218083 Pte. Charles B. Nicholson British Army 8th Btn. Yorks and Lancs Regiment from:Middlesbrough, (d.27th Oct 1917) Pte. Chzarles Nicholson served with the Yorks and Lancs Regiment 8th Battalion.He was executed for desertion on 27th October1917 and is buried in Longuenesse (St. Omer) Souvenir Cemetery, St. Omer, France.
It took less than ten minutes to sentence the teenage soldier to death.
The evidence came from his platoon sergeant, who told the court that the private had gone AWOL following a bombing raid.
The only defence was an 11-word statement from Charles. He said: "When the bomb dropped, I got nervous. I can't say anything else."
The private, from Middlesbrough, had joined the 8th Yorkshire and Lancaster Regiment aged 16, lying about his age.
Two days after his execution, in October 1917, Charles' twin brother John was killed by German machine-guns at Ypres.
When their mother got the telegram telling her that both her twin sons had died - one executed for desertion - she had a nervous breakdown.
Charles' niece Doris Conroy, 80, of Glasgow, says: "The disgrace was a lot to live with. My dad never told me how his brother died - I only found out 15 years ago when I saw his name in a newspaper."
Since then she has battled for a pardon for her uncle and has visited his grave in France. She says: "The gravestone just said, 'Loved in life, lamented in death'. Seeing where he was buried has made me more determined to get justice for him. He was just a teenager who got frightened and ran. I believe he was then murdered by a government which wanted to make an example of him. This government should be asking for a pardon for the young, brave soldiers who died for absolutely no reason.
The mass pardon of 306 British Empire soldiers executed for certain offences during the Great War was enacted in section 359 of the Armed Forces Act 2006, which came into effect on royal assent on 8th November 2006.
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