In World War II more than 21,000 American soldiers were found guilty of the crime of desertion, but only one soldier was executed for that crime. In fact he was the only soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War.
His name was Eddie Slovik. He was born in 1920 in Detroit, Michigan, and as a minor he was arrested often for petty crimes, first serving prison time in 1937 for burglary and again in 1939 for auto theft.
Ironically, when World War II came Slovik was originally classified 4-F — unfit to serve — because of his prison record, but later, when the army needed more bodies, he was reclassified 1-A, and in 1944 was sent to France as a rifleman in the 28th Infantry Division, which had suffered massive casualties.
Slovik had no plans to join the casualty list, and as the 28th prepared for battle in Belgium Slovik claimed he was “too scared” to fight and gave an officer of the 28th a signed statement saying he would run away if forced into battle. The officer advised Slovik to take back his statement, but when Slovik refused he was put in the stockade.
Subsequently Slovik was offered several chances to take back his intention to desert but he refused them all, so eventually he was tried and convicted of desertion and, to his surprise, sentenced to execution by firing squad.
Slovik then wrote Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower, asking for clemency, but his timing was terrible. The Battle of the Bulge, a German offensive that had caught the Allies by surprise, had resulted in large Allied casualties. Troop morale plummeted and desertions increased, so Eisenhower, seeking to stem the desertion tide by making an example of Slovik, upheld his sentence and this week (Jan. 31) in 1945 Slovik was executed.
Before dying Slovik claimed that his life of crime was the cause of his death. “They are not shooting me for deserting the army,” he said. “Thousands of guys have done that. They just need to make an example of somebody and I am it because I’m an ex-con.”
He was right, although not in the way he thought. His life of crime was not the reason the army executed him, but it was a big part of the reason he decided to desert. Slovik figured that desertion was just another crime that would result in jail time, which he would serve and then move on.
He was wrong. Essentially Slovik died because he committed the wrong crime at the wrong time. But to put his crime — and punishment — in perspective, every other soldier executed during WW II was guilty of either rape, murder or treason.
