Victor Spencer

Victor Manson Spencer (1894-1918) was a volunteer from Invercargill, New Zealand who fought in the Otago Regiment of the New Zealand Division in World War I. Victor was executed for desertion in February 1918, despite suggestions that he was severely traumatised by shellshock, having fought and survived several campaigns. He was the last soldier to be executed during World War One. Although the Australian commanders refused to let the British execute their soldiers, the New Zealand leadership agreed that they could.

Spencer was finally pardoned by the New Zealand Parliament in 2005, in a departure from custom since pardons are normally granted by the Crown, and are rarely posthumous, The grounds for the pardon was that the execution was an inappropriate action. The decision, 87 years and a world away from the battlefields of WW1, was inevitably controversial.

References

* [http://www.nzedge.com/mailbox/14_august00.html Last soldier executed]
* [http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~phil/nz/20000410.htm Pardon]
* [http://medals.nzdf.mil.nz/news/archive2005.html New Zealand Defence Force - World War One pardoned soldiers recognised]
* [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10409821 New Zealand Herald article]
* fr Soldat fusillé pour l'exemple