Harold Pringle

Harold Joseph Pringle [ [http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2067516 CWGC :: Casualty Details ] at www.cwgc.org] (died 5 July 1945) was a Private in the Canadian Army. He served in The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment and was the only soldier of the Canadian Army to be executed during the Second World War for military crimes.

When he first joined the army, he joined with his father. They trained together and neither got in any trouble. On medical examination he was accepted but his father was turned away due to poor eyesight, and after his father left he started getting in trouble. He went AWOL many times and in the end he was sent to a reformatory camp for a year. He escaped after serving six months there and then and reached Italy (where the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment was fighting).

The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment were very short on reserves, and took on Pringle as a very good soldier. He served with duty and determination, but after breaking through the Hitler Line (a line of fortifications in Italy), he had had enough of seeing friends die, so he deserted and went to Rome. Harold then joined the Sailor Gang.The Lane Gang was a bigger and better organized gang in Rome that smuggled goods for the black market. The Sailor Gang did most of the same things, but on a much smaller scale and it had only five members.

The members of the Sailor Gang lived pleasantly for many months, but then their life started going downhill. They were almost always drunk, got into fights, and made rash decisions to the point where one of their members was shot by another. They tried to take him to the local field hospital. All of his gang (except one who was given immunity for his testimony at their trials) said he died on the way. They did not want to get caught with the body, so they put him in a ditch, and Pringle and the leader shot him several times so it would look like a Mafia killing.

The dead man was discovered and police apprehended almost all the members of the Lane Gang and the members of the Sailor Gang. The members were tried and sentenced to death for murder. Pringle tried for an appeal but it failed, and on 5 July 1945, he was shot by a firing squad made of members of the Canadian Army in Italy.

He was subsequently buried in grave number 11, row B, plot VII at Caserta War Cemetery.

References

* Clark, Andrew (2002) "A Keen Soldier: the Execution of Second World War Private Harold Joseph Pringle" Alfred A. Knopf, Canada, Toronto, ISBN 067697354X
* Madsen, Chris (1999) "Another Kind of Justice: Canadian Military Law from Confederation to Somalia" UBC Press, Vancouver, ISBN 0774807180
* [http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=2067516 CWGC :: Casualty Details ] at www.cwgc.orgCommonwealth War Graves Commission