Fact or Fiction? Does the british army leave their wounded behind?

Stabshauptmann

This sounds bizare to me, but I was talking to this ex-british soldier who claimed the brits dont have the same "leave no man behind" mantra as the americans, and that where its not convenient wounded soldiers are simply left to be picked up "later".

That this guy is ex-military is not in dispute, but he might have been either blowing smoke or bitter over something.

Ive been looking about but havent been able to confirm or deny this. Anyone here able to help?

citizen_p

id say wounded have been left behind in its long service history (ww2, ww1 etc.. etc...). but in modern times they wouldnt even leave a body in the conflicts zones they are currently in.

Original Steyr

I remember seeing on Discovery channel that they buried their dead in body bags in mass graves only to have them removed and re-buried back in the UK after a proper funeral service. They also offered to help the Argentines re-patriate their dead but the Argentines refused as this meant there would be a lasting Argentine presence on the Islands.

Mahatma coat

AFAIK the confusion around this stems from the Americans Policy of no man left behind, in the context of the OP its in relation to the collection and return of the REMAINS of US servicemen found having been MIA for a bit, Think of those Bodies they keep findin in Vietnam of or Flanders, the US hgas a comitment to bring your body home, and has had from their first foreign war

The British army is much much older than the Americans so that kinda policy was neither possible or even really considered an issue for a long time, so the policy of 'Bury me where I fall' was the norm.


But just incase I am misreading the OP

No, No civilised countrys armed forces have a standig order
'Fukem' rule

if you are Injured on the Battlefield then every effort will be taken to get you off to safety

If you are KILLED on the battlefield you may be burried in the vicinity or your body may be brought home shiuld you be British

Your Body WILL be brought home if you are American





Actually as an interestin aside
Manic, provided its not too personal a question, do you know what they do with you?? are you automatically interred in the States as a US Sodire or can you elect to have your body 'forwaqrded' on to Ireland and the Family Plot???

junder

anybody remember the royal marines strapping themselves to the sides of an apache to go rescue a fallen british soldier. I think its fair to say the in afghan the British Army will not leave soldiers behind because of what would be done to the bodies

BuckJamesRogers

junder wrote: »

anybody remember the royal marines strapping themselves to the sides of an apache to go rescue a fallen british soldier. I think its fair to say the in afghan the British Army will not leave soldiers behind because of what would be done to the bodies

thats in the Jugroom Fort battle, described in "Apache" by Ed Macy.

L/Cpl Matthew Ford was the guy

Manic Moran

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Actually as an interestin aside
Manic, provided its not too personal a question, do you know what they do with you?? are you automatically interred in the States as a US Sodire or can you elect to have your body 'forwaqrded' on to Ireland and the Family Plot???

I don't think we have a family plot here. Outside of my grandfather, none of my direct Irish relatives have died, he's in Dublin. I'm not sure what country my parents would like to be buried in, even. Mom's Greek, both her parents are buried in Thessaloniki.

In my case, it'll probably be in the US. I could get a plot in a Veterans' cemetary should I so desire, but it's not mandatory. I probably won't be in a position to care much anyway. However, should I wish to be planted in Ireland, I'm sure it could be arranged, even with a military funeral detail.

NTM

twinytwo

Mahatma coat wrote: »

AFAIK the confusion around this stems from the Americans Policy of no man left behind, in the context of the OP its in relation to the collection and return of the REMAINS of US servicemen found having been MIA for a bit, Think of those Bodies they keep findin in Vietnam of or Flanders, the US hgas a comitment to bring your body home, and has had from their first foreign war

The British army is much much older than the Americans so that kinda policy was neither possible or even really considered an issue for a long time, so the policy of 'Bury me where I fall' was the norm.


But just incase I am misreading the OP

No, No civilised countrys armed forces have a standig order
'Fukem' rule

if you are Injured on the Battlefield then every effort will be taken to get you off to safety

If you are KILLED on the battlefield you may be burried in the vicinity or your body may be brought home shiuld you be British

Your Body WILL be brought home if you are American





Actually as an interestin aside
Manic, provided its not too personal a question, do you know what they do with you?? are you automatically interred in the States as a US Sodire or can you elect to have your body 'forwaqrded' on to Ireland and the Family Plot???

The Americans dont leave anyone behind for good reason.. during either korea or nam cant remember which the enemy used to dig up bodies of buried soldiers/ mess with the bodies so they are now always taken home.

Secondly its hard to believe any unit in the american or british army leaving anyone anywhere either wounded or dead

Mahatma coat

Manic Moran wrote: »

I don't think we have a family plot here. Outside of my grandfather, none of my direct Irish relatives have died, he's in Dublin. I'm not sure what country my parents would like to be buried in, even. Mom's Greek, both her parents are buried in Thessaloniki.

In my case, it'll probably be in the US. I could get a plot in a Veterans' cemetary should I so desire, but it's not mandatory. I probably won't be in a position to care much anyway. However, should I wish to be planted in Ireland, I'm sure it could be arranged, even with a military funeral detail.

NTM

So you could be burried in Ireland should you will it, with full military honours, interestin, and thanks for respondin, and yeah I figured you wouldnt care much after the fact , but just interestin from the POV of the parents

Stovepipe

No Army would leave a wounded guy behind, given what the Taliban or ALQ types would do to him / her. Given the defilement of corpses that has occurred in Iraq and A'stan, I doubt if they would leave a dead person behind either, apart from any desire to ship the dead home, unless the dead person's recovery was too dangerous to effect.
regards
Stovepipe

citizen_p

Secondly its hard to believe any unit in the american or british army leaving anyone anywhere either wounded or dead

it happened.....a documentry i seen just popped in my head....

during the invasion of france as the brits were retreating to dunkirk a guy was hit anyway and was left by the roadside and his gun was taking too.
it was believed he would be taken prisoner and be treated by the german medics....
the unit (that left him) was captured later...but was brought to a barn and grenades were thrown in and the rest shot.

it was 1 of these ( although the documentrys budget must of been small it looked more like 12
source: http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html

LE PARADIS (Pas-de-Calais, May 26, 1940)
A company of the Royal Norfolk Regiment, trapped in a cowshed, surrendered to the 2nd Infantry Regiment, SS 'Totenkopf' (Death's Head) Division under the command of 28 year old SS Obersturmfuhrer Fritz Knoechlein. Marched to a group of farm buildings, they were lined up in the meadow along side the barn wall. When the 99 prisoners were in position, two machine guns opened fire killing 97 of them. Knoechlein then ordered a group of his mem to fix bayonets and stab or shoot to death any who showed signs of life. The bodies were then buried in a shallow pit in front of the barn. Two managed to escape, Privates Albert Pooley and William O'Callaghan of the Royal Norfolk Regiment emerged from the slaughter wounded but alive. When the SS troops moved on, the two wounded soldiers were discovered, after having hid in a pig-sty for three days and nights, by Madame Duquenne-Creton and her son Victor who had left their farm when the fighting started. She then cared for them till captured again by another, much more friendly, Wehrmacht unit to spend the rest of the war as POWs. In 1942, the bodies of those executed were exhumed by the French authorities and reburied in the local churchyard now part of the Le Paradis War Cemetery. After the war, the massacre was investigated by the War Crimes Investigation Unit and Knoechlein was traced and arrested. During the war he had been awarded three Knight's Crosses. Tried before a War Crimes Court in the No. 5 Court of the Curiohaus, Altona, in Hamburg, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging and on January 28, 1949, the sentence was carried out. Married with four children, his wife attended the trial every day. (On May 27, 1970 a memorial plaque was affixed to the barn wall and unveiled by Madame Creton in the presence of members of the Dunkirk Veterans Association)


WORMHOUDT ATROCITY (Pas-de-Calais, May 27/28 , 1940)
The day after the Le Paradis massacre, around 100 men of the 2nd Royal Warwickshire Regiment, the Cheshire Regiment and the Royal Artillery, were taken prisoner by the No 7 Company, 2nd Battalion of the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. At Esquelbecq, near the town of Wormhoudt, about twelve miles from Dunkirk, the prisoners were marched across fields to a nearby farm and there confined in a barn with not enough room for the wounded to lie down. There the massacre began. About five stick grenades were lobbed in amongst the defenceless prisoners who died in agony as shrapnel tore into their flesh. When the last grenade had been thrown, those still standing were then ordered outside, five at a time, there to be mown down under a hail of bullets from the rifles of the executioners. Fifteen men survived the atrocity in the barn only to give themselves up later to other German units to serve out the war as POWs. Bodies of the murdered victims were buried in a mass grave dug up near the barn. A year later, the SS, in an attempt to cover up the crime, disinterred the bodies and buried them in various cemeteries in Esquelbecq and Wormhoudt. In 1947, the War Graves Commission erected headstones over the graves but as most of the bodies bore no identification, their ID tags and pay books being destroyed by the SS prior to the shootings, the names carved on the headstones bear no relation to the bodies buried underneath. Unlike the Le Paradis massacre, the victims of Wormhoudt were never avenged, as after the war no survivor could positively identify any of the SS soldiers involved. Where as the majority of soldiers serving in the Waffen SS were entirely blameless, the actions of some units have forever tarnished the name of the Waffen SS.

twinytwo

Mousey- wrote: »

it happened.....a documentry i seen just popped in my head....

during the invasion of france as the brits were retreating to dunkirk a guy was hit anyway and was left by the roadside and his gun was taking too.
it was believed he would be taken prisoner and be treated by the german medics....
the unit (that left him) was captured later...but was brought to a barn and grenades were thrown in and the rest shot.

it was 1 of these ( although the documentrys budget must of been small it looked more like 12
source: http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres.html

mmmk i was refering to more modern times as in it would would have to be a really bad situation for it to happen these days.

Victor

Better to retrieve one mutilated body tomorrow than ten un-mutilated ones today.

These are some instances of the Americans especially taking unnecessary casualties to retrieve bodies.

gizmo555

Stovepipe wrote: »

No Army would leave a wounded guy behind, given what the Taliban or ALQ types would do to him / her. Given the defilement of corpses that has occurred in Iraq and A'stan, I doubt if they would leave a dead person behind either, apart from any desire to ship the dead home, unless the dead person's recovery was too dangerous to effect.
regards
Stovepipe

Nothing new there so, as Kipling noted:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

(Seems, by the way, to imply that the British Army was leaving its wounded behind in those days at any rate . . .)

Victor

Not quiet - on several occasions they suffered 99%+ casualties.

Manic Moran

gizmo555 wrote: »

Nothing new there so, as Kipling noted:

When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

(Seems, by the way, to imply that the British Army was leaving its wounded behind in those days at any rate . . .)

American version:


And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers' Green.


NTM