Eddie Slovik

Eddie Slovik

Edward Donald Slovik (February 18, 1920 – January 31, 1945) was a private in the United States Army during World War II and the only American soldier to be court-martialled and executed for desertion since the American Civil War.

Although over 21,000 American soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II, including 49 death sentences, Slovik's was the only death sentence carried out.

During World War II, 1.7 million courts-martial cases were tried, representing one third of all criminal cases tried in the United States during the same period. Most of these cases were minor, as were the sentences. Some were serious. Nevertheless, a clemency board, appointed by the Secretary of War in the summer of 1945, reviewed all general court-martial cases where the accused was still in confinement. That Board "remitted or reduced the sentence in 85 percent of the 27,000 serious cases reviewed." The death penalty was rarely imposed, and those cases typically were for rapes and murders. Only one executed "had been convicted of a 'purely military offense.'"