The futile last appeal of Australia-born artillerist Frank Willis — before his execution at La Havre a century ago today for killing a British policeman — ran thus:
I am 20 years of age. I joined the Australian Army in 1915 when I was 16 years of age. I went to Egypt and the Dardanelles. I have been in a considerable number of engagements there, & in France. I joined the British Army in April 1918 and came to France in June 1918. I was discharged from the Australian Army on account of fever which affected my head contracted in Egypt. I was persuaded to leave my unit by my friends and got into bad company. I began to drink and gamble heavily. I had no intention whatever of committing the offences for which I am now before the Court. I ask the Court to take into consideration my youth and to give me a chance of leading an upright and straightforward life in the future.
This young man’s shooting detail was to have been commanded by Second Lieutenant Bill Fisk of the King’s Liverpool Regiment the father of the great Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk. Fisk has written frequently about his father’s refusal to conduct the execution, which the son says cost his father his military career and was also “the noblest act of his life” although it made no difference at all to the fate of Frank Willis.
Thanks to the investigatory exertions of the Great War Forum, it appears that “Frank Willis” was a pseudonym, and the true name under which this man joined and deserted the Australian army before his British enlistment was Richard Mellor. Mellor’s mother spent the rest of her life vainly petitioning authorities for information about her son’s fate.
On this day..
- 1780: Johann Heinrich Waser, persecuted whistleblower
- 1661: Archibald Campbell
- 1791: Thomas Mount of the Flash Company
- 2013: Orelesitse Thokamolelo, bad in-law
- 1925: The Sveta Nedelya bombers
- 1994: Charles Rodman Campbell, hanged in Washington
- 1541: Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
- 1776: Benjamin Harley and Thomas Henman, Smugglerius?
- 1941: Mirjam Sara P., T4 victim
- 1797: Gracchus Babeuf, for the Conspiracy of Equals
- 1525: Thomas Müntzer, prophet of the Peasants' War
- 1610: Francois Ravaillac, because Paris was worth more than a mass
What was Bill Fisk involvementinto this affair?
Fisk was meant to command the firing squad that was going to execute Willis, but he refused – he argued it was wrong to kill soldiers.
In fairness to Petar, I believe he was accurately pointing out that the original version of this post elided Fisk’s refusal. Mea culpa.