They refused to fire a gun but wouldn’t leave the battlefield
COLUMNIST
MAKING a war film about a conscientious objector might at first sound as odd as shooting a movie about a rugby team from the perspective of someone who is not in the squad.
However, Hacksaw Ridge, which opens in the UK later this month, graphically demonstrates how people whose consciences did not allow them to fire a weapon were present on the pitch of battle.
The film tells the story of Desmond Doss, a combat medic whose World War II heroism won him the Medal of Honour, the highest award in the US military.
On the Japanese island of Okinawa he repeatedly refused to run for shelter when under blazing enemy fire and the story of how he carried dozens of injured soldiers to safety has rightly entered the realm of legend.
His citation describes how his “name became a symbol” for “outstanding gallantry far above and beyond the call of duty”.
The story is especially interesting at a time when communities across the world have been traumatised by religiously-motivated violence. This is an example of spiritual beliefs compelling someone to refuse to fight but to serve with courage.
For Doss, a Seventh-day Adventist, the Biblical command not to kill was a fundamental of his faith. He could have avoided combat but he turned down the offer of deferment and put up with ridicule and harassment during his training.
The film may stir memories of William Coltman, who concluded his beliefs did not allow him to kill anyone but who won a Victoria Cross for his service in World War I.
He joined a stretcher bearer group and while serving in northern France in 1918 learned that wounded members of his regiment had been left behind after a retreat. His citation describes how he “went forward alone” under fire “on his own initiative”, found his comrades, dressed them and carried them on his back to safety.
Pacifism was once a strong current in Welsh political and spiritual life. The poet Gwenallt was conscripted in 1917 spent time in Wormwood Scrubs after declaring himself a conscientious objector.
George Maitland Lloyd Davies had joined the Territorials in 1908 but left to become a leading member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation. He was initially exempted from military service in World War I but this was revoked after he continued to campaign for pacifism and he, too, was imprisoned.
But in 1923 he was elected to parliament as the Christian Pacifist candidate for the University of Wales.
Davies was not the first conscientious objector to make it to the Commons. That honour belonged to Labour Caerphilly MP Morgan Jones, a former schoolteacher who had been imprisoned for refusing to fight.
Pacifism was still a powerful force by the time of World War II, when there were 2,920 conscientious objectors recorded in Wales. One of these, Gwynfor Evans, would send political shockwaves through Britain when he won the 1966 Carmarthen by-election and became Plaid Cymru’s first MP.
There is probably more admiration for conscientious objectors who served on the frontline of battle than for those who do not enter the combat zone. But it takes a distinct type of courage to stand in front of a tribunal – at risk of imprisonment or hard labour at stone-breaking camps – and argue you are neither a coward nor a traitor; it requires resilience to weather being called a “conchie” or handed a white feather.
Men in different ranks of life wrestled with their patriotism, their politics, their conscience and their faith when the country went to war. Few people today in the UK have to face such internal struggles.
There were plenty of debates around dinner tables about whether Britain should take part in the invasion of Iraq, but how many of us had a close friend or family member who was likely to be deployed?
Call-ups to national service ended in 1960 and generations of citizens have grown up in a post-conscription age in which joining the military is a career option rather than a command that arrives in the post.
There is now concern on both sides of the Atlantic about how this has affected attitudes to war and the armed forces. If politicians and other leading figures in society have not spent time in the Army, Navy or air force and do not have children who will be in harm’s way, are they less likely to understand the horrors, complexities and uncertainties of conflict?
As we enter the era of drone warfare, in which people sitting in a control room in one country can deploy missiles at a target in another, it is vital that we wrestle with questions of ethics and legality. This is not just a task for lawyers but for all citizens in a democratic society.
The likes of Doss and Coltman are examples of people who refused to surrender their individual consciences to the war effort – probably because they believed they had to answer to a higher authority than a military tribunal – but who served with valour on the battlefield and refused to turn their backs on their brothers.
We may not share their convictions but their stories deserve to be told. They represent a fusion of conscience and courage and this should inspire an even greater respect and appreciation for all members of the armed forces.
The lives of individual servicemen and women will be defined by decisions taken by ministers. Our leaders should never send our troops into battle for a cause they themselves would not fight for on the frontline, and in every campaign we must not lose sight of the magnitude of the loss of a single human life.