A Keen Soldier; The Execution of Second World War Private Harold Joseph Pringle
✍ Scribed by Clark, Andrew
- Book ID
- 108061363
- Publisher
- Knopf Canada
- Year
- 2002
- Tongue
- en-US
- Weight
- 904 KB
- Category
- Fiction
- ISBN-13
- 9780307368737
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
When award-winning journalist Andrew Clark found the file on Harold Joseph Pringle, he uncovered a Canadian tragedy that had lain buried for fifty years. This extraordinary story of the last soldier to be executed by the Canadian military -- likely wrongfully -- gives life to the forgotten casualties of war and brings their honour home at last.
Harold Pringle was underage when the Second World War broke out, eager to leave quiet Flinton, Ontario, to serve by his father's side. But few who volunteered to fight "the good fight" realized what horror lay ahead; soon Pringle found himself in Italy, fighting on the bloody "Hitler Line," where two-thirds of his company were killed. Shell-shocked, he embarked on a tragic, final course that culminated in a suspect murder conviction.
His appeal was reviewed by the highest levels of government, right up to prime minister King. But Private Pringle was put to death -- the only soldier the Canadians executed in the whole of the...