World war crime - the grenade in the back yard

Transcript

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World War Crime. This is a short little snippet of a podcast, a little series I fancy doing for a little while, to tell you some of the crimes that occurred during the First World War, how it affected soldiers on the Western Front, and what happened to them afterwards. I'd like to thank the British Newspaper Archives, Ancestry.com, the Commonwealth War Graves, and several other platforms to do so. So this will be a little podcast on a Friday afternoon you might want to listen to on the way home the short, sharp, sweet stories about soldiers during the Great War, and possibly might get some to go for the second. The case of the grenade in the backyard. I've really enjoyed researching these via the British newspaper archives. Sadly, this particular story, all the research has been done for it, and I can't find further research on the man concerned. However, on the 9th of September 1916, whilst the Battle of the Somme raged heavily in northern France, there would be a shock in a north Glasgow Street. At 112 Sister Street, Glasgow, in the rear yard, by day's end, three people would be dead and several would be injured in a bomb attack in a back garden. James O'Hara was 49 years old. He was an unemployed miner and former soldier. Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, he'd been a territorial, and then when the war broke out in the Christmas of 1914, he would be sent out to France. He would be severely wounded with trauma to his skull and his left leg, rendering him incapable of fighting full fervor in the army or returning to his mining days. So he moved into 112, Sister Street, and would move in with his son. A fairly elderly man by the standards of the time, at 49 years old, he was living in one of the tenement buildings. When, on the morning of the 9th of September, Minnie Fraser, one of the locals, could be heard shouting out in the back garden, talking about money that we should own. It wasn't directed at O'Hara. However, he removed himself from the back house and went down to the backyard. He had a grenade on his person. He pulled the pin and threw it into that yard. Fragments went everywhere, hitting Minnie Fraser and Mrs. Haig. The daughter, ten years old, would die a day later. He was soon apprehended and put into custody. The court case would be long and tedious. However, he'd stated that O'Hara was suffering from mental delusion. Shellshock would be just about on the books at this time. However, many courts and judges could see that the toils of war were affecting the populace. He was sent down and charged, but he wouldn't see the hangman's noose. He was put in a Glasgow asylum. After thirteen years of being in the asylum, the court was heard, and he was able to move back home, where he lived with his son for the rest of his days.