Additional
Information: |
An NMC member, Private John Ngama, who was seconded to 12 Squadron of the South African Air Force, armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun, broke into an Italian farmhouse at 04h00 in the morning, his intention being to abduct a twenty-six year old Italian. The sixty-year-old mother of the woman accosted him and, while trying to shield her daughter, was shot dead. Ngama was tried by a Field General Court Martial and found guilty of murder. He was sentenced to death and was executed by firing squad at Foggia, Italy on 12 January 1944. His unit carried out the execution. According to the records of the Deputy Judge Advocate General at the end of August 1945, this was the only known case of 'UDF military jurisprudence in which a sentence of death had actually been put into effect' during the Second World War. |
