British Soldier Theory

[How Brown]

A lot of you are aware of Eduardo Zinna's dissertation on Casebook which mentions or posits the concept that an ex-soldier from the British Army ( I guess that would include Rear Admirals & Field Generals in Her Majesties Coast Guard like D'onston as well as British Navy ) might have been behind the WM.

Its a pretty good concept and one I always wanted to expand on,but haven't.

You know...we all are of the chronological age where we remember the stories of returning soldiers ( U.S. ) who experienced difficulty in readjusting to life in the States...winding up doing heroin,methadone clinics,suicides,spontaneously killing loved ones,etc...

One factor in the returning Vietnam War veterans collective story that stands out is that they fought a war in an environment which was not only against an alien people ( Mongoloid ) but on a stage that was unlike the one Europids and others faced in the Second World War and certainly unlike 19th Century Wars where a racially homogenuous army faced the other. True,certain atrocities could have affected the veterans of any war....but in the Vietnam War, we seem to see a marked difference in how many veterans reacted upon their return home. Maybe it was partially media hype...maybe due to the way we recieve news...maybe what I just said is totally irrelevant.

In any event...has anyone ever considered examining the list of say,Zulu War veterans, to cross reference that list to a list of individuals who served in that war and were incarcerated ( we've got to start somewhere...) prior to the WM and released?

Your views please.

[How Brown]

Allow me to make my point a bit more clear:

In the Zulu Wars, Zulus occasionally disemboweled their British victims...and the possibility that some returning soldier was so greatly affected by the practice of disembowelment by the Zulus that upon the return home to Blighty that he became JTR.

In those days,there were no treatment centers for returning soldiers with psychological disorders...except for the asylum. The possibility that one opted not to enter an asylum and "rough it" on his own could have been the cause for our theoretical Ripper ( in this scenario).

Anyone?

[Raven]

How, I found a great resource for anyone with an interest in this angle
http://www.genealogyworld.net/azwar/index.html

[How Brown]

Raven:

THANK YOU !!!

[Raven]

More How, All the Regiments that took part.

1st (King’s Dragoon Guards)

17th (Duke of Cambridge’s Own Lancers)

3rd (East Kent (Buffs)

4th (King’s Own Regiment)

13th (1st Somersetshire)

21st (Royal North British Fusiliers)

24th (2nd Warwickshire)

57th (West Middlesex)

58th (Rutlandshire)

60th (King’s Royal Rifle Corps)

80th (Staffordshire Volunteers)

88th (The Connaught Rangers)

90th (Perthshire Volunteers)

91st (Argyllshire Highlanders)

94th (The Scotch Brigade)

99th (Duke of Edinburgh’s Lanarkshire)

Commissariat & Transport Dept.

Army Service Corps


Army Hospital Staff


Army Hospital Corps

Ordnance Store Branch & Corps


Royal Engineers

Royal Regiment of Artillery

General H.Q. Staff

Army Chaplains’ Dept

Natal Native Contingent

Natal Native Horse

Natal Carbineers

Natal Mounted Police

[Raven]

Yet More!!!!!!
http://www.1879memorials.com/edtrl/whtsnw.html

[Instructor 173]

Killing for a soldier is something that does not come easy. The trouble with military killing in war is that comes too often. It never gets "easier." Killing can, however, become automatic, so to speak. For the first few months you accept it, the killings, and move on to other things. After a while, killing begins to wear you out or down. You'll see things in war that are a lot worse than killing. I saw a couple of guys "go nuts" and had to be removed from the field. The pressure from the combat caused the two men in question to go crazy about 3 months apart. After you're in combat about three months, sometimes quicker, you learn about the different WAYS to kill enemy personnel. I started off being part of a mortar crew. I advanced to a recon platoon as an F/O, forward observer, to call in artillery and aircraft strikes. Later on I became part of an elite and emergency reaction force. Anytime there was trouble in out battalion's area or operation, we rushed to the scene of combat. I can't count the number of times I saw the enemy's green tracers go flashing by the open door of the choppers inserting us into combat. After about the fifth or sixth time you don't care any more. Later on I lucky enough to get to go to Sniper School. There we practiced shooting targets all the way out to 900 meters with XM-21 sniper rifles. Even to this day, I can take a decent scoped rifle and probably drop a guy from 700 yards away, maybe 750 yards. Imagine walking out of your house and wondering if I was somewhere within about 6 or 7 blocks of your house? That's exactly what the enemy had to fear from me and my kind. Being airborne/paratroopers there is no wall that we can't fly over or bypass. You can't put a roof over a whole country which is what you would have to do to keep my kind out. We killed in a number of different asian countries with impunity and spread fear like it was the plague. There's a book called "Soldier" written by a guy named James Gibbore which explains the combat in Viet Nam for those of us who were airborne recon snipers. He was in the 3rd Battalion of my unit and I was in the 1st Battalion. His platoon of recon troopers and my platoon of recon troopers would switch areas so he and I passed back and forth because we both worked out of L.Z. Uplift. By the time you get through fighting and are finally allowed to come home, you're so very, very tired of killing. You will have killed people as part of a group of soldiers, you will kill as an individual, you will kill lone individual targets/people, you will kill groups, gangs and gaggles of enemy personnel and you will have tried different killing methods, sometimes forced upon you by close quarter combat or suicidal enemy go-for-broke charges. When you do get home, more killing is something you do not desire. If, however, you are riled, you know that there is a deep, deep dark side to you that will NOT heistate to unleash itself like a monster if somebody attacks you, your loved ones or a friend. Could the women killed by JtR been a victim of a soldier? Kind of VERY doubtful in my mind, unless they were a threat to a soldier of some sort. And I don't see that being realistic, not five of them.

[Chris G.]

Hi all

The good thing about Richard Brown is that he was alternately, a sailor, a soldier (he was a veteran of the Afghan Wars and the Battle of Tel_al-Kebir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tel_al-Kebir), Egypt, of 13 September 1882), and, in 1886-1888, a police constable in the Metropolitan Police at the time of the Whitechapel murders. Brown worked out of an West End division not East End -- although nonetheless one idea I am working on is that he might have been one of the West End P.C.'s drafted in to help patrol the murder area. He committed suicide a week after the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. He was also a Jew. :israel:

From his British Army record, it is obvious that Richard Brown had psychological problems. Brown joined the Royal Artillery as a gunner, regimental number 4175, in the 11th brigade, in Liverpool on 8 March 1878. At that time, his age was given as 24 years and six months. He gave his occupation as sailor, his family’s address as 515 Pitt Street, Adelaide, South Australia, and his father’s name as "John." Records also show that Brown had a fresh complexion, brown hair, grey eyes, and possessed no distinctive marks with the exception of a vaccination mark on his left arm from infancy. His chest measured 38 inches and his weight at 161 pounds, with his muscular development said to be "very good."

Unlike the 1888 Jewish Chronicle report of Richard Brown’s Jewishness, his religion in his army records is given as Church of England. Two days later, at the artillery depot at Sheerness, Kent, he was treated for ague and gonorrhea, for which he was treated with quinine and purgatives. He transferred to the 11th brigade’s 12th battery on 15 May. The Royal Artillery at this date had over eleven brigades with at least six batteries each of about 200 men. Initially, Gunner Brown would serve only for 245 days, for he deserted the artillery while on furlough at Sheerness on 11 November 1878.

Astonishingly, Brown deserted not to quit the army altogether but to join another army unit. As noted on Brown’s Statement of Services, he "enlisted into 2/5 Foot No. 2091 Pte. Richard Brown on 12th November 1878." Contrary to the statement made seven months earlier on joining the artillery in Liverpool, he now gave his place of birth as Heligoland, Germany, and his occupation as "groom."

Somehow the army eventually learned that "Private Brown" was a deserter from the Royal Artillery. He was placed in the guard room at Chatham on 20 May 1880. Brown was sentenced to two and a half months in the Millbank Military Prison, London, located where the Tate Britain Gallery now stands. Brown was released on 10 September, at which time he rejoined the Royal Artillery’s 11th brigade and was sent with the brigade to India.

On discharge from the Army in August 1886, Richard Brown joined the Metropolitan Police but was let go as being unfit for service just over two years later in November 1888 -- on the Tuesday after the Friday, 9 November murder of Mary Jane Kelly in Miller's Court, Spitalfields.

Three days later, the obviously mentally disturbed former police constable, sailor, and soldier committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a pistol in Hyde Park at lunchtime on 16 November not far from the police station in the park, on the path leading to the Serpentine. Did his suicide have anything to do with the Whitechapel murders? My assumption is that it did have something to do with the crimes, even if it was just that Brown was disturbed by the murder series, or else that he knew someone who was involved in the case, whatever.

The newspaper articles on Brown indicate that he was looked on with some favor by Sir Charles Warren (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Warren#Warren_Expedition). Quite why this was, I am not sure. It could be simply because Brown was an ex-soldier, on whom Sir Charles as a military man himself could have looked with favor. But why would Sir Charles worry himself about a lowly police constable whom he was unlikely to know among the hundreds of foot soldiers in the police service?

It possibly might be significant, however, that Warren was in Egypt around the same time that Brown was involved in the Battle of Tel al-Kebir in 1882. The Admiralty had sent Warren to investigate what had happened to Professor Edward Henry Palmer's archaeological expedition. Warren discovered that the expedition members had been robbed and murdered, located their remains, and brought the killers to justice. Could Warren and Brown have known each other at that time? I don't have any proof as yet that they did but it is another strand of the mystery about Brown that I am looking into.

I have written one article about Brown, "The Mysterious Life and Death of PC Richard Brown," in [I]Ripperologist No. 49, September 2003, and intend a follow-up article. Here's an excerpt about Brown's resignation from the Met and his subsequent suicide:

"Brown joined the Metropolitan Police on 16 August 1886 as Warrant Number 72041 in E Division, according to the ‘E’ Divisional Ledger. E Division covered the West End district of Holborn and had police stations at Hunter Street, Gray’s Inn Road, Bow Street, and Waterloo Pier. Brown’s birthplace is given in the division records as Adelaide, South Australia, his age on joining 32 years, and his army service recorded as Royal Artillery and Army Reserve. His height is recorded as five feet nine and a quarter inches. P.C. Brown’s resignation from the force was permitted on 13 November 1888, the Police Orders for that day revealing that the resignation was permitted under Consolidated Orders, Sec. IV., para 128 to 133, page 488, for ‘Not parading on duty; and considered unfit for the Police Force.’ Pay was permitted ‘to the 11th [December]’.

"At the inquest on former P.C. Richard Brown’s death, reported in The Times of 20 November, Inspector Austin Askew, of Hunter Street Police Station, testified about Brown’s termination from the police and his character:

"'[Askew] stated that the deceased was guilty of a slight breach of discipline, and with others appeared before the Assistant Commissioner [Sir Robert Anderson], who allowed him to resign in order that he might preserve his testimonial, and he left the service last Tuesday. He . . . was a steady, respectable man, and did his duty fairly well. In reply to a juryman, Inspector Askew said the breach of discipline was that the deceased ought to have gone on parade for night duty at a quarter to 10, and he neglected to do so.'"

Intriguing, hmmmm???

Meanwhile, look for an article from me in Ripperologist shortly about anti-semitism at the time of the Whitechapel murders.

All the best

Chris

[How Brown]

Thanks to both Instructor 173 and C.G. for these contributions.

Very interesting story C.G....and looking forward to your next article.

Dear Mr. D:

In your opinion, is it more likely that an ex-soldier would commit a "spree" killing than a series like the WM ? Not, of course, that either answer you or I would give is definitive....but just your "hunch" on the question ?

Thank you.

[Mike Covell]

Imagine discovering that a soldier had been found dead in suspicious circumstances after the Whitechapel Murders, now that would be intresting.

Taken from the Eastern Morning News, January the 3rd 1889



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[Chris G.]

Imagine discovering that a soldier had been found dead in suspicious circumstances after the Whitechapel Murders, now that would be intresting.

Taken from the Eastern Morning News, January the 3rd 1889



:bump2::bump2::bump2::bump2::bump2::bump2:

Good one, Mike! I would like to know more. . .

Chris

[Mike Covell]

Unfortunatly thats all I have to go on at the moment!!
Its an intresting report and caught my eye instantly.
You should see all the Deeming stuff I got yesterday, there were several pages of reports regarding his trial and crimes, the copies are a little dark but i will post them over the weekend.

There was also a report from 1873 about a torso washed up in the Thames, and another report about an old man in Whitechapel whose ceiling collapsed to reveal a basket full of bones.

All the best

Mike

[Instructor 173]

If I had to take a guess, I would think that a soldier would "snap" and then suddenly kill. Often when soldiers come home from a war, they deliberately put themselves in places of quiet and live a life where there is no stress, loud noises or a lot of fast, sudden motion near them. Let me give you an example... I had an electronics teacher who had gone through some really bad fighting in WW2. If you dropped a book flat and made a loud noise or bang, my teacher would actually crawl UNDER his desk. Once he was able to re-compose himself he'd get really, really mean. I saw this same teacher, a man of about 5'7" tall, literally grab a male student who was over 6'6" tall by the chest and literally carry that student ALL the way down the hall to the Dean of Boys' Room. The student's feet never once touched the floor. It was like a forklift picking something up and just moving it from one place to another place. The key is that for a former soldier to kill I think that there would have to be a TRIGGER of some sort. That's why I think that the women killed by JtR, if he was a former soldier, would have had to trigger something inside of him for him to kill her. You know how some people jump when you sneak up on them or when you surprise them? That jumping reaction that you get is a response to you triggering it in them. Same thing for JtR as a former soldier. Here's another little unofficial :loco: side bar psychology item for you. IF JtR did kill those women in a sudden (defensive ) attack, there is a good possibility that he might NOT remember it the next day. That would then mean that ANY of those letters written to the press and/or police wouldn't have come from JtR. He wouldn't be able to write about something that he didn't remember, right? If such an event did occur, here's something you'll find interesting, if the JtR-soldier concept was valid, you could have JtR on videotape doing the murder and later on, when you gave him a polygraph, he really would NOT remember it and pass the polygraph as if he were really innocent. The thing is that the videotape would give him away while the polygraph would not be able to detect ANY deception in him at all because he LEGITIMATELY did not know that he killed anybody. There have actually been a couple of murder cases where this sort of thing has happened. I find the idea of JtR being a soldier interesting, very interesting. I also find that this angle of investigation could become very, very complicated in a short amount of time.

[Instructor 173]

What most people fail to understand about warfare is that there are ALWAYS so many differences between the forces and people doing combat. In all wars there will differences in religion, language, societies, military structures, tactics, equipment, basic beliefs, education levels and so on. Racial differences are just one other MINOR issue in a war like Viet Nam. What many people fail to comprehend is that there are also many similarities in some cases. The United States is a world melting pot. As such, every time we go to war against another nation we're fighting the cousin, family or other relatives of an American citizen. In other words, our nation is interlocked to just about all of the other nations in the world because our nation has people from that other nation who have settled here to become good American citizens. Believe it or not, when another nation and America get into a fight there is always a certain number of people in the other nation who are glad and overjoyed to see Cousin Vinnie's friend in his American Army coming to help us. Think about it. If the United States got into a fight with the U.K. for some imagined reason, wouldn't we have hundreds of thousands of Americans who have direct links back to Wales, Scotland, merry olde England and so on? Same thing applies to all the other nations of the world too. As for disembowelling of dead enemy soldiers... Some of that which occurs is sort of based on religious beliefs. Now what people don't understand is that mutilation may NOT be based upon the religious beliefs of your own. Mutilations MAY be caused by the other guy's beliefs. In the John Wayne movie "The Searchers" there is a scene where he and others come across a fresh grave. They open up the grave to see if the person buried there is a white settler taken captive by Apache Indians. When they discover that the dead person in the grave is an Indian, John Wayne pulls his revolver and shoots out the eyes of the dead man. Wayne's character then tells the two tenderfoots with him, "It's their (the Indians') beliefs that this dead guy will now have to wander around the Happy Hunting Ground without being able to see because his eyes are gone." Same thing happened in Viet Nam and probably with the Zulus. Now I've heard two stories involving the Zulus disembowelling dead British soldiers. One story was that it was done to make the British soldiers fear the Zulus even more. It's a sort of "this is how you will end up if we get you" kind of thing. The OTHER story is that the Zulus believed that the human soul was trapped inside of the dead man's body until it was set free. To set free the soul of a brave man who died honorably in combat, the Zulus would cut open the body. By cutting open the body, they were paying respect and giving honorable treatment to a dead man. Either one, neither one or both could be right. I don't know for sure. The thing is that sometimes, things are NOT what you expect. One of the things interesting about the combat with the Vietnamese is that you never knew what kind of group they had facing you. If the group came from one area, you could literally be facing a group of illiterate peasants most of whom could not read or write. If they came from in or near a decent size city then the majority of them would be able to read and write and many of them would be multi-lingual speaking French, English, Chinese and many other languages. Some were technologically as advanced as their opponents and some were just barely out of the stone age type of life and lucky to have fire. The new trend that is slowly appearing within military forces is the fact that they all understand that they will be facing more and more URBAN combat or fighting within cities. There is a gradual shift being made towards more and more police SWAT operations. Units are being re-formed with the understand that there are NOT 4 directions in urban combat but 6 instead. There are the 4 compass directions of north, south, east and west plus there is also up and down in buildings. Most soldiers who have been through the go-for-broke, all-or-nothing type fighting have no desire to ever get into it again. EVER. If they fight, it's only because they need to do so in order to survive. That's why I continue to think that unless there is a perceived threat to the soldier or former soldier most would not kill to enjoy killing.