You’ve probably considered yourself to be incredibly unfortunate at one time or another.
I think it’s only natural, and we all have. The same goes for the 25-year-old Eddie Slovik.
He considered himself the most unlucky man on earth. And, well, from his perspective,
it’s not difficult to see why. During the Second World War, nearly 50.000 United States
soldiers and 100.000 British soldiers deserted. But even though these numbers are quite staggering,
and desertion tends to lead to a court-martial and harsh sentence, there was only 1 US soldier
throughout the entire war that was to be executed for that exact crime. That was Eddie Slovik,
and he was well aware he was the only one.
-intro-
Eddie Slovik
Eddie Slovik was a Polish American boy, born in February 1920, that grew up in Detroit.
His early years were filled with petty crime. He had multiple run-ins with the police and
even was arrested several times. In the Summer of 1944, he was conscripted
in the U.S. Army and sent to France as an infantry soldier. He didn’t participate
in D-Day, and when he arrived in Europe, the Allied powers were already making plans to
advance into Germany over the Ardennes. After several months of training in the European
war theatre, mind you, Slovik had not seen combat yet, he decided to desert. He considered
himself not cut out for war, was too afraid to serve in an infantry unit and just didn’t
believe in it. A pretty curious decision considering the vast majority of all deserters that tried
to escape battle served on the frontline and only decided to desert after long, violent
campaigns. And unlike many deserters that simply attempted to disappear in the chaotic
war theatre, Slovik publicly acknowledged he’d prefer prison over war. He wrote a
note in which he explained his reasons and gave it to an army soup kitchen. The cook
that received the letter informed the military police.
After the summoning of the military police and an army officer, they gave Slovik the
opportunity to tear up the note and return to his unit. Slovik refused and stated he
was willing to be court-martialled. He expected to receive a light sentence like 48 other
men that were sentenced to death for desertion before him. All appeals of these cases were
accepted and sentences were reduced. Slovik figured his would be as well.
In November 1944 Slovik’s case was brought in front of the military court. He was sentenced
to death, and the court reasoned the note was proof Slovik was a deserter. Quite the
miscalculation on Slovik’s part and he was incredibly shocked by the verdict, understandably.
He sent a grace request to General Dwight D. Eisenhower which was rejected. Because
unlike the men that were sentenced to death before him, his desertion could not have come
at a more unfortunate time of the war. It was reasoned his objection to serving in
the army based on principle was bad for the morale of the military. By this time the US
army was stuck after the Battle of Hürtgen Forest resulted in a German defensive victory
and the US army was subsequently faced with the Ardennes offensive. During the initial
battle of Hürtgen Forest Slovik’s battalion suffered a casualty rate of over 35 percent.
This didn’t exactly strengthen his case. Slovik’s appeal was received at the height
of the Battle of the Bulge. In short: it wasn’t the right time to offer clemency to deserters
and the army high command wanted to make an example out of Slovik because of the precarious
setbacks of the European campaign. Correspondence between high-ranking US commanders
shows that they saw the trial and execution of Slovik as necessary to ensure no other
soldiers would follow his example. Yet curiously enough it was decided his execution would
take place in the remote small village Sainte-Marie-aux-mines… in secret. Not to mention the fact that the
Allies won the Battle of the Bulge on the 25th of January… 6 days before the execution
took place. Yet all this didn’t dissuade those responsible
for Slovik’s execution. On the 31st of January 1945, the sentence was carried out. Slovik
was stripped of his medals and put against a wall. Standing there he said he didn’t
regret deserting, and blamed his arrests for petty crime for the fact he was to be executed.
Actually, for a deserter that said he was afraid of war, he faced his execution with
incredible composure and bravery. Before he was shot the chaplain asked Slovik to say
a hail mary for him in heaven, which he replied to that he would, and hoped the chaplain wouldn’t
follow him too soon after. Slovik was subsequently shot by a firing squad, killing him instantly.
But in the aftermath of the execution, the dates and reasoning didn’t match up then
just like they don’t match up now. Not to mention the secrecy. Because the initial rationale
of ‘making an example of him’ didn’t really hold ground the exact circumstances
of his execution were kept secret. Even his wife Antoinette, back in the United States,
merely received the message that Slovik died in the European war theatre.
Slovik’s legacy
It wasn’t until three years after the fact, in 1948, that journalist William Bradford
Huie published about the real circumstances of Slovik’s death in the magazine Liberty.
But he anonymised Slovik and wrote about a “25-year-old white American man”. In the
article, Huie asked why only one person ended up being executed for desertion during the
entire war. In 1954 the true identity of Eddie Slovik
was released to the public. Huie, again, publicised it in the novel ‘The Execution of Private
Slovik’. In it, Slovik’s story was immortalised. Twenty years later a perhaps more famous film
was released, starring Martin Sheen. In the movie, Sheen word-for-word replicated the
execution of Slovik. [short film] Previously Frank Sinatra wanted to create
a film based on Slovik’s life, but when he made his ideas public, he was blamed for
being a communist-friend. Because Sinatra had openly supported the candidacy of John
F. Kennedy for President, he decided not to create the film. After all, it might perhaps
ensure a victory for Richard Nixon. Now, Slovik certainly wasn’t the first US
soldier to be executed for desertion, but he was the first soldier in a very long while
to be executed. The soldier executed before him was a certain William Schmitz of the 90th
Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was executed during the American Civil War in 1865. During that
war, over 300.000 soldiers deserted from either the Union or Confederate armies. Famous writer
Mark Twain managed to desert from both. After the American Civil War, there were multiple
desertions, but none of them resulted in an execution. In total 24 soldiers were sentenced
to death for desertion during the First World War. But, President Woodrow Wilson commuted
all of these to prison sentences. Desertion really seemed like a thing of the past, until
the Second World War nearly ended, and Slovik simply drew the short end of the stick.
The luckiest U.S. Deserter
Okay, so a story that is somewhat related to Slovik’s caught my interest as I was
researching this. As I mentioned, Slovik considered himself the most unlucky soldier ever, yet
if he was the unluckiest, then another soldier, namely private Wayne Powers, must have been
the luckiest. Private Powers was a 23-year-old army truck driver that resupplied the frontlines
after the successful Normandy offensive. During one of his stops in a small French
village, he met a French girl, Yvette Beleuse. The two had a click although Powers didn’t
speak French and Beleuse didn’t speak any English. When several days later Powers’
truck, while resupplying the frontlines, was ambushed, most likely by deserters, he decided
to return to the small French village and meet Beleuse. She happily received him and
he deserted and hid in her home while the war was waging on around them.
During the day she worked in a local textile-factory and Powers stayed at home, hidden. The couple
couldn’t officially marry, but they had five children in the next couple of years.
Powers remained in hiding, raising the children at home. Meanwhile, not just the second world
war ended, but as time progressed, the Korean war broke out… and ended. Powers was officially
listed as missing in action, and the army charged him, in absentia, with desertion.
Because his remains were never found, there were multiple searches for him, but he wasn’t
discovered, sneakily hiding in the little French village.
Thirteen years later, in 1958, a car accident happened in front of the couple’s home.
Powers peeked through the curtains to see what was going on, upon which French gendarmes
went to investigate the house since there was no record of a man living there. Powers
was interrogated upon his discovery, and when they discovered Powers’ true identity, he
was handed over to the US military police. Following an article about the case in US
newspapers, the United States Embassy in Paris was flooded with over 60.000 letters all requesting
clemency for Powers’ situation and the fact he simply fell in love with a French girl.
A court-martial sentenced Powers to 10 years of hard labour but reduced it to 6 months.
After widespread outcry the sentence was overturned entirely. Powers was allowed to move back
to France and two years later Powers and Beleuse officially married in the French village,
after their 6th child was born. Powers’ story is quite the contrast to that of poor
Slovik and goes to show the randomness with which the unfortunate Slovik was executed.
I suppose he really was the most unlucky man on earth.
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