218148 Pte. Joseph Bateman British Army 2nd Btn. South Staffordshire Regiment from:Sheffield, (d.3rd Dec 1917) Joseph Bateman was executed for desertion 03/12/1917 and buried in Rocquigny-Equancourt Road British Cemetery, Manacourt, France. Se was the son of Mr. C. Bateman, of 3 Kilton St., Sheffield and was aged 28.
The granddaughter of a soldier shot for desertion has met the man behind adding his name to a war memorial on a visit to the monument. WW1 soldier Pte Joseph Bateman - one of 306 British deserters shot - was executed in December 1917 by firing squad. Historian Graham Hodgson got Dudley Council to add the soldier's name to Wordsley's war memorial. The Staffordshire Regiment soldier's grand-daughter, Judith Lampitt, was tracked down after a TV appeal. "Mr Hodgson has done all of the hard work. We didn't know how my grandfather had died. I knew he died in the war, he'd been shot in the war, but I had no idea at all he had died in that way."
|