"If I leave now, will it be desertion?" he asked. Slovik reported to his platoon leader, then went back to the captain. The captain shook his head and assigned him to Platoon 4. Could he serve in a rear area? If not, he said, he would run away. He was "too scared, too nervous," he said, to serve with a rifle company. Grotte, in a farmhouse on the afternoon of October 8. "If I Leave Now, Will it be Desertion?"Įddie Slovik reported to his company commander, Captain Ralph 0. No charges were placed against them, for the system of moving up rookie troops had been severely confused by the rapid movement of the outfits they were supposed to find. On October 7, Slovik and Tankey reached 109th regimental headquarters at Rocherath and were sent to Company G. Instead, he wadded pieces of paper, collected from the Red Cross, on which he almost constantly wrote letters to his wife in Detroit. Tankey noticed that Slovik quit carrying ammunition in his cartridge belt. Eddie Slovik, 25 years old, established himself as a "damn good guy," an outstanding forager, and the creator of delicious potato pancakes, a talent grown on his Polish family tree. They stayed with the Canadian outfit for six weeks, roving back toward Calais as the unit posted notices explaining martial law to the natives. Tankey wrote a letter to the 109th announcing that both men were lost. In the morning, Slovik and Tankey, saying they could not find their 10 companions or their unit, presented themselves to a Canadian unit in the vicinity and were welcomed. Tankey, holed into side-by-side foxholes as German shells continued to pummel them. Two men, Privates Eddie Slovik and John F. Toward midnight, not having found G Company and with shellfire exploding around them, the raw troops were ordered to dig in for the night. The Americans expected to join G Company of the 109th Infantry, 28th Division -Pennsylvania's famed National Guard outfit, known since World War I as the Keystone or "Bloody Bucket" division. As one truckload of 12 soldiers neared the city of Elbeuf, some 80 miles northwest of Paris, they passed miles of bloody and charred remains of men, horses, guns, trucks, and tanks left behind by fleeing Germans.
In August 1944, as American forces in World War II fought across France into Germany, replacement troops, fresh off the troopship Aquitania and just out of basic infantry training, were moved toward combat. It leaves disturbing questions about whether, all things considered, it was a fair trial.
His court-martial during World War 11 stands as an example of the precise application of the letter of the law. SIGNIFICANCE: Private Eddie Slovik was the only American executed for desertion of military duty from 1864 in the Civil War to the present. Judges: 1st Lieutenant Bernard Altman, Captain Stanley H. Crime Charged: Violation of the 58th Article of War (desertion to avoid hazardous duty)Ĭhief Defense Lawyer: Captain Edward P.
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