Four Young Officers, Stonehenge 1938

This post is the companion to the short film Four Young Officers, made for Remembrance Sunday 2026: the four Royal Artillery subalterns who painted Stonehenge green in June 1938, and what became of them.

The night of 16 June 1938

By the summer of 1938 the four were serving with anti-aircraft and coast-defence units — Sherrard and Skinner at the School of Anti-Aircraft Defence, Biggin Hill; Peirce with the 22nd Anti-Aircraft Battery at the Royal Artillery experimental camp at Watchet; and Shearme at the Coast Artillery School, Shoeburyness — and had gathered at the School of Artillery, Larkhill, three miles north of Stonehenge, for a gunnery course. On the night of Thursday 16 June, after a mess guest night, they took green line-marking paint from the Larkhill tennis courts and daubed the monument, several of the upright sarsens and the Heel Stone among them, together with road signs nearby. The damage was found on Saturday 18 June. The Times of 20 June reported that Stonehenge “was found on Saturday to have been daubed with green paint” and that “signposts in the vicinity were similarly daubed”. Mike Pitts assembled the fuller sequence from the contemporary press.

Summons and sentence

The four were identified and summoned. The Times reported in July that “four Army officers were summoned for damaging Stonehenge on June 16” and that the hearing “was adjourned until August 9”. On 9 August they pleaded guilty at Salisbury County Petty Sessions. Each was fined £1 and ordered to contribute towards the repair and costs, and the General Officer Commanding, 3rd Division, admonished them. The American weekly TIME, reporting the case on 22 August under the heading “Druidical Sacrilege”, quoted the prosecutor's warning that “It may take 1,000 years for Stonehenge to regain its old weathered appearance”.

Four young officers

They had been commissioned as second lieutenants in the Royal Regiment of Artillery from the Royal Military Academy, with seniority dated 27 January 1938 (London Gazette 34477, p. 587). The Gazette gives the surnames as Peirce and Shearme, where the 1938 newspapers printed Pierce and Shearne:

• William Laurence Sherrard
• William Howard Skinner
• John Edward Passingham Peirce
• John Lambert Shearme

They stood among fifty-two gunner cadets in a single passing-out list. Sixteenth on it was Robin Horace Walford Dunn, winner of the Academy's Sword of Honour, who would be evacuated from Dunkirk, fight in the Western Desert and Normandy, be wounded three times and appointed MC, and in civilian life become a Lord Justice of Appeal; his memoir Sword and Wig records the war into which the cohort was commissioned. Dunn and Sherrard had both come to Woolwich from Wellington College.

What became of them

Captain William Laurence Sherrard served with 12 Battery, 6th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery. In 1942 the regiment was among the anti-aircraft units defending the oil refineries at Palembang, in southern Sumatra. On 14 February 1942 Japanese paratroops were dropped on the refineries and the nearby airfield, and the gunners, the only regular troops in the area, fought them at close range. Sherrard was killed that day at the Pladjoe refinery. He was 24. He was mentioned in despatches, is buried in Jakarta War Cemetery, and is named on the war memorial at Ditchling, Sussex, where his parents lived. His batman wrote to his mother that his son “gave his life at a place called Pladjoe … taking on odds of fifty to one” (Ditchling History Project).

The other three survived the war. The London Gazette records that Peirce, Shearme and Skinner were all promoted major on 27 January 1951, thirteen years to the day after their commission (London Gazette 39132). Shearme was placed on retired pay on 29 September 1958 (41508). Peirce rose to lieutenant-colonel and was appointed OBE in the New Year Honours of 1962 (42552, 1 January 1962). Their wartime postings have not yet been traced.

Notes on the film

The newspaper reports are retyped in the film rather than shown. The photographs of the Heel Stone and the 1938 snapshot (photographer unknown) are from the author's collection; the map of Sumatra is drawn from the NOAA GLOBE land mask. The music is original.

Sources

The London Gazette, issue 34477, 28 January 1938, p. 587 (commission); issue 39132, 23 January 1951 (promotions to major); issue 41508, 30 September 1958 (Shearme's retirement); issue 42552, 1 January 1962 (Peirce OBE).

The Times, 20 June 1938, p. 16, “Stonehenge daubed with green paint”; The Times, July 1938, “Officers charged with Stonehenge damage”.

TIME, 22 August 1938, “Foreign News: Druidical Sacrilege”. time.com

“A night out” (London, 11 August 1938), Waipawa Mail, 14 September 1938, p. 1. Papers Past

Commonwealth War Graves Commission, casualty record of Captain W. L. Sherrard, 12 Bty, 6 HAA Regt RA.

Ditchling History Project, “For the Fallen”. ditchlinghistoryproject.org

Dunn, R. 1993. Sword and Wig: Memoirs of a Lord Justice. Quiller Press. (Dunn's place in the commission list: London Gazette 34477, p. 587.)

Moody, F. 2024. Bygone Salisbury: History of protest at Stonehenge. Salisbury Journal, June. salisburyjournal.co.uk

Pitts, M. 2016. How the Magpie Musicians came to stand for free Stonehenge. Digging Deeper, 5 April. mikepitts.wordpress.com