217861 Pte. David Stevenson British Army 13th Btn. Middlesex Regiment (d.18th Jul 1918) David Stevenson served with the Middlesex Regiment 13th Battalion. He was executed for desertion on 18 July 1918 and is buried in Bully-Grenay Communal Cemetery British Extension, France.
By the time that Pte. Stevenson set sail for war in 1917, his military record already marked him out as a heavy-drinking "malingerer" with 24 offences. Once in France with the Lowland Field Artillery, his conduct included dishonesty and desertion. He was shot at dawn on 18th July 1918, aged 23.
Pte. Stevenson, whose commanding officer described as being of "distinctly bad" character, will receive a posthumous pardon under the Government`s proposals for all 306 WW1 soldiers executed for battlefield offences during the Great War. The case shows that not all the 306 were victims of shell-shock.
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