Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 137 In 2007 I took a walk from Talbot House out to the Poperinghe New Military Cemetery to visit the graves of Canadians buried there. The “New Military Cemetery” was established in June 1915 and contains 677 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 271 French war graves. It was during that visit I discovered the graves of Private James Wilson and Private Come La Liberté – two Canadian soldiers who had been executed. I would later learn that the cemetery contains the graves of 17 soldiers who had been executed. I also learned that one of the ‘shot at dawn’ was a Canadian serving in the British Army. A year later I was back in the area and made a point of visiting the grave of 2nd Lieutenant Eric Poole of the 11th Bn West Yorkshire Regiment. As a major military centre, just behind the lines, Poperinge was the scene of numerous courts martial and about 50 soldiers were executed there. 10 December 1916 The first British army officer to be executed, by firing squad, during the Great War, was a Nova Scotian. Eric Skeffington Poole is buried in Poperinge , Belgium. Eric Poole was born in Nova Scotia, on 20 January 1885 to Henry Skeffington Poole and Florence Hope Gibsone Poole. His service record shows that he gained his first military experience in the 63rd Regiment of the Halifax Rifles, with whom he served for two years between 1903 and 1905. The Poole family moved to England sometime between 1905 and the outbreak of the First World War, settling in Guildford, Surrey. In October 1914, Poole joined the Honourable Artillery Company, where he worked as a driver in 'B’ Battery for the next seven months. He earned a commission as a temporary second lieutenant in the 14th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment in May 1915. A year later, Poole was transferred to serve in France with the 11th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, shortly before it was due to go into action at the Battle of the Somme. According to the medical history sheet compiled for Poole's general court martial in November 1916 he had suffered some mental stress after being hit by clods of earth kicked-out by an enemy shell during fighting on the Somme on 7 July 1916. Near the end of August, after a period of recuperation, Poole was returned to duty with his battalion. He was soon placed in charge of a platoon in C Company. According to his own testimony at his trial, the shell-shock injury caused Poole to get confused at times and to have great difficulty in decision making. It was in this condition that he wandered away from his platoon on 5 October 1916, during a move into the frontline trenches at Flers. Poole was apprehended by the military police two days later and arrested on 10 October. In early November, it was decided to try Poole by general court martial for deserting 'when on active service'. Shot at Dawn Story by Gary Silliker continued ...
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