscar Dowson, Court Martial Officer, 2nd Army but Rogers was unassisted in presenting his defence.(8) Rogers' inexperience and initial failure to appreciate the gravity of his position was evident when he pleaded guilty to the charge of a desertion. Since it was a capital offence, effectively he would have committed suicide but as had become customary by 1917, the court amended his plea to one of not guilty, and the hearing proceeded.(9)

Four witnesses testified for the prosecution: the sergeant who warned the platoon about going into action, the two military policemen who arrested Rogers and the NCO who had commanded the escort party. None were cross-examined and there was no evidence advanced about the defendant’s motives but the time and duration of his absence were both clearly established. (10)

Rogers' entire defence consisted of a the following unsworn statement:

I am very sorry it occurred. I had some drink on the night before and in consequence I was rather confused on the following day, Feb. 15th.

The court found the charge proved and invited Rogers to make a statement in mitigation but he declined to say anything more. At most the trial cannot have taken longer than twenty minutes and it is debatable whether the President and Members of the court took any longer in deliberating about the verdict and punishment. The officer commanding 2nd Bn. South Lancashires then reported that Rogers had not given any trouble during his service with the unit and had been satisfactory in discharging his responsibilities while in the trenches. However, he considered that the soldier’s offence had been deliberately committed.(11)

When it was his turn to note down his own views about the case, Brigadier General Harry Baird, commanding 75th Infantry Brigade, stated:

While in England this man absented himself 12 times. He was found guilty of absence at Le Havre before he joined the present battalion. The discipline of the battalion is good. The commanding officer considers the crime was committed deliberately and it is apparent he absented himself with the object of avoiding a turn in the trenches, where he has served altogether 2 ½ months. I see no reason why the extreme penalty should not be carried out.(12)

With a single sentence apiece, the commanders of 25 Division, 9 Corps and 2 Army each expressed their agreement with Baird’s opinion. Field Marshal Haig indicated his assent and the Assistant Provost Marshal, 25 Division made arrangements for Rogers’ execution. It was carried out at 6.13 a.m. by a specially selected party of men under the command of 2nd Lieutenant Ivan Agabeg and nowadays Pte. Roger’s grave may be found in Bailleul Communal Cemetery (Nord).(13)

It is asking a good deal of military officers in the middle of a war to spend more than forty minutes deliberating over the fate of a soldier with a hangover and as far as the 3000 death sentences passed on soldiers by the British Army during the First World War is concerned, their decision with regard to Private Rogers was comparatively unexceptional. The military officers who decided on his guilt were also representative in their indifference to his motives and the confirming officers equally so. None of them were concerned about potential bias in the regimental affiliation of the officers trying Rogers nor the fact that he was undefended.

Brigadier General Baird’s inability to even establish a correct tally of the number of times Rogers had been punished for absence in Britain suggests a worrying inattention to detail for a career officer who had been attached to the General Staff for the first two years of the war. Had the brigadier been less negative in his attitude to Rogers, he might equally easily have noted from the soldier’s disciplinary record that aside from the minor offence at Le Havre, Rogers had been a good soldier for almost eight months.

As for the deliberate nature of the offence, it is difficult to understand the military utility of the decision to have the condemned man executed. The battalion had not been involved in any major assault on enemy positions; neither had its resolution weakened in the face of an enemy offensive. Its corporate disciplinary record was good, so on that score, no example was required. There was no evidence that Rogers was a bad soldier where it counted, in the trenches and neither had his absence jeopardised the lives of his comrades.

Had he been an officer, his defence plea would have attracted a reprimand or if he were very unlucky, and loss of commissioned rank. However, Rogers was no middle class ex-public schoolboy, Indian Army sahib or a country squire and as much as anything else, his fate was sealed by the prevailing standards of class justice as practised by the British Army.

Six months after her husband’s death, the Army ceased to pay a dependent’s allowance to his widow, rendering her destitute, so she wrote a letter, begging for assistance from the Army. It stated:

… I have been informed by you that I am not eligible for a pension for my husband Pte. J. Rogers S. Lancs Regt I am only to draw for the 26 weeks I have got five children to bring up without a farther and the ages his 15.3 / 8.3 / 5.2 / 2.3 / 5 months old. I think it his very hard lines as me and my children to suffer for my husband doings. He was only my support in my home. And has the notice they sent me about my husband it has left me and my baby in delicate health has I cant go out to look for work. Dear Sir I hope you will try and do some thing for me if it his only for my little children has I am broken heart here thinking what going to be done for my little children would you be so kindly to write back and let me no. Oblige Mrs [unclear].(14)

Her appeal was refused because executed soldiers’ dependents were not entitled to claim allowances and Army pensions. Exactly how Harriet managed to support her family through the following Winter and Spring remains unknown but in May 1918, the Ministry of Pensions agreed to pay her a pension on the same basis as if the Germans had killed her husband. It was not an act of clemency by the Army hierarchy, on the contrary, the concession had been forced out of the Government by the local Boards of Guardians, who had demanded that the War Office accept corporate responsibility for the welfare of widows and orphans of executed soldiers.

In August 2006, after a 16-year long campaign, again fought in the teeth of bitter opposition from the British military Establishment, HM Government belatedly granted John Rogers a posthumous conditional pardon.

John Rogers m. Harriet Davies, St. Matthew’s Church, Hill Street, Liverpool, 22.1.1899. Their children were: Stanley (1902); Harriet (1910); Margaret (1911); Arthur (1915); Elizabeth (1917). On attestation, Rogers stated he was a seaman but his disciplinary record stated that he had been was a labourer.

(1) The National Archives (TNA), WO 71/549: JAG: FGCM Pte. J. Rogers, 2 South Lancashire Regiment, Disciplinary Record.

(3) Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Ibid. and TNA Medal Roll WO 329, Pte.26028 J. Rogers.
(6) Ibid.
(7)Ibid.
(8) Oscar Follett Dowson b. 1899 MA (Oxon.) 1914 ; Temporary Major, RASC; Deputy Assistant Adjutant General; MID 1918, 1919; OBE (Mil.). Oxford University Roll of Service, p. 192.
(9) Op. cit., WO71/549.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) TNA, WO 71/549: JAG: FGCM Pte. J. Rogers, 2nd South Lancashire Regiment, Written Proceedings. Harry Beauchamp Baird, b. 1877, 2/Lt. 1897, Unattached; Indian Army Staff College; Lt. , 1899; Capt., 1906; Major, 1915; ADC to GOCinC, Aldershot Command 1912-1914; General Staff. 1914-1916; o.c.. 75 Bde. Brigade, Nov. 1916, DSO (1915) CMG (1918), Kellys Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes, 1922.
(13) Ivan Wilmot Frank Agabeg, b. 1896, 2/Lt., S. Lancs. Regt. April 1916; Lt., Oct. 1917; RFC/RAF, May 1918 – October 1919.
(14) Letter: H. Rogers, 34 Luke Street, Liverpool to W.O., [date unclear 11.10.1917?] in TNA WO 363, (Burnt Series) Personal File: Pte. J. Rogers 26028, 2 South Lancashire Regiment.