British Armed Forces - General & Miscellaneous, War Crimes, Great Britain - Army, Maritime Law, Great Britain - World War II, British History - Military History

Mutiny at Salerno

Name: Mutiny at Salerno
Author: Saul David
ISBN: 9781844860197

by Saul David

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Overview

In late September 1943, nearly 200 veterans of Montgomery's Eighth Army were arrested for refusing orders to join units of the US Fifth Army at the Salerno beachhead in southern Italy. Within six weeks, all but one had been found guilty of mutiny, their sentences ranging from five years' penal servitude to death. Fifty years on, Saul David became the first military historian to gain access to the court martial papers - normally restricted for 75 years. In addition to crucial defence documents and the testimony of eyewitnesses, these papers have enabled David to expose how poorly-equipped Eighth Army veterans, some still recovering from wounds and illness, were needlessly sent as reinforcements to Salerno when Fifth Army men were available; how transit camp authorities deliberately deceived the reinforcements as to their destination; how the defence team at the trial was forced, by lack of time, lack of witnesses and the hostility of the court, to offer a case based on no evidence and doomed to fail; how, after the humane intervention of the Adjutant General and the suspension of sentences, insensitive staff officers and victimisation in their new units caused many mutineers to desert; and how, as a result of their convictions, the former war heroes were stripped of their campaign and gallantry medals and branded as cowards. Concluding that the men were victims of a terrible injustice, Mutiny at Salerno provides a compelling case for a Royal Pardon.