Sheep & Goat II. [End]

This is coolbert:

"Well boys, goodbye. And for God's sake, shoot straight." - - E. Dyett.

"If a private behaved as he did, it is highly likely he would be shot." - - Gough.

And here is the goat! An officer, a sub-Lieutenant in the 63rd Royal Navy [RN] Division, a naval rating, whose comportment on the battlefield was the polar opposite of Bernard Freyberg.

Edwin Dyett.

An officer who during the Ancre engagement, 1916, behaved in a craven manner, accused of desertion "in the face of the enemy"!

An accusation made - - Edwin arrested, tried, found guilty, sentenced, executed by firing squad - - all in the period of a month!




Edwin, ONE OF ONLY TWO BRITISH OFFICERS DURING THE GREAT WAR [WW1] EXECUTED FOR DESERTION "IN THE FACE OF THE ENEMY"!!

[during the four years of WW1, the British army executed about 300 enlisted men for the same offense as which Edwin was convicted of!!]

We must be careful here and understand the differentiation between the mere crime of desertion and desertion "in the face of the enemy"!! To desert your unit "in the face of the enemy", displaying cowardice while your unit is actually involved in combat operations is intuitively understood to be a much more egregious offense.

It seems that Edwin, ever since the first year after the end of the war, 1919, became and has become even unto almost one hundred years later a cause celebre' among the English people?

[any English readers to the blog please comment on whether the name of Edwin Dyett is still mentioned in some circles!!]

The suggestion has been made that Edwin was a scapegoat. His execution would quell the rumblings of discontent from within the ranks of the enlisted? This was the idea from the higher-ups?

Edwin was done a wrong??!! From the comments of one observer:

"In my own mind there is little doubt that Dyett had no intention of going anywhere near the fighting if he could avoid it . . . it was his duty as an officer to get up there and lead"

You the reader must be the judge!

coolbert.