The real brutality of war....
Damn...
“Highgate having the benefit of only 47 minutes’ advance notice, just enough time to scribble a tear-jerking “will” leaving the remains of his salary due to a girlfriend in Dublin. His execution was published in army orders a few days later — a little warning to the rest of the team.”
What a disastrous stupid war. All sides were gung-ho and itching for war, but 4 years and 20 million deaths later, there were no winners. On a personal note, my great-great uncle was shot and killed by the Germans.
My quiet hardworking grandfather we not over the top seven times til he was shot in the hand. While in the trench for care, he got gassed (mustard gas).
Came back to Minnesota, never complained though his lungs sounded awful.
An unappreciated hero like 99% of our troops fighting against modern weapons with tactics developed hundreds of years prior. And
Darned iPhone and no glasses.
Damn that's fast. Poor kid. Today's heinous, cold-blooded killers are condemned in 1960, death sentence endorsed in 1970, appealed in 1980, appealed again in 1990, hullaballoo about which drug to use to kill the prisoner in 2000, and finally the condemned dies of old age in 2010.
Reading the detail, he wasn’t a straggler, he was an intentional deserter.
The guy took off his uniform and dressed as a French peasant while he was AWOL from his unit?
Good luck explaining that idea to a military judge in the middle of a real war zone.
If the Germans had caught him in peasant clothes, he would have been shot as a spy.
It might be of interest to note that the first shot fired by an American serviceman toward a German serviceman during WW1 took place in Guam.
Merle Hay was reported to be the first American killed in WW1. There is a street and a large mall in Des Moines, IA named after him.
Merle Hay - Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merle_Hay