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Contemporary cartoon:
Officer
(to a boy of 13 who has given his age as 16): "Do you know
where boys go who tell lies?"
Applicant: "To the Front, Sir."
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Boys who volunteered for hell in
trenches
June 14 2004
By George Macintyre, The Journal
One of the most enduring injustices of the First World War - the recruitment
of underage soldiers, some as young as 14, to fill the gaps in the ranks
left by mounting casualties - is featured in a documentary to be screened
for the first time tonight (June 14, 2004) on Channel 4.
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As part of Channel 4's Secret History series, Bristol-based Testimony
Films has produced Britain's Boys Soldiers, highlighting the often ignored
fact that as many as 250,000 boys under the age of 16 lied about their
ages to serve in the Great War. Almost 120,000 were killed - not all
of them by the enemy.
Retired teacher John Hipkin, of Newcastle, learned of the executions
of young soldiers from a report in The Journal when secret court martial
papers were first published in 1990. Ever since, he has been campaigning
for posthumous pardons for the 306 British, Irish and Commonwealth soldiers
executed under the British Army Act. He welcomed the production of the
documentary. "I couldn't believe it when I first saw the report
in The Journal," he said. "I thought they must have made a
mistake about the ages. One of those listed as being shot was Northumberland
Fusilier Herbert Burden, who enlisted at 16 and was 17 when he was executed.
"Other youngsters shot at dawn were Private E Young, a Canadian,
Private Herbert Morris, a Jamaican, and Private Aby Bevistein, a Polish
refugee who lied not only about his age but also about his name and
nationality so he could fight for Britain. Of these only Bevistein is
featured in the documentary but it is good that his story - and the
fight by Liberal Mansfield MP Arthur Markham in the House of Commons
to bring the scandal of underage recruitment and the continued Government
cover-ups to light - is finally being told."
A number of surviving boy soldiers - many of whom have died since filming
was completed - feature in the Testimony Films documentary. Dick Trafford,
from Lancashire, was 16 when he went over the top for the first time.
"It was hell," he recalls. "You dropped down when the
Germans opened fire and the bullets went over the top of you. But a
good many were wounded or killed before you could drop.
I was one of the lucky ones."
The parents and sweethearts left behind lived in fear of the telegram
boy who brought the news of the dead and wounded. Florence Billington,
aged 17 in 1915, said: "When I got the letter my heart sank. It
said that my sweetheart Edward had been killed. I thought they had made
a mistake."
"Of course, there had been no mistake," said Mr Hipkin, who
at 14 was the youngest British prisoner-of-war in the Second World War.
"So many of these young boys rushed to enlist in a patriotic fever,
all fought courageously but very few were properly prepared for the
horrors they would face in the trenches.
"Aby Bevistein was wounded, taken to hospital but then returned
to the front. He was shell-shocked when taken out and executed for cowardice
in 1916. The re-enactment of this travesty of justice in Boy Soldiers
is extremely moving and, hopefully, will help convince the Ministry
of Defence that the families and relatives of the 306 men and boys executed
by the British Army have waited long enough for justice.
"Although the Northumberland Fusiliers agreed to add Herbert Burden's
name to the battalion's Book of Remembrance, he and the others deserved
to be better treated by the Government of the day, they deserve to be
better treated by today's Government."
THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND FURTHER
INFOMRATION:
In August 1914 the British Army only had 750,000 men. The war
minister, Field-Marshall Lord Kitchener, believed that Britain
would need another 500,000 men to help defeat Germany. Well-designed
posters and passionate recruitment rallies were used to encourage
thousands of men to join the armed forces.
By the end of August over 300,000 men had joined up; many of these
were younger than the official minimum age of nineteen. Younger
boys often saw the army as an opportunity to travel or to get
away from strict parents.
Hundreds of boys falsified birth dates to meet the minimum age
requirements. Because recruiting officers were desperate for soldiers
they did not always check the boy's details very carefully. A
sixteen year-old later told of how he was able to join the army:
"The recruiting sergeant asked me my age and when I told
him he said, 'You had better go out, come in again, and tell me
different.' I came back, told him I was nineteen and I was in."
EXAMPLES:
* Private E. Lugg managed to join the 13th Royal Sussex Regiment
at the age of thirteen.
* Private Lewis served at the Somme when he was only twelve.
* John Cornwell was only sixteen when he won the Victoria Cross
for bravery. He remained at his post on one of the guns throughout
an enitre attack on his ship the Chester when it was attacked
by four German light cruisers, but later died of wounds sustained
during the attack.
* Victor Silvester, a fourteen year old schoolboy, ran away from
Ardingly College in 1914 to join the army. The recruiting officer
accepted Victor's claim that he was nineteen and soon after his
fifteenth birthday he was fighting on the Western Front. At one
point Sylvester was ordered to be a member of a firing squad that
executed five British soldiers for desertion. Victor's parents
suspected he had joined the army and informed the authorities
but it was not until he was wounded in 1917 that he was discovered
and brought home.
As the war progressed information about the horrors of trench
warfare began to filter home and the number of boy soldiers declined.
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