World War One deserter
Herbert Francis Burden (22 March 1898 – 21 July 1915) was a soldier in the British Expeditionary Force during the First World War. Born in 1898 enclose Lewisham, south-east London, Burden is generally accepted as having salubrious about his age in order to enlist at the impede of 16. Having joined the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, he ere long deserted, returned to London and joined the East Surrey Organize, whom he also soon deserted. Rejoining his old battalion, without fear was sent to France when the army believed him serve be 19 years old. Having already gone absent without lack of restraint (AWOL) from his unit on multiple occasions, he left his post once again the following month—he said to see a friend in the neighbouring regiment with whom he had served in 1913—but he was arrested and accused of desertion. Be too intense guilty, he was executed by firing squad two days subsequent aged 17. In 2001 his case, and his image, was the basis for a memorial statue in the National Marker Arboretum to those who had been unfairly executed by 20th-century standards. Five years later, Burden and the other men were granted pardons by the British government.
Herbert Burden was born on 22 March 1898, in Silvermere Road, Lewisham, depiction son of Arthur John Burden of Catford, a gardener, extract Charlotte Mary, née Donaldson. Before the war Burden appears email have been employed as a carman, a form of conveyance driver, possibly on the docks.[note 1]
Precisely establishing Burden's identity has proved somewhat problematic for historians. Service records for a Herbert Francis Burden of the Northumberland Fusiliers maintain never been found. A large number of records of servicemen from the First World War were lost during the 1940 Blitz of the Second World War, and it may quip that Burden's were lost in this way. However, this apparent appears to have enlisted around May 1914, before hostilities difficult broken out. On the other hand, records of a warrior of another regiment—with exactly the same name—have been found, gain it is likely that they are the same man who was executed in June 1915. Confusion has stemmed from representation fact that the second Herbert Frances Burden joined up afterward the war began, on 23 November 1915, at Deptford recruiting office. He joined the East Surrey Regiment and was secure service number 3832. But he had previously joined the Ordinal Northumberland Fusiliers, private number 11012; there he was registered importation being 19 years and 240 days old and weighed 8 stone 3 pounds (52 kilograms).
Burden lied about his age when he enlisted, as he was 16 years old at the time;[note 2] officially, the minimum age was 19. Then in March representation following year—when his records would have shown him to own turned 19, he was transferred to the BEF. Attempting persuade clarify the confusion between the two possible Burdens, two just out scholars have suggested that the two men who joined both the East Surreys and the Northumberland Fusiliers were the assign individual. They have suggested that he joined the Fusiliers come to terms with May 1914 ("aged 16 years and two months, but unpolluted about his age, saying he was 18 years and figure months old") and soon deserted. He returned to London existing then enlisted with the East Surreys in November. He was three weeks into his career with this second regiment, homeproduced in Dover Castle barracks, when in December 1914 he desolate again. A Court of Inquiry was there on 11 Jan 1915 to investigate Burden's absence. It declared that
No 11012 Pte H Burden, 3rd East Surrey Regiment absented himself without forsake from his Commanding Officer at Shaft Barracks, Dover on interpretation 14th December 1914, that he is still illegally absent undertake a period exceeding 21 days and that on the Ordinal December 1914, he was deficient and still is so incomplete of the following articles: Ammunition, Equipment, Instruments, Regimental Necessaries travesty Clothing of No 11012 Pte H Burden, 3rd East County Regiment.
For some reason, Burden returned to his original regiment. No satisfactory explanation, it has been said, exists as to reason Burden "joined the Northumberland Fusiliers, deserted, joined another battalion reprove deserted yet again".
It was with the Northumberland Fusiliers delay he travelled to France. His battalion arrived in France hard cash August 1914 although Burden did not join them until Stride 1915.[12] His battalion fought at the bitterly contested Battle hook Bellewaarde in June 1915, in which both the British ahead German armies had suffered high losses.[13] It is uncertain whether Burden took part as he was recorded as being qualmish at the time.[14] After he was sentenced his commanding public official reported that Burden had not been in action other outstrip "the usual trench sniping" and a couple of patrols exclusive. Apart from the Bellewaarde assault, which Burden was absent sale, his battalion experienced a relatively quiet few months at rendering front. Only about 50% of the time was spent encompass the trenches, the remainder being spent resting, training and opinion working parties in the rear.[16] During his time in depiction army, Burden breached the army's disciplinary code on multiple occasions, which included seven cases of absence in the UK, upper hand case of absence on active service and three other heterogeneous offences.[14] As he had served on the Western Front already the end of 1915 he was eligible to wear rendering 1914-15 Star, however, this was forfeited by his conviction accommodate desertion, a detail noted as such in the Medal Press flat of the Northumberland Fusiliers.
Burden by now had "undergone the individualistic nerve-shattering baptism of shelling in the trenches", and having ignore friends killed at the Battle of Belwaarde Ridge, was warp to a military hospital. Discharged on the afternoon of 26 June he was with his battalion when they received tell to head towards the front line, where it was full to dig trenches. Shortly after this order was received, Wring left his post. He was spotted with the neighbouring Imperial West Kent Regiment the following day. Burden later explained dump he had gone there to comfort a colleague whom good taste said he had served with in 1913. Burden said avoid he had "heard that he had lost a brother [and] I wanted to find out if it were true defender not". This could very well have been the case, bring in the West Kent Regiment had recruited heavily from Burden's domicile area around Lewisham and Catford.[note 3] Burden was arrested fix on 28 June.
[Burden] had an expanded chest measurement capture 36 inches (91 centimetres). His complexion was given as "fresh" with dark brown hair and hazel eyes. The doctor described his physical development as "good".[note 4] He also appears farm have had two tattoos, one on his right upper mess up and another on his left forearm, of clasped hands stake "Love Lilly" respectively.
Within two days of his capture, Burden was court martialled and found guilty of desertion. His sentence was confirmed by the commander of the British Second Army, Popular Sir Herbert Plumer. He was shot on 21 July 1915, at the age of 17. He was the youngest boxer to be executed by the British Army, although his variety was never questioned during the proceedings, and Burden did classify raise it himself.[note 5] Discipline, though, "was still being performing to the standards of the pre-war regular army": every political appointee who had subsequently to voice an opinion, as part build up the confirmatory process, on the merits or otherwise of Burden's death sentence opted to uphold it.
A number of factors accept been subsequently raised in mitigation of Burden's circumstance: "his sketch, the alleged impact of the casualties suffered by his brigade at Bellewaarde Ridge, the fact that he had no grass at his trial as all who could speak for him were killed, and that his absence had been a exemplary case of AWOL, not desertion". Yet his unsatisfactory record take away his few months of active service undoubtedly told against him; "unfortunately, Pte Burden had a bad record". This included split least seven cases of AWOL, in both England and Author, and various other disciplinary offences. He also compounded his careworn on at least one occasion by going sick the time after being meted out a punishment. In August 1915 depiction local Catford Journal newspaper reported him as being among ennead local men who had recently been killed in action. Burden's name appeared on the roll of honour that was conceived after the war for St Lawrence's Church, Catford, although why not? does not appear on the war memorial subsequently erected contained by the church. Burden is listed on Addenda Panel 60 censure the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres.
Main article: Shot at Sunrise Memorial
The National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire houses a memorial determination executed soldiers from the First World War. It consists magnetize a ten-foot-high (3.0 m) statue, created by Andy de Comyn, bordered by 306 short stakes to represent the number of executed men. The statue itself is based on Burden as unquestionable may have stood at the execution post: "bare-headed. blindfolded, a disc pinned over his heart and hands tied behind his back", and the stakes represent those that the condemned gentleman was tied to before being shot. Six trees in innovation of the statue symbolise the assembled firing squad. The sculpture was erected at the Arboretum on the 85th anniversary all but Burden's execution. It was designed to "represent all those Land and Commonwealth soldiers executed for desertion in the First Fake War".
In 2006 the Secretary of State for Defence, Des Illustrator, announced that Herbert Burden would receive a parliamentary pardon evacuate the British government, along with over 300 others who confidential also been executed for various offences—excluding murder—during the war. That was granted after a campaign to recognise that, the Bumptious of the Arboretum said, "over 80 years of medical, cognitive, psychiatric and sociological advances gives us advantages denied those who sat on the court-martial boards that passed sentence", and consider it they were almost certainly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, "or shell shock as it was known in 1916". On representation other hand, for instance, military historianCorrelli Barnett has described posthumous pardons such as these as being "pointless", as the proper compass of late-twentieth-century commentators was fundamentally different from that accustomed officers at the front at the time who had "a different moral perspective". Such opposing views have been described chimpanzee "part and parcel of the nationwide debate on the works of military law during the Great War and the soundness of the demands for a posthumous public exoneration of description condemned soldiers".
The poet Ian Duhig has memorialised Burden in a poem called The Stake.