On November 8, 2006, 88 years after the end of World War I, a long campaign was over. 306 men from the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, who had lost their lives not by enemy hands but on the orders of their own countrymen, had finally been exonerated. Their posthumous pardons granted by royal assent removed the stain of desertion and cowardice from their records. Ilana Barnett explains.
Private Thomas James Highgate, available here.
Faced with the nightmare of trench warfare; watching their friends die, the stench of battlefields strewn with rotting corpses, lice infested uniforms, sleep deprivation, appalling weather, disease, and the constant fear of death and mustard gas attacks, it is hardly surprising that so many came out of the war forever changed, a damaged shell of the men they had been. The majority managed to hold it together, but for some, it all was too much and they ran while others collapsed, unable to go on.
Nowadays we recognize the signs of shell shock, more commonly referred to as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but, in the past, it was a whole different story. These men were seen as weak and weakness could not be tolerated. The military commanders needed to make an example out of them, their men were holding on by a thread, they could not risk mass mutiny. Fear had to be instilled to keep them inline and the dread of being seen as cowards and the shame they would bring to their families was an effective deterrent.
Only a few weeks into the war, the military elite was faced with a terrible decision, they did not hesitate and on September 8, 1914, Thomas James Highgate, aged 19, became the first British soldier to be executed for desertion. Tragically he was not the last.
A Difficult Childhood
Thomas James Highgate was born on May 13, 1895, in Shoreham in Kent, the fourth of five children of John James Highgate, a farm laborer and Alice Highgate (née Nutley). His family’s poverty meant that his childhood was not the easiest. At some point the family must have moved from Shoreham to south London as Thomas is recorded as having attended Hither Green School in Lewisham. How good of an education Thomas received is difficult to gauge as from the age of seven, he was in and out of the Lewisham workhouse as his parents struggled to make ends meet. Coming from this type of background may explain why he decided on May 18, 1907, at the age of 12, to join the Royal Navy. At the time the Royal Navy were in urgent need of more manpower to crew the newly introduced dreadnoughts.
Life at Sea
To our modern perspective the thought of a 12-year-old joining the Royal Navy is horrific but to a child born in the Victorian period without money, connections, education or prospects, it would have been viewed as a golden opportunity. Life in the Navy was hard but it did at least guarantee food, a regular wage, and a roof over your head. These young boys were expected to learn the important seamanship skills necessary to become a good sailor.
Assigned to the training ship, Exmouth in Grays on May 18, 1907, Highgate remained there for three years before transferring to the SS Oriana as a deck boy (attested by the 1911 Liverpool census). His life in the Navy was eventful. Two of the ships he was on were shipwrecked and while on the west coast of Africa he was taken ill with yellow fever. It appears that after these traumas, his memory was permanently impaired and his medical records note that he also on occasion suffered from amnesia.
From Sailor to Soldier
For some reason, Highgate made the decision to leave the Navy and sign up for an Army Special Reserve battalion. He spent six months with the reserve battalion, studying for his Third-Class certificate. At the age of 17 and eight months, Highgate took the final leap and enlisted in the regular army, joining the 1st Battalion, (Queen’s Own) Royal West Kent Regiment on February 4, 1913. Highgate’s Attestation Papers, the first papers a soldier signed on entering the army, describe him as 5 feet 4.5 inches, just over nine stone, brown hair, hazel eyes, and with naval tattoos on his arms. If he thought he was getting a reprieve from his traumatic experience in the Navy, then he was in for a shock.
The Road to France and Mons
Highgate appears to have found army life difficult. He was upbraided on a couple of occasions for being late for Tattoo, reprimanded for carrying a rusty rifle, and even received 48 days detention for desertion at the beginning of 1914. It is unclear what prompted Highgate to desert but the fact that he tried to fraudulently re-enlist does indicate some form of mental instability. Why re-enlist if you wanted to desert? The medical officer, Captain Tate examining him at Dublin’s Richmond Barracks where he was stationed recorded that although his memory appears fine at the moment, “His manner is stated to be peculiar at times”. Despite all of this, the general consensus was that he was a good worker when he was actually in attendance.
Highgate knew that at the some point he would have to fight and maybe even die for his country. He even wrote a message in his payment that in the event of his death any money owed to him should be sent to his Irish girlfriend, Mary MacNulty. Still nothing in his wildest imagination could have prepared him for the horrors of World War I. Just two weeks into the war his Battalion received their orders and on August 15, 1914, he left Ireland for France. Eight days later he took part in his first engagement, the Battle of Mons also known as the First Great Battle of World War I. The fighting lasted for nine hours until the British Expeditionary Force, outnumbered by the German Army, was forced to fall back. There was no clear winner. Although from a tactical point of view, the Germans had the upper hand, in terms of casualty numbers, the British suffered fewer losses. Just over 1,600 British soldiers were killed compared to about 5,000 Germans.
It was the retreat rather than the battle that was an unmitigated disaster. The army was in disarray. The privates thought the war was over and that they had lost. The two-week retreat from the battlefield of Mons is often described as “organized chaos”. The men trudged the 250 miles (400 kilometers) towards what was later known as the First Battle of the Marne, covering about 20 miles a day. They were demoralized, physically exhausted, starving, hobbling along on blistered, bleeding feet and suffering from heatstroke; it is hardly surprising that so many got left behind, became disorientated or ran away.
His Final Days
September 6, 1914
Either late on September 5, or in the early hours of September 6, just as his battalion was preparing to face the Germans once more, Highgate told his friends that he was going to relieve himself. He never returned. He was found at 8:15am, a short distance away in a barn by a gamekeeper searching for his bicycle, on the estate of Baron de Rothschild at Tournan-en-Brie.
Highgate was dressed in civilian clothing (it is unclear where he found the clothes but one suggestion is that he took them from a scarecrow) and without his rifle. He appeared confused and was unable to remember how he had got there, telling the gamekeeper “I have lost my army, and I mean to get out of it”.
The gamekeeper, an ex-soldier, was unsympathetic. Highgate led him to a woodshed where he had left his uniform. His rifle and cartridges were missing. The gamekeeper handed him over to the French police who in turn gave him into the custody of the British military. Captain Milward, who escorted Highgate into military custody, stated that Highgate told him that he remembered nothing except leaving his bivouac that morning.
September 7, 1914
A hasty military tribunal was convened. Highgate had no defense and no witnesses were called. He said little except to contradict what he had earlier told the gamekeeper and state that he had got lost and had meant to return to his battalion. Not at any point was Highgate’s medical history of memory loss raised to support the theory that he could have genuinely got confused and wandered off. Maybe his previous record worked against him, maybe they did not look into his background or more likely his own confused words to the gamekeeper condemned him.
It was Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig who had the final say when it came to authorizing military executions. If he had decided to, he could have issued a stay of execution. He didn’t. Haig would have been well aware that by August 30, it was being reported that there were no fewer than 12,923 stragglers. Talk of desertion was sweeping through the battalions like wildfire and the military was desperate to stamp it out. An example had to be made and sadly Highgate was the sacrifice. Senior officials insisted that the execution should be performed at once and as publicly as possible.
September 8, 1914
At 6:22am on the September 8, Highgate was informed of his fate.
An officer arranged for a burial party and a firing squad to prepare.
While waiting to be taken to face the execution squad, Highgate wrote a sad letter to Mary. How much did he tell her of what was happening? Probably what he was allowed to write was limited. The Army would have been very careful about what information could be passed on to the world outside the army.
At 7:07am in the presence of a Church of England clergyman and witnessed by men of the 1st Dorset Regiment and 1stCheshire Regiment, Private Thomas James Highgate was tied to a stake. Often those condemned by a military court were drugged with either alcohol or morphine to calm them down before they faced the execution squad and a square of white cloth pinned to their uniform. It is not known if this was done to Highgate, it may have been a procedure implemented later on in the war, but it was said that when facing the firing squad, he cried and called for his mother. He was nineteen.
The Aftermath
Thomas’ parents suffered greatly during the war. They lost two more sons. Robert, a Lance Corporal with the East Lancashire Regiment, died on January 30, 1915 and Joseph a rifleman, with the East Kent Regiment, died of his wounds on June 6, 1916. Luckily, they were spared one son, Benjamin, who survived and died in 1940.
How much his parents understood about their son’s fate is difficult to tell. Alice submitted all three of her sons’ names to be included in the Sidcup War Memorial but other sources claim that they were shamed into leaving her home which according to records would have been Catford. Did she find out afterwards or did she know but still want her son commemorated?
Final Thoughts
Although most people are of the view that those men executed for cowardice and desertion were just as much victims of the war as anyone else who died, there are others that do not believe that the past should be viewed with modern eyes and sensibilities. Maybe that is why Thomas’ name has never been added to the Shoreham War Memorial despite having a place left for it. Strangely his name can be found on a British war memorial to the missing at La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, a commune located near the River Marne in north-central France.
Thomas’ case was tragic. It is more than likely that his memory problems were due to either to a head trauma sustained while in the Navy or to side-effects from his bout of yellow fever. When combined with the horrors of the Battle of Mons, exhaustion and possible heatstroke, it is not surprising that he broke down. The tragedy is that he was found and an example made of him. If only for a missing bicycle he may have survived.
Sadly, Thomas was the first of many. The last two men were executed only four days before the Armistice was declared.
Now that they are pardoned, let’s hope that Thomas, along with those 305 other men, will finally be at peace.
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Now, you can read Ilana’s article on the Bethnal Green tube disaster during World War II here.
Ilana Barnett writes at https://hauntedpalaceblog.wordpress.com/
