Not one of the British Army’s best efforts in WWII.
Highlights the difficulty in reconciling a soldier’s duty to obey lawful orders with a soldier’s entitlement to fair and just treatment by superiors and by the military legal system.
And the inevitable spin.
Request for pardons for Salerno Mutineers
There has been media coverage of the 1943 Salerno Mutiny when initially some 300 men and finally 192 men refused to go forward to fight at Salerno and were subsequently convicted of mutiny. The mutiny at Salerno has been the subject of numerous reviews from 1947 to a debate in Parliament in 2000. The refusal to obey orders was an extremely serious offence and the position of those who did obey them, including those who gave their lives, had to be considered. Nobody was executed as a result of this mutiny. Consequently, the MOD has no plans to re-examine the issue.
http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/DefenceNews/DefencePolicyAndBusiness/DefenceNewsDailyarchive4August18August2006.htm
Neatly overlooking the fact that death sentences were imposed and probably would have been carried out but for the intervention of a general with a sense of fairness rather than producing that sort of contrived waffle.
It is implicit in the last two sentences of the quote that the MOD would re-examine the issue if someone had been executed. How would that alter whether or not the events and processes leading to an execution were right or not?
Hmmm - I have never heard of that mutiny before. Whilst I can sympathise with the soldiers personally I think they should have “just got on with it” and obeyed the orders. Army life is full of admin errors and cock ups.
Whilst browsing that MOD web site you linked to I noticed the article on Myleene Klass visiting a unit. The picture below shows that one squaddie in particular (judging from where his hand is) made the most of her visit!
I’m inclined to agree with you, but I’m also inclined to sympathy for the mutineers. I’m not willing to make a judgment without knowing a lot more about the event. If, as seems to be the case, these blokes weren’t medically fit and hadn’t been certified medically fit for action, then they shouldn’t have been sent. It’s not like a do or die action where all hands had to man the guns. After all, the request went to the wrong depot.
I think I could spend the rest of my life oscillating between “they were wrong” and “they were justified”, depending upon where I placed my emphasis in the history of the event.
One thing is for sure. The people above them who caused the situation were wrong at every step. As usual, none of them were brought to account.
Whilst browsing that MOD web site you linked to I noticed the article on Myleene Klass visiting a unit. The picture below shows that one squaddie in particular (judging from where his hand is) made the most of her visit!
I presumed from the link to the picture myklass2.jpg that the hand would have been further south. 
It’s good to see that at least one bloke is keeping abreast of current issues.
The men that mutinied were in no fit shape to fight anyway, many were ill and most (if not all) were probably suffering from what is now known as PTSD.
That is why they were at the transit camp, whilst transit camps did indeed provide transit accomodation and food for soldiers moving forward to units or as units, they often also had a fair share of soldiers coming back who needed, shall we say, some time to recover.
In September 1943, 191 soldiers of Montgomery’s 8th Army downed guns and refused to take part in the battle for Salerno in southern Italy. It was the biggest wartime mutiny in British military history.
The mutineers were all members of the Tyne Tees (50th) and Highland (51st) Divisions. Prior to the mutiny all bar one of them had unblemished service records. They had fought together through much of the desert campaign against Rommel in north Africa, and had formed strong regimental bonds. General Montgomery encouraged this ‘esprit de corps’. Loyalty to your unit was the cement that bound his formidable army together.
The men of this story were amongst those who became separated from their units when the victorious 8th Army moved on to Sicily. Some were wounded in battle, others struck down by dysentery and malaria. They were shipped back to Africa for treatment, and then transferred to Camp 155 - the 8th Army transit camp near Tripoli where they waited to return to their units. When the call came, they all wanted to go. Even men who were unfit for battle volunteered for the draft, anxious to rejoin the comrades they had fought with in the desert.
Only when crossing the Mediterranean did they learn they were not, as they had been told at the transit camp, returning to their units. Instead, they were bound for Salerno where allied forces, led by the U.S. 5th Army, were battling to establish a foothold in mainland Italy. On landing, the reinforcements were taken to a field near the beach where they were kept for three days.
It was an administrative error that had led the men to be sent to Salerno, and by the time they got there the emergency was over: they were not needed. But the army could not be seen to back down. The men were warned of the potential punishment for disobedience - mutiny carried the death sentence - but still 191 men refused to move. They were arrested and shipped back to North Africa for court-martial.
The defence team was given just six days to prepare its case, and the trial itself lasted less than a week. The trial papers, originally ordered to be kept secret for 75 years, have only recently been released.
All 191 men were found guilty. Three sergeants were sentenced to death; the rest of the men to between seven and 12 years penal servitude. It was only through the chance intervention of the Adjutant General, Sir Ronald Adam - who later referred to the affair as ‘one of the worst things we have ever done’ - that all the men’s sentences were suspended.
The mutineers were then sent back to the very units they had refused to join at Salerno. They eventually returned home to find their war pensions had been reduced and their campaign medals forfeited. They have faced accusations of cowardice and dishonour ever since.
Might have had more to do with the fact that their original units had been ordered back to UK for a rest and training for the invasion.
This sort of capbadge loyalty thing is one reason why the enemies of the Cardwell System have made several attempts to break it up since the war. They would really prefer a unified Corps of Infantry without any tribal ties. Instead we had ‘Brigade Groups’ and now we’ve got ‘Large Regiments’