| Notes: | CMP. He was born and resided in London North and formerly served in the East Surrey Regt. War Diary WO 171/7788. 25 Company Traffic Control. 22/11/1945. L/Cpl Ward found dead, Cologne SIB investigating. Found drowned with excessive injuries caused by persons unknown. 26/11/1945 buried in Guards Div Cemetery. Cologne. War Diary WO 171/10763. 25 Coy (TC), 3/6/1946 OC Capt. Barry, Pioneer Corps Witness at trial of civilians re murder of L/Cpl. Ward. War Diary WO 171/7814. 87 Section SIB. Cologne 22/11/45. A L/Cpl of Traffic Control, CMP Cologne, was found murdered on the 22 November 1945, and investigations initiated by this Section have resulted in the arrest of the two perpetrators and eleven others for being accessories after the fact. All thirteen are German. Casualty List 1931, Western Europe, Died, 22/11/1945.Inscription on gravestone: Rest in peace Eric in the garden of remembrance, we meet every day. Mother.
William Eric Ward.
Extract from Motherwell Times 25/1/1946.
GRIM JOB IN COLOGNE - Murderers watched by Scots Guards.
Two Scots Guardsmen who in Cologne recently had the unenviable job of guarding three German murderers were present at the dramatic court room scene when a Military Court judge pronounced sentence of death upon the three men for the brutal killing of a British CMP last November, writes a military observer.
Gdsm. William Thompson whose home is 26 Church Place, Grahamston, Falkirk, and Gdsm. Tom Mark of 324 High Street, Newarthill, had to sit watchfully by the side of the dock with rifles and bayonets in case either the prisoners or their many relatives in the crowded court should cause a disturbance.
Seven other Germans, charged with assisting in an failing to report the murder, also had to be watched and eventually received from one to five years imprisonment. At the conclusion of the case the three murderers were hurried into a waiting van while a cordon of German police kept back the crowd. The Guardsmen went with them to deliver them safely to Klingelputs goal. Once the scene of Nazi atrocities. |
GERMANY
