2011: Scott McLaren, Highlander
July 4th, 2012 Headsman
A year ago today, 20-year-old Scott McLaren of the 4th Battalion (The Highlanders) the Royal Regiment of Scotland was captured by Afghan insurgents and summarily shot.
The baby-faced McLaren, not yet three months in Afghanistan at that point, had left his base in in the Nahr-e-Saraj district of Helmand province during the middle of the night; reports suggest that he’d done so in order to retrieve mislaid night-vision goggles whose loss he would have been punished for. (This detail, while poignant, is not completely certain.)
Whatever the reason for his sortie, it ended with him being captured by Afghan insurgents.
As British, U.S., and Afghanistan forces mounted a 17-hour manhunt for the missing soldier, McLaren was reportedly stripped of his body armor and equipment and, at some point, shot in the head and dumped in a canal. The exact circumstances of his capture and death may never be known.
On this day..
- 1855: Pietro Fortunato Calvi, the last Belfiore Martyr - 2020
- 1450: James Fiennes, Baron Saye and Sele - 2019
- 1828: William Rice but not John Montgomery, who cheated the hangman with prussic acid - 2018
- 1835: Joshua Cotton and William Saunders, steam doctors - 2017
- 1741: Will, Ward's Negro - 2016
- 1941: Numberless Poles and Jews by Felix Landau's Einsatzkommando - 2015
- 1589: Hemmerlein, chief-ranger of the Margrave - 2014
- 1762: Crown Prince Sado, locked in a rice chest - 2013
- 1861: Francisco del Rosario Sanchez - 2011
- 1533: John Frith and Andrew Hewet, Protestants - 2010
- 1187: Raynald of Chatillon, by Saladin - 2009
- 1946: Eleven from the Stutthof concentration camp - 2008
Entry Filed under: 21st Century,Afghanistan,Borderline "Executions",England,Execution,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Ripped from the Headlines,Scotland,Shot,Soldiers,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 2010s, 2011, afghan war, july 4, scott mclaren, taliban
RIP.