I read a notice that a new book about John C Woods is coming out. He was famous for hanging 10 Nazi war criminals. Reading up on him I note that he executed quite a few US soldiers, anywhere from 60 to 70 and up.
This really surprises me as I have not heard about this many WWII executions. What offenses were they executed for? Here is a list of possible crimes. What is “forcing a safeguard” or “Improper hazarding of vessel”? " Improper use of countersign" - not sure what exactly that is either.
Before Woods took over in 1944, we used a British civilian executioner, another surprise.
A safeguard is a detachment of troops that’s guarding property belonging to the enemy, to protect it from looting or destruction. Forcing a safeguard is violate the safeguard, and to loot or destroy property protected by a safeguard.
Improper hazarding of vessel is when a military vessel is damaged or destroyed either through negligence or through improper behavior.
A countersign is like a password that sentries use to keep people from going through the lines that shouldn’t. Improper use of countersign means you either tell somebody the countersign who isn’t authorized to have it, or you tell the countersign to somebody who should have it, but you willingly tell them the wrong countersign.
That was Thomas Pierrepoint. His brother Henry and his nephew Albert were also executioners. A strange thing to have as the family trade, but there you go. Apparently they had the knack of the long drop - the clean neck snap, rather than the slow strangulation or the head popping off.
My dad met Albert P many years ago and found him to be mostly normal.
I recall reading that Pierrepoint was less than impressed with the skills of the US executioners. He was expert in insuring that the prisoner died swiftly, some of the American executioners not so much. Although I must confess that with the Nazi war criminals I feel that the longer they suffered the better.
It was accurate as far as I know. I’d read about the history of the death penalty and most of the incidents in the film I already knew about. For example, he really did hang a friend and customerfrom his pub.