#OnThisDay 1921 Major Geoffry Lee Compton Smith DSO was executed by the IRA after 14 days of being their prisoner. He was to be ransomed for an IRA prisoner in British custody. But the IRA vol was executed, sealing Smith’s fate. He wrote in his last letter: “I should like my death to lessen rather than increase the bitterness which exists between England & Ireland”.
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Note: His last letters were recovered in a raid on one of Michael Collins’s hideouts in Dublin City. 
Major Geoffry Lee Compton Smith DSO executed by IRA 1921
The Irish at War 