Where our Nation remembers

KEY MEMORIALS

Shot At Dawn sits at the most easterly point of the Arboretum where it is the first place to be touched by the dawn light.

Key_Shot_01.jpg Key_Shot_02.jpg Key_Shot_03.jpg Key_Shot_04.jpg Key_Shot_05.jpg Key_Shot_06.jpg Key_Shot_07.jpg Key_Shot_08.jpg Key_Shot_09.jpg

SHOT AT DAWN

Commemorates: Over 300 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were shot for desertion or cowardice during the First World War. Most of them were sentenced after a short trial at which no real opportunity for defence was allowed.

Today, it is recognised that several of them were under age when they volunteered and that many of them were suffering from shell shock or post traumatic stress disorder. Andy Decomyn's statue 'Shot at Dawn' is modelled on Private Herbert Burden, of the 1st Battallion Northumberland Fusiliers, who was shot at Ypres in 1915 aged 17. His name, and the names of those others who suffered the fate of being shot at dawn are listed on the stakes arranged in the form of a Greek theatre around the statue, symbolising the tragedy that these events signify. The location of this memorial in the most easterly point of the Arboretum which means that it is the first place to be touched by the dawn light.

In 2006, a mass pardon of British and Irish soldiers executed during the Great War was enacted.

 

<BACK

 

       Back to Top

 

CONTACT US

National Memorial
Arboretum

Croxall Road

Alrewas

Staffordshire

DE13 7AR

Tel: 01283 792333

info@thenma.org.uk


Back to Top

Contact Us

National Memorial Arboretum, Croxall Road, Alrewas, Staffordshire, DE13 7AR. I Tel: 01283 792333 I Fax: 020 3207 2111

The National Memorial Arboretum Company Limited. Registered Charity No 1043992

Website designed by OceanBarefoot

Legal Notice and Data Protection I Contact Webmaster


Mothering Sunday
Duke & Duchess of Cambridge
Visit - make sure you get your copy of our new guidebook