Jim Carroll - 15 Dec 15 - 03:02 PM

1: "Your words on our recording Tommy Kenny were:
"I bet he and his mates had a laugh at our gullibility in believing what he said"

Chapter and verse please Jom - or is this just more Made Up Shit

2: "You dismissed Harry Patch's statement on shellshock out of hand "because he said he'd never seen a case" and totally refused to respond to the fact that he was fighting next to people who certainly had."

Harry Patch (80 years after the event) said that he had never seen anyone suffering from shellshock - that means that he can never have seen anyone summarily executed for suffering from shellshock. Harry Patch joined up in 1916 and was sent to France with those he had trained with in July 1917 those around him were those he had joined up and trained with. In September 1917 he was wounded he along with everyone he was there with took part in a British Offensive, there were no German Offensives against British positions between July 1917 and September 1917 so where and how could those who Harry Patch was fighting alongside ever seen anyone who may have been sufering from shellshock (You see I believe Harry Patch when he said he never saw anyone suffering from shellshock - you Jom obviously don't - you are calling Harry Patch a liar).

3: You dismissed the report of summary executions from an old soldier becaus "they never happened" - simple as that.
If that isn't calling soldiers liars - what is?

I have dismissed reports of summary executions because I can find no evidence at all that they ever happened. Prove that the Tommy Kenny you interviewed WAS a soldier - your own slapdash approach negated your own research, your anglo-phobic nature just got the better of you and you f**ked up right royally. I do believe the memoirs and autobiographies of many, many other soldiers who fought for a damned sight longer on the western front than three months and guess what Jom - NOT ONE OF THEM REFERS TO ANY SUMMARY EXECUTIONS - so are they all liars - YOU seem to think so.

4: "I have at no time described soldiers as "dullards, simpletons and fools," - because they joined - I have taken great pains to describe the "emotional blackmail, the lying of the recruiting campaigns and the fact that employers forced them to join up under the threat of dismissal and also, as in Tommy Kenny's case, the enticements of three meals, a bed and a uniform which was offered to unemployed young men to get them to join."

Of course you did you state quite clearly that they were tricked into joining up - only thing is Jom you cannot identify those who were tricked - Between August 1914 and December 1914 over 1,200,000 men volunteered, they were eager to do "their bit", they did it out of duty and patriotism, they did not have to be tricked, they did not have to be lied to (Harry Patch knew exactly what he was headed for - his own brother had told him). Here is another anomaly in your Tommy Kenny saga - Liverpool between 1903 and 1916 was booming, it was expanding at a terrific rate it was described as being economically almost a "golden age" - so what unemployment? But first above all else prove that Tommy Kenny was ever a soldier - if what you say is true go back to his family and get the actual details of his service - somehow I don't think that you will bother.

5: STOP THE PRESS - BREAKING NEWS - NEVER BEFORE REVEALED "Tommy Kenny did not say he saw anybody shot - go ***** read what I wrote about what he said about executions

Sorry Jom don't believe you it is your narrative you go back and dig out the relevant passages where you say that Tommy Kenny NEVER saw anyone getting shot - he was your original "smoking gun" the guy who told you he saw it happen. So we now have your two key "witnesses" who saw NOTHING - Believe me or believe me not I have searched high and low and far and wide and I HAVE NOT COME ACROSS ONE SINGLE INSTANCE OF ANY SUMMARY EXECUTION - while you have maintained this fiction based on the vaguest hearsay and dramatic interpretation - Sorry Jom I deal in fact and substantive evidence, nothing whatsoever to do with "convenient dyslexia". Same old, same old, big on smears and allegations - hopelessly short on any substantive proof, evidence or detail.