Over a million British and Commonwealth soldiers lost their lives in World War I, they left behind families and friends who though devastated by their loss could mourn them with pride as they were after all good men who died honourably fighting for their country, their sacrifice would never be forgotten.

But the sacrifice of others has been forgotten though they died as soldiers on the killing fields of the great war, their deaths remain the most shameful and secretive of British military history. They are the unremembered, the 306 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were executed under the orders of their own army for so called acts of cowardice, desertion and disobedience.

These men died for the sake of example a brutal idea that in order to fight men needed the discipline of fear, it didn’t matter if the were sick or shell shocked or underaged, it didn’t even matter if they were innocent somebody had to be singled out, somebody had to be shot at dawn.