A few officers were concerned that some members of the firing squad might be repulsed by this onerous duty. They need not have been concerned. The sentence was carried out at 10:04 a.m. on January 31, 1945. Not one member of the firing squad flinched. At the end, Eddie Slovik was braver in facing the rifles of the firing squad than he had been in facing the Germans.

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No doubt influenced by “guardhouse lawyers” (other military prison inmates), Slovik had apparently believed that he would not be executed but rather imprisoned until some time after the war ended–when he would be able to return to his beloved Antoinette. Three key factors influenced the decision to execute him. One was that his police record was included in the clemency deliberations, and it counted against him. Another was that desertion had become a problem for the U.S. Army in the European theater. General Eisenhower and other commanders felt something had to be done about it. Finally, Slovik’s case reached the point when it had to be reviewed and acted on by Eisenhower’s headquarters just as the U.S. Army was heavily engaged in its bitterest and bloodiest campaign of the war in Europe–the Battle of the Bulge.

Two members of the firing squad later summarized what many front-line soldiers thought about the execution of Eddie Slovik. One reportedly declared: “I got no sympathy for the sonofabitch! He deserted us, didn’t he? He didn’t give a damn how many of us got the hell shot out of us, why should we care for him?” The other soldier said, “I personally figured that Slovik was a no-good, and that what he had done was as bad as murder.”

Slovik’s widow spent the rest of her life pleading with the U.S. Army and the federal government to pardon her husband. She died a few years ago, having failed in her lifelong struggle to erase the shame from her husband’s memory.

It was, and is, a very sad tale.

Uzal W. Ent[ TOP ] [ Cover ]

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