SIR: I indeed agree with W Robertson regarding officers shot at dawn during World War 1. I do hope John Hargreaves' relatives and the rest of those brave men get their pardons.

Like W Robertson said, those who set up the kangaroo courts and condemned these young men to death, were, in my opinion, no better than the Nazis and Japanese in the First World War.

I recently watched a play about a young soldier who suffered shell shock and after being tried by a kangaroo court was convicted and shot. The play was presented by Edward Woodward in his series: "In Suspicious Circumstances". I'm sure the plot was borrowed from the film King and Country in which Tom Courtenay played the luckless soldier.

Even during wartime there was one law for the privates and one for the officers. At the end of the play, Edward Woodward spoke of the "recognition" of shell shock in the Second World War and the more lenient treatment of deserters. Had I been part of a firing squad, I'd have made sure I missed the victim even if he were already dead.

I am glad that these programmes are shown from time to time to remind generations young and old of these barbaric injustices done to our own people by our own people.

B Howarth

Alexandria Drive, Westhoughton.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.