The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II

by Charles Glass

“Powerful and often startling…The Deserters offers a provokingly fresh angle on this most studied of conflicts.” -- The Boston Globe

A groundbreaking history of ordinary soldiers struggling on the front lines, The Deserters offers a completely new perspective on the Second World War. Charles Glass—renowned journalist and author of the critically acclaimed Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation—delves deep into army archives, personal diaries, court-martial records, and self-published memoirs to produce this dramatic and heartbreaking portrait of men overlooked by their commanders and ignored by history.

Surveying the 150,000 American and British soldiers known to have deserted in the European Theater, The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II tells the life stories of three soldiers who abandoned their posts in France, Italy, and Africa. Their deeds form the backbone of Glass’s arresting portrait of soldiers pushed to the breaking point, a sweeping reexamination of the conditions for ordinary soldiers.

With the grace and pace of a novel, The Deserters moves beyond the false extremes of courage and cowardice to reveal the true experience of the frontline soldier. Glass shares the story of men like Private Alfred Whitehead, a Tennessee farm boy who earned Silver and Bronze Stars for bravery in Normandy—yet became a gangster in liberated Paris, robbing Allied supply depots along with ordinary citizens. Here also is the story of British men like Private John Bain, who deserted three times but never fled from combat—and who endured battles in North Africa and northern France before German machine guns cut his legs from under him. The heart of The Deserters resides with men like Private Steve Weiss, an idealistic teenage volunteer from Brooklyn who forced his father—a disillusioned First World War veteran—to sign his enlistment papers because he was not yet eighteen. On the Anzio beachhead and in the Ardennes forest, as an infantryman with the 36th Division and as an accidental partisan in the French Resistance, Weiss lost his illusions about the nobility of conflict and the infallibility of American commanders.

Far from the bright picture found in propaganda and nostalgia, the Second World War was a grim and brutal affair, a long and lonely effort that has never been fully reported—to the detriment of those who served and the danger of those nurtured on false tales today. Revealing the true costs of conflict on those forced to fight, The Deserters is an elegant and unforgettable story of ordinary men desperately struggling in extraordinary times.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, War, Military Fiction, Military History, Biography

400 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 2013

About the author

Charles Glass is an author, journalist and broadcaster, who specializes in the Middle East. He made headlines when taken hostage for 62 days in Lebanon by Shi’a militants in 1987, while writing a book during his time as ABC’s News chief Middle East correspondent. He writes regularly for the New York Review of Books, Harper’s, the London Review of Books and The Spectator. He is the author of Syria Burning, Tribes with Flags, Money for Old Rope, The Tribes Triumphant, The Northern Front, Americans in Paris and Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a quote in this book that is worth thinking about: "Each man, no matter how strong mentally and physically, has his limits beyond which the strongest will cannot drive him." That's from "Psychology for the Fighting Man," quoted in this book.
This story is about "the hidden side of World War II," the side that was not shown in the movies or comics or many books. It's about the 150,000 British and American soldiers who deserted their posts in WWII, almost all in the so-called ETO ( European Theater of Operations, including North Africa). Men reached their breaking points for whatever reason.
Glass focuses on three very different men who made the same decision - to desert in wartime. One, a Britisher, walked away after a battle in North Africa and ended up in a military prison in the hands of sadistic guards ( men who had not seen combat themselves ). Another, a farmboy from Tennessee, had fought bravely in combat in France, but left the Army and became a gangster in liberated Paris, robbing Allied supply depots as well as ordinary citizens. The third was the most interesting, a teenager from Brooklyn who was with the 36th Division ( the Texas Division ) in Italy and then Southern France. What he considered poor leadership endangering the lives of himself and others forced him to his decision to go over the hill. He figured he had contributed enough while so many men were in the rear areas safe from combat...
All in all, a well-told story that needs to be told, showing the real costs of war on those who fought...

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've always heard World War II vets referred to as gung ho dedicated soldiers. This look at WWII shatters some of those myths not just about the men who fought this war but about all soldiers in all wars. PTSD, Soldiers Heart, Shell Shock are all terms used to designate the damage killing and the fear of being killed does to people. This is what is at the heart of Glass's book, human beings who understandably abhor bloodshed. It's assumed that if a woman can get pregnant and give birth she'll naturally know how to mother just as giving a man a gun and a cause should make him a killer for a prescribed time and a for a designated period. Obviously this isn't true in all cases.

"Deserters" follows a few individuals both British and American from their home town origins to their war service with eye to understanding what they went through and why they reacted as they did. It doesn't glorify them, it makes them human and it makes their actions comprehensible. Glass relies on their diaries and poetry as well as fellow soldiers'' accounts. There aren't any big names just common GI's but their stories are compelling. Along the way you'll learn lots of inside information about the war and what it felt like physically and mentally.

[JD · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book difficult to read till about half way through when it got a bit better. The book is very interesting and shines light on the issue of desertion in World War 2 on the Western Allied side, but it is not my kinda book, glad it's finished so I can start a new book.

Also the writers inclusion of the one story of Al Whitehead is of no use at all as the writer himself shows doubt as to whether the stories told by Whitehead is true and brings a kind of a fiction side to the book.

And even though this book show's the "ugly side" of the Greatest Generation, I am still of the opinion that they were the Greatest Generation and that if the same number of troops should be deployed today in the same circumstances, then there would be millions of deserters and not just thousand, but that's only my opinion.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't really live up to the title. More like stories about deserters designed to make you feel sorry for them. The last thing I felt was sympathy for them. Just not quite all that for me.

[Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could have sworn William S. Burroughs was dead, but, evidently, the publishing industry has revived him, pumped him up with electricity and narcotics, and somewhere along the line decided that they loved his cut-up technique, hired him as their master editor, and let him have at every historical book being published today, because here he is again playing pick-up sticks with a narrative and reassembling it all into a random order. At first it looks OK because it's printed all sharp on clean white paper...but then you try to read it...

So here we go again. Here's yet another book on a little-covered topic that is much overdue, that is well-researched and even well written and often very fascinating in its revelations; filled with all the ingredients of a great read, and yet, somehow, it turns a potentially flavorful tapas meal into a bologna sandwich.

So, while reading it, this is what I was doing:
"Oh, that's very interesting...hmmm...fascinating...wow, really? didn't know that...uh, uh, uhm...What? End of chapter? No, don't stop. Wait...where am I again? Oh, he's gone back to one of the other guys...again. ...Wait, which guy is this now? Was this the Scotsman? Or was he Irish? Wait, there are two guys with Irish ancestry, but one is American and one isn't. Oh, here's Whitehead..which one was he? The Tennessee guy or the New York guy? Wasn't he about four chapters back? I can't remember. Did he have the dad who was also a deserter, or was that the other guy's dad? I can't remember...that was way back at the beginning of the book... Oh, wait, now he's flashing back to the guy's childhood again... What now? He's gone forward in time with Bain to the prison camp, but never told me how he got there... Oh wait, he's telling me that in the next chapter...Why? Why didn't he do it in order? I...I...I'm fricking lost!"

But then, the narcotics kick in and Burroughs says, "Fuck it all...", shirking his editorial duties and stumbling over to flop onto the couch to start tripping. All of a sudden the book becomes more or less wholly linear somewhere between a third to halfway in, but then it becomes primarily the story of one soldier, Weiss, chapter after chapter, and the other guys are more or less gone. Bain, the Scotsman poet, disappears entirely until the end of the book, and Whitehead goes AWOL (pun intended) until the latter sections as well.

I'm torn about the book. I wanted to literally go AWOL from it numerous times, but there were too many interesting things in it once you separated the pyrite and the mud from the actual gold therein.

What's cool about the book is that it's not your dad's or grandad's World War II book. It sheds light on the "underbelly," as it were, of the "last good war." Not every blonde Johnny flashed a smile and grabbed a gun. No. 150,000 Yanks and Brits actually said, "Fuck no, we won't go," either before or during deployment. Who knew? And nobody knew it at the time because the propaganda/morale enterprise required that it be suppressed from the body politic of the soldiery and the citizenry. That's why only one guy in the entirety of the US-Brit alliance (Private Slovik) was executed for desertion. It was a balancing act of playing down the problem while incentivizing loyalty. The psychological stresses of war and the differing motivations for desertion -- as well as the unique challenges of how to round-up, house, feed, punish, and discharge such men, along with how to suppress the extent of the problem -- are just some of the issues the book addresses. Author Charles Glass does not judge these men, and in fact shows great empathy while trying to analyze their plight.

As a factual expose, the book is often very good, and yet, its lengthy expository passages of troop movements and battles seem to deviate greatly from the book's ostensible concern about desertion. At times, it seems like any other war book -- interesting as such -- but not terribly original. There's also a stab at some nebulous thesis about cross-generational deserters, dads from World War I and their sons in World War II doing same -- but it never gels into anything cohesive. The book finds itself in the odd and seemingly contradictory position of trying to do too much but somehow doing too little.

My favorite thing in the book was its description of the physical and psychological torments in a British military prison camp in Egypt during the North African desert war campaign. The idea of the camp was to make life worse than being in battle, and it seems to have worked. Many men given a chance of leaving the camp or fighting again chose the latter. I could have read the whole book happily if it had stayed here and jettisoned the rest. But, alas.

So, on the positive side, the book dishes up a valuable balancing view of the war. World War II wasn't just "Ken Burns' (***insert pandering flag-waving documentary title here***), sponsored by Chrysler", or Tom Brokaw's "The Gosh-darndest greatest generation who might spend their last living dimes on my fawning suck-up book(s)", or John "I got outta military service 'cause I was too big a star" Wayne; it was also a helluva lot of shit that flew under the radar of the vertically integrated propaganda machine. One of these was the existence of mafia-linked criminal gangs of deserters who ran sometimes brutal black-market theft rings...operating like vultures and following the armies while taking medical and other supplies needed by their ostensible (former) comrades-in-arms. (Graham Greene must have been listening...)

Apart from the organizational issues of the book, my main problems with it are best summarized in this snippet from a Goodreads review by user, "Caroline":
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"So this is an important book, and a welcome addition to a gap in WW2 studies. That said, anyone looking, as I was, for a general overview of desertion across the armies of both Axis and Allied powers, an investigation into the causes, impetus, apprehension, punishment, incarceration, legacy, had better keep looking. This is more an extended biography of a handful of three particular deserters, two American, one British, than anything else, and I don't think any of these men are especially representative. I was a little disappointed at the lack of this broad overview, but this is still an excellent book ..."

Yes, really, the book is 95 percent about three guys, and I agree with Caroline that I don't think the circumstances of their cases make them representative. Actually, this should have been titled, The Story of Steven Weiss, because almost half of the book focuses on his war experiences.

The question is: what are you looking for in a book about an under-covered subject? A very detailed account of the experiences of a handful of guys, serving as a microcosm for a topic that affected thousands (which is this book's approach), or a book that takes a broader view of the subject without all the biographical and battle details of a few people? Frankly, I would prefer a broader view. Having said that, I realize the importance of individual memoirs and oral histories, especially as the people involved are almost all gone. This book is a start, but just that: a start.

I'm not blaming author Glass wholly for the book's schizophrenia; I take partial blame and split the difference since it triggered schizophrenia in me perhaps. Or maybe I just lack patience in my old age.

Whomever the real deserter is here, I sentence them to 10 lashes in the hot box with this book.

(KevinR@Ky)

[Randall Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Greatest Generation? Well, not exactly. Before reading this book, I was not aware that 150,000 American and British soldiers deserted in the European Theater. Or that 38,000 American officers and men were court-martialed for seeking to avoid hazardous duty by dishonorable means. From 1944 to 1946, Allied deserters ran the black market economies of Naples, Rome and Paris. They plundered Allied supply convoys at gunpoint, deprived Patton of gasoline on his drive to Germany, and left their comrades at the front short of food, blankets, ammunition and other vital supplies. In Italy, deserters drove trucks of looted Allied equipment for the Mafia. One deserter in Paris led a gang that robbed, extorted and murdered French citizens. Rampaging American deserters raped and robbed at will. Racketeering American deserters hijacked trucks on highways (once getting an army safe with $133,000 in it) and fought gun battles with French police. Hunting down deserters became a major operation for the American military police during the advance in Europe.

Not all deserters were so notorious, however, Private Wayne Powers deserted, hid in a French farm house, fell in love with a French farm girl, had five children with her, and wasn’t found by the M.P.s until 1958! He was then tried and sentenced to ten years hard labor. But the outpouring of letters in his support allowed him to be released, at which point, he finally married the mother of his five children and quickly had a sixth.

In many ways it’s a sad book, but perhaps it’s one that can offer a more balanced view to the hagiographic books written about the men who fought in The Good War.

[Lois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Professional burnout is such a common phenomenon these days in the contemporary workplace that undue chastisement for anyone afflicted with it would most likely be abhorred as being indicative of a sign of lack of empathy and true leadership in those who head up the organizations concerned. Why, then, should the enlisted during wartime, who are subjected to the constant psychological and physical battery of ongoing bombardment of the senses, be expected to endure life-threatening dangers with no, or scant, desire to leave the combat zone?

To lack compassion and understanding for a person caught up in such a situation (of which they, more often than not, knew and understood little before becoming immersed in it) shows the highest disregard for human rights. Yet, what deserters were exposed to during World War II was recrimination of the harshest kind, with many receiving prolonged jail sentences, if not execution by means of firing squad.

In The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II, the intrepid journalist, Charles Glass, takes up the cudgels on behalf of those who, until now, have had far too little attention paid to them in the literature relating to the Second World War—that is, the deserters. In order to overcome the negativity and neglect to which such individuals have, in the past, been subject, Glass explores the individual histories of three men that show, not primarily what others have deemed to be their cowardice at deserting their posts, but rather their multidimensionality as fully fleshed characters in their own right.

The reasons for their desertion are examined in detail, so that readers can relate to them both in terms of their personal histories, and in terms of the wider arena of war. The biographical approach that Glass has taken, and which is based on research that led him “from archives to libraries, from court-martial records to old V-mail letters, from fading documents to myriad academic studies” has enabled the author to present a lively and vivid account of both the context in which these three individuals served, and of their own inner workings at the height of conflict and beyond.

It is as though we are encountering these figures at first-hand, and not through the condemnatory lens of officialdom, in whose light they have so often been cast before. Yet Glass does not present a picture of the three Privates, Alfred Whitehead, John Bain, and Steve Weiss, through rose-colored spectacles either. He shows them, warts and all, in full three-dimensional perspective, down to the criminal pursuits of Private Alfred Whitehead in postliberation Paris. Although some of their actions were a great deal more commendable than were others, with, for instance, the same Private having earned both Silver and Bronze stars for bravery prior to his desertion, Glass gives a well-rounded portrayal of each of the three leading protagonists in this highly laudable and clearly well-researched account.

The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II is a powerful and cogent argument for the objective assessment of those who have previously been seen, by some, as contemptible excuses for manhood. For a valid and rational understanding of what World War II did to the average male psyche, this volume deserves to be read.

[Caroline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much has been written about the deserters of the First World War, the lack of understanding of shell shock, the executions at dawn and the campaigns for posthumous recognition and pardons; but far far less has been written about the deserters of the Second World War. Perhaps because we think of the trenches of Flanders as a particularly unique and horrifying form of warfare, the life of the fighting man in World War Two is somehow seen, in comparison, as 'not as bad'. As if war was ever something you could compare and contrast.

Many hundreds of men were executed for desertion between 1914-1918 - in the later war, just one. One poor unfortunate American private, Eddie Slovik. Men were executed for innumerable other crimes, but not desertion. This is not to say that desertion was not a problem in WW2 - as Glass points out, figures were probably even higher; and court-martial boards and military psychiatrists, whilst better informed, were not necessary any more sympathetic. After the horrors and shame of WW1 the public on the homefront simply would not have accepted execution as a punishment, and WW2 was a political war as much as it was a military and strategic one.

So this is an important book, and a welcome addition to a gap in WW2 studies. That said, anyone looking, as I was, for a general overview of desertion across the armies of both Axis and Allied powers, an investigation into the causes, impetus, apprehension, punishment, incarceration, legacy, had better keep looking. This is more an extended biography of a handful of three particular deserters, two American, one British, than anything else, and I don't think any of these men are especially representative. I was a little disappointed at the lack of this broad overview, but this is still an excellent book - moving and deeply humane.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this was one of those books for me where 3 stars seems too low but 4 stars is too high. I found the title to be somewhat misleading - it was one of those books I just grabbed off the library shelf on the way out the door without knowing anything about it other than what was on the front cover. Anyway, I was expecting much more of a macro-level examination of the subject, perhaps some analysis of whether there were any distinctions to be made in terms of desertions among the armies of the allies (and/or over the course of the war) with regard to causes, military justice, efforts to apprehend and either punish or rehabilitate those who "went over the hill", etc. This book, however, doesn't for the most part concern itself with those larger questions, or at least doesn't approach them in any systematic way. Instead the book primarily (and by primarily I mean 90% or more) focuses on just three individual soldiers, each of which at one time or another deserts (at least once if not multiple times). Glass writes well and his portrayal of these soldiers' experiences is often moving and maddening, but I wouldn't characterize this type of book as "a hidden history of World War II." Title quibbles notwithstanding, I did enjoy the book for the most part. My main objection (and why I rounded down as opposed to up) has to do with Alfred Whitehead, one of the three soldiers presented in the book. Glass relies heavily on Whitehead's memoir in terms of his research but it becomes pretty clear early on that we are dealing with an very unreliable source. And by "unreliable source" I don't just mean there are contradictions between Whitehead's account and other members of his unit, the military record, dates and times, etc., I mean that Glass himself believes many parts of Whitehead's story are highly dubious and probably untrue. Consequently, its value to the reader/armchair historian is questionable at best and it is unclear why Whitehead featured so heavily in the book.

[Kusaimamekirai · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those looking for the “hidden” history of desertion in WW2, as the title claims, you may find yourself disappointed.
The book isn’t about desertion as much as it is the lives of three American soldiers fighting in different parts of the European conflict. This isn’t to say that their stories aren’t interesting, they are. The author does a marvelous job painting a picture of the hell of war via constant danger, bad food, rain, disease, the loss of friends, and mental breakdowns, among other things.
When each of these men finally reach their psychological breaking points they do ultimately abandon their units but for different reasons and with different consequences long after the war is over.
There are some fascinating insights into how many soldiers did in fact desert (far more than what people who label it the “good war” would have you believe) and what the military prisons for deserters looked like. After reading some of the stories about them, I was left thinking that these men probably felt at times that it would’ve been better to die in a filthy trench than be subjected to the daily and horrific abuse meted out at these detention camps.
Interesting as well were the sections on what American deserters did while on the run. From the military police. In France at least, a large number of them engaged in the black market by robbing American supplies and medicine. It’s not something one normally associates with the American presence in France during the war but it played a huge role in both the financial, human, and war material toll it took on the military.
While desertion isn’t necessarily the main topic of this book, it is still a wonderful insight into the mind of the average soldier during the war and into how much stress the human mind and body can absorb until it one day decides that there are no other options but to simply...walk away.

[Joseph Stieb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is slightly misleading in the sense that the title promises a history when it is really a triple biography of 3 soldiers who at some point in their WWII service deserted. The general message of the book is that the military bureaucracy was pretty brutal and insensitive to psychiatric casualties, as it was in a sort of hybrid stage between viewing these cases as cowardice or as the human mind and body breaking down in the face of unrelenting trauma and danger. The story of Pvt. Weiss was especially interesting: he fought in Italy and France, was separated from his unit and joined the French partisans, returned to the Army, then deserted toward the end of the war because of mental breakdown, served time in a military prison, and was eventually released at the end of the war. There were also interesting accounts of deserters who joined the criminal underworld in France and Italy and survived on buying or stealing military good and selling them on the black market.

While the stories in this book were compelling, I was left with a sort of "so what" feeling at the end. There was little effort to assess the broader meaning of the story of deserters for how we view or remember World War II in general. Does this puncture or support the Greatest Generation concept? Did the military emerge from the war with a different picture of desertion and mental health than at the start? Other than some very generalized observations about combat psychology, the book doesn't go far beyond stories.

[Tom Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

excellent journalism. Important subject that has been neglected. WWII, the "Good War". 50,000,000 Dead; "good war" is an oxymoron. At the end of the book, Glass makes the statement, "to write of desertion by the "greatest generation" was a taboo." Of course, it's not that simple. Until you walk in a man's combat boots, best not to judge.

The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II – Charles Glass / published 2013 / 318 pages of text plus 44 pages of notes

From the Introduction: 150,000 troops of U.S., British, and Commonwealth nations deserted during WWII
Deserters supplied the black market in Naples, Rome, and Paris; contributing to critical material shortages at the front. They were also responsible for much of the violence against the civilian populations; specifically, theft, rape, and murder.

As background to the 77th, during the First World War the Division was comprised of mostly immigrants. The 77th sustained 2,000 killed and 9,000 wounded. They had to fight for the “privilege” of having their Victory Parade in New York, which was home for many of them, 30% were Jewish. Only through high pressure applied by New York politicians were the Division troops allowed their Victory Parade. The official Manual of Instruction for Medical Advisory Boards in 1917 stated that, “the foreign-born, especially the Jews are more apt to malinger than the native born.” The aristocratic President Wilson acted the same as any common Know Nothing in his disparagement of the immigrant. He held a special contempt for black soldiers.

1918, June to November 11th was the main combat period for the American Expeditionary Force. (My grandfather was amongst the troops. Other than the fact that he had served as a sniper, I know very little about his service. A hard worker and a hard drinker, he was a bane in my mom’s life. Most everyone is gone now.) The British and French troops spent 4 years in the trenches.

Glass presents the stories of three soldiers who had deserted. Through their stories mitigating circumstances are brought to bear.
Several themes emerge. One of injustice; for instance, 14 members of the Rice football team were rejected for military service. This treatment of the nation’s favored sons was not atypical.

Our combat officers were often less than stellar. As I had earlier stated the text needs to be read. For me, the book proved difficult to summarize. Nothing, like the statement about our officers, is that simple. The more one digs for background the more complicated it gets.

If this was just a matter of the past it would be of less importance. Obviously, we have continually ran into the same faults and errors during every “war” and “police action” we have engaged in. And now look where we are at, we have one of two major political parties thinking that treason is just jim-dandy. It’s enough to make a person physically ill.

Fair treatment for immigrants in our all-volunteer armed forces today – anyone care to answer?

A short and to-the-point article from March 22, 2006 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_an... The extended tours of duty during the Iraq War are nothing new. During WWII only 10% of the 7.7 million troops in Europe ever experienced heavy combat. Some would be left at the front for over a year. The human nervous system can only take so much. It’s in the book, it varies by the individual, it is an injustice.

The “replacement soldier”: General George C Marshall’s plan of convenience undermined morale; the group loyalty of combat units evaporated. My dad was exposed to this diabolical scheme. Because you were the new guy, the guy without a friend, any hazardous duty was automatically yours. Sometimes you would be purposely abandoned. Dad was drafted and entered the war as a stateside motor pool instructor but once the end of the Third Reich was in sight all the Army schools were shut down and he was made an MP in the ruined, chaotic landscape of Germany. He survived his tour but lived through some nerve-wracking nights.

The numbers: U.S. Army – 7.7 million troops minus 3.2 million of the best who were placed in the Army’s air force – subtracting the support troops left some 750,000 frontline troops who remained at the front with no respite. The only way to escape was by death, incapacitating injury, capture, or desertion.

Treason in northern France – racketeering by AWOL troops in league with the black market caused critical shortages to the Allied war effort. Petrol looting stopped Patton’s tanks. The Army had to post guards on its supply trains thereby using up even more of the already scarce manpower.

On pages 264-268 the rank injustice of the U.S. Army judicial system is evidenced by the discrimination against the black troops. The firing squad was reserved for military crimes such as falling asleep while on guard duty; crimes such as murder & rape were punished by hanging. Of the 80 men executed by hanging during WWII, 55 were black. This number is way out of proportion to the makeup by race of the army. 8.5% of the U.S. Army was black yet they accounted for 79% of all capital crimes? Not only was this measurement of “justice” mismanaged but the very act of hanging was not carried out professionally. The condemned men were tortured to death by strangulation; 15 minutes or more by a half-wit Texan who volunteered for the job of hangman because of his purported expertise. He probably was an expert – at torture. The first-hand account was provided by Steve Weiss, a trooper who was forced to assist. Weiss was one of the three deserters whose personal account is related by Glass. (This write-up is probably coming off as half-witted. Please read the book as anything I contribute is a garbled farce compared to Glass’s writing.)

Page 270, “Treating combat exhaustion through courts-martial was proving to be a failure…” We are a nation of supercilious assholes whose first reaction to most any problem is to reach for a cudgel. Onward - Christian soldier!

I will probably order this book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Walking-Woun... Vernon Scannell is John Vernon Bain, one of the three deserters profiled by Glass. Bain went on to become a poet of some renown.

Alfred T. Whitehead is the remaining deserter. He trained at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin (we just had a family reunion at the Camp McCoy Pine View Campgrounds) and is buried at Coon Prairie Cemetery in Westby, Wisconsin; again, not far from where I sit. Whitehead had been in combat continuously from D-Day through 30 December 1944, and had earned the Silver Star, two bronze stars, Combat Infantry Badge and Distinguished Unit Citation.

So much pathos in all three of the stories.

[Chris Pramas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a terrific book on topic rarely covered in WW2 histories. It uses the stories of three men--two American and one British--as a lens to examine desertion and a host of related topics: battle fatigue, military justice, battlefield psychology, and leadership. It also highlights how truly terrible the American system was for combat infantrymen and their replacements. Basically, the Americans put the burden of the fighting on a relatively small number of divisions. Whereas other counties (and America in other wars) would rotate units off the front line to recuperate and incorporate replacements, the US army had a system that put replacement soldiers into a general pool and then assigned them to units on an ad hoc basis while the units were still in combat. Instead of going into battle with a group of men they knew and had trained with, the replacements were dumped into units where they knew no one. Many were killed within days of arriving, sometimes before their new officers even learned their names. It is no surprise that veterans reached a breaking point after too many consecutive days in combat, and that replacements deserted after being cast adrift with no support network. If you are interested in WW2 at all, I totally recommend The Deserters.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at the reality of what it cost to win the Second World War. This book uses the stories of three soldiers, one British and two American, who ran afoul of the system's treatment of those soldiers who deserted as a reaction to "battle fatigue" (PTSD). Along the way you will learn about the incompetence of the medical evaluation of these men and the cruelty of the military justice system. If you wish to have a well informed, well rounded understanding of WWII, then I can't urge you strongly enough to read this book. Well researched and engagingly written.

[Matthew Ansley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is, as described, an intimate view of three soldier’s experience with desertion, along with handful of comments about the larger scope of desertion in the U.S. Army. It will not provide a thousand foot view of statistics, but rather a moving insight to what a few individuals face when thrown into the cogs of war.

Overall interesting and worth the read, this book does suffer from some editorial setbacks. The decision to jump between POVs every few chapters doesn’t work as well as it does in say, a fiction or fantasy novel. In my opinion, it would have been a better experience to complete one soldier’s account before moving onto the next one; as so much of their stories overlap in context and experience, they compete against each other and take more effort to feel immersed in these personal accounts.

This is a great book to add to a larger reading list, however it won’t stand on its own as an informed history or complete view of desertion in WWII — not that it even presents itself in that light.

[Edwin]

Weer een boek waarvan ik niet goed weet hoe te waarderen.

[Asha Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think 'Hidden History' implies that the book will give away some kind of long-held secrets and it does not. What it does do however, is tell the stories of men most would rather not talk about, and it does dispel some of the strange romanticism people seem to have about the alleged godly conduct of the Allies who, let it be known far and wide, were absolutely irredeemable bastards on many occasions.

Interesting read, certainly somewhat educational, would recommend it.

[Radosław Magiera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nie dalej jak kilka dni temu, mogliśmy w migawkach telewizyjnych oglądać inscenizacje z okazji kolejnej rocznicy Dnia D, czyli inwazji w Normandii. Znów politycy, czyli ci, którzy z odwagą mają chyba najmniej ze wszystkich wspólnego, grzali się przy wspomnieniach chwały dawnych bohaterów. Znów historycy klepali te same bajeczki, które się opowiada przy podobnych rocznicach. Tylko tym razem pewnie ich myśli krążyły wokół czego innego. Oto ktoś, nawet nie będący formalnie historykiem, sprzątnął im sprzed nosa temat, który czekał od wieków na kogoś, kto będzie miał odwagę go poruszyć. Odważnemu obiecywał, że od razu jego nazwisko na zawsze zapisze się w annałach historii. Ten temat to dezerterzy. Teraz wszyscy historycy plują sobie w brodę, iż sami poń nie sięgnęli. Może nie tylko odwagi im brakło. Każde szkolenie, nie tylko wojskowe, ale również akademickie, zwane zdobywaniem wykształcenia, odciska na swych adeptach piętno, które doświadczony obserwator jest w stanie odczytać. Wpływa ono również na percepcję rzeczywistości i trzeba wybitnie niezależnego umysłu, by zachować na zawsze, mimo usilnych prób społeczeństwa, które usiłuje to zniszczyć, dziecięcą ciekawość, oryginalność myślenia, nieschematyczność, by pozostać umysłowym outsiderem, prawdziwie wolnym, prawdziwie niezależnym. Takie osoby są rzadkimi wyjątkami, zwłaszcza w nowoczesnych, medialnych społeczeństwach, piorących mózgi swych obywateli przez okrągłą dobę, napełniających ich umysły komercyjną papką. To chyba nawet ważniejsza przyczyna faktu, niż brak cywilnej odwagi, że dopiero teraz znalazł się ten pierwszy, który od razu stał się obiektem zazdrości wszystkich kolegów po fachu. Zbiegiem okoliczności akurat w rocznicę D-Day, w czasie blokady wszystkich mediów przez newsy o przebiegu obchodów tego święta, zakończyłem lekturę, która rzuca całkiem nowe światło na całą wojnę aliantów, również na sam D-Day.

Charles Glass był dotąd osobą dla mnie całkowicie nieznaną. Nazwisko to nic mi nie mówiło, choć powinno. Ten urodzony w 1951 roku Amerykanin jest znanym i uznanym pisarzem, dziennikarzem prasowym i telewizyjnym. Wystarczy wspomnieć, iż współpracuje z takimi pismami jak The Spectator, Newsweek czy The Obserwer oraz stacjami klasy ABC News, by wiedzieć, iż nie jest to ktoś, kto zajmuje się ploteczkami i propagandowymi newsami politycznymi. Markę wyrobił sobie jako specjalista od spraw przemocy na Bliskim Wschodzie. Ostatnio jednak, w książce Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under the Nazi Occupation, 1940-1944 (2009) dał wyraz swej fascynacji historią II Wojny Światowej. Najnowszą jego książką jest Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War opublikowana w 2013. Kiedy tylko dowiedziałem się, iż ukazała się w Polsce pod tytułem Dezerterzy: Ostatnia nieopowiedziana historia II wojny światowej, zagiąłem na nią parol. Nie ze względu na dotychczasowe osiągnięcia autora, gdyż jak wspomniałem do niedawna niczego o nim nie wiedziałem, nie ze względu na recenzje – żadnych nie czytałem, a z powodu odwagi. Pierwszy raz trafiłem na kogoś podejmującego ten temat dla niego samego.

Niech płaczą historycy, którzy przed Glassem nie wpadli na ten pomysł albo nie mieli odwagi na jego realizację. Jestem przekonany, że z czasem to opracowanie stanie się obowiązkową pozycją dla każdego, kto interesuje się wojskowością, historią, psychologią i w ogóle zalicza się do tych, którzy lubią wiedzieć.

Książka zaczyna się mocną opowieścią o pierwszym Amerykaninie, na którym wykonano wyrok śmierci za dezercję podczas II wojny światowej, a stało się to… Nie zdradzę, gdyż już ten jeden zaskakujący epizod daje do myślenia.

Dotychczas jednym z głównych synonimów słowa „dezerter” był „tchórz”. Nawet w słowniku PWN (internetowym, ale jednak PWN) w rozwinięciu hasła „dezercja” czytamy „odejście skądś lub rezygnacja z czegoś z braku odwagi, by stawić czoła trudnościom”. Nigdy się z tym nie zgadzałem, podobnie jak wielu psychologów, psychiatrów i weteranów, ale ponieważ taki właśnie stereotyp jest na rękę wszystkim władzom we wszystkich miejscach na świecie, więc dotąd miał się dobrze. Chwała Glassowi, iż przypomina w swej pracy wszystkich tych, którzy już wieki przed Zimbardo publicznie udowadniali, że dezerter, za wyjątkiem szczególnych przypadków, to nie tchórz ani dekownik, tylko taka sama pozycja na liście strat wojennych, jak ranny czy zabity. Taka sama również z tego powodu, iż nikt z tych, którzy wyruszają na wojnę, nie wie, czy to nie właśnie on „załapie się” do którejś z tych trzech kategorii. Jak powiedziała nasza genialna poetka* – „Tyle wiemy o sobie ile nas sprawdzono”.

Świetnym wprowadzeniem do lektury jest sama okładka ozdobiona zdjęciem wykonanym jakby wprost na zamówienie do tej publikacji. Nie można przejść koło niego obojętnie, a miłośnik starych i dobrych fotografii może się w nie wpatrywać bez końca. Mam wrażenie, iż jest ono nawet lepsze niż świetny fotogram zdobiący okładkę wydania oryginalnego. Na papierze te obrazy wyglądają nieporównanie lepiej niż poniżej, na Waszych monitorach.

Dezercja, zwłaszcza wśród „naszych” to wątek niemal wykreślony z opowieści o wojnie. U nas mówi się tylko o bohaterstwie (naszym), o krwi i śmierci, o okrucieństwie (ze strony przeciwnika). Dezercja w obrazie II Wojny Światowej w naszej świadomości społecznej w ogóle nie występuje. Tymczasem Glass pokazuje, że skala jej w szeregach zachodnich aliantów, bo nimi właśnie autor się zajmuje, była wręcz szokująca. Do Anzio 1/3 wszystkich przypadków wracających do USA zza oceanu stanowiły przypadki neuropsychiatryczne. Około 10 tysięcy ludzi miesięcznie było zwalnianych z wojska z przyczyn psychicznych. Dla porównania trzeba za autorem podkreślić, że nawet gdy w szczytowym okresie w Europie były ponad 3 miliony amerykańskich żołnierzy, to w walce uczestniczyło naraz nie więcej niż 325 tysięcy z nich. Po D-Day było jeszcze gorzej. Straty z powodu traumy bitewnej wynoszące u Brytyjczyków w pierwszym tygodniu inwazji około 3 procent, w następnym tygodniu wzrosły do 13 procent. Po miesiącu niemal co czwarty ranny był nie skutkiem urazów fizycznych, a psychicznych.

Ci ludzie, te prawdziwe masy ludzkie, gdzieś musiały się podziać, z czegoś musiały żyć. Łączna liczba dezerterów alianckich jednocześnie przebywających na europejskim teatrze działań sięgała w przeliczeniu na związki taktyczne 10 dywizji. Tworzyli uzbrojone bandy zagrażające alianckim liniom dostaw, a przez to i działaniom na froncie. Opanowali czarny rynek w całej Europie. Ilość dezerterów i bandy napadające na transporty momentami były większym problemem niż sami hitlerowcy. Żołnierz nie może walczyć bez amunicji, jedzenia, a im bardziej nowoczesna wojna, tym większe są ilości i różnorodność materiałów, bez których nie można jej prowadzić. Problem jeszcze się komplikuje, gdy uzupełnienia ludzkie traktuje się tak samo jak dostawy paliwa, amunicji czy części zamiennych. Jakie to rodzi implikacje nie będę opowiadał. Przeczytajcie sami.

O czym są Dezerterzy? Nie tylko o dezerterach, co może sugerować tytuł, ale o wojnie w ogóle, o tym, czym jest dla wszystkich, których dotyka. A dla każdego jest czym innym. U nas w ogóle się nie wspomina, iż wojna powoduje zdeprawowanie i dewaluację wszelkich wartości. Nie tylko w wymiarze jednostkowym, ale całych społeczeństw, i to po obu stronach frontu. Nie mówi się też u nas, iż wojna niszczy dziedzictwo kulturalne, największy skarb ludzkości. Amerykanie, choć są najmłodszym narodem na świecie, a może właśnie dlatego, jakoś to zauważają.

Glass w swym opracowaniu opiera się na ogromie materiału dokumentalnego, również oficjalnego, wojskowego. W równiej mierze korzysta też ze wspomnień weteranów, co bardzo korzystnie wpływa na całość. Przy okazji wynikają bowiem całkiem inne wątki, poszerzające tematykę i wyraźnie zwiększające wartość książki. Miejscami polskiego czytelnika, przyzwyczajonego do autocenzury, stereotypów i dętego patriotyzmu, pewne fragmenty mogą wręcz porazić. Mordowanie jeńców przez aliantów, nie zorganizowane, na modłę niemiecką, ale samodzielne, indywidualne i zabijanie, bez premedytacji, ale nie do końca nieumyślnie, własnej ludności cywilnej, to prawdziwe realia wojny, których jednak nasi autorzy raczej nie ukazują. A rabowanie trupów, również tych, którzy jeszcze przed chwilą byli kumplami, towarzyszami broni, to inny z takich obrazków. Dotychczas tylko Clint Eastwood tak jawnie pokazał rabowanie zwłok, ale wrogów. Zaś rabowanie swoich, w biały dzień i na masową skalę? A przecież wiara, że tak nie było, jest infantylna. Skoro żołnierz zabierał trupowi jego amunicję, lepsze buty, racje żywnościowe i inne niezbędne rzeczy, których wciąż brakowało, to czy można wierzyć, że nie zabrał rzeczy cenniejszych, by zostawić je dekownikom ze służb tyłowych?

Niesamowitym motywem powtarzającym się i we wspomnieniach dezerterów, i w danych oficjalnych, był rozkład sympatii i antypatii wobec AWOL*. Prawdziwi weterani z pierwszej linii, otrzaskani w ogniu, z reguły okazywali im nie tylko sympatię, ale i każdą możliwą w danej chwili pomoc. Im zaś mniej miał ktoś wspólnego z prawdziwą wojną, tym bardziej wrogi miał wobec „tchórzy” stosunek. W szczególności nienawiścią wykazywali się ci, którzy w ogóle prochu nie wąchali – wszelkiej maści gaciowi, logistycy, żandarmi jednostek tyłowych i ci z oficerów liniowych, którzy nigdy w walce udziału nie brali i uważali, iż im to nie zagraża.

To mi przypomina dyskusję z jedną z blogerek, której ksywkę litościwie pominę, która u siebie wypisywała pochwały na rzecz „dobrych wojen” i posuwała się nawet do takich określeń, jak „wojna może być piękna”. Gdy po dłuższej wymianie komentarzy zauważyła, że sama sobie zaczyna przeczyć, że sama się ośmiesza, jako właścicielka bloga skasowała zarówno moje, jak i swoje wypowiedzi, by nikt nie wiedział o czym była mowa. Piszę o tym, gdyż u nas te infantylne przekonania o pięknych wojnach są wyjątkowo powszechne, zwłaszcza wśród ludzi, którym się wydaje, że skoro przeszli jakieś dziecinne szkolenie strzeleckie lub „wojskowe”, to coś wiedzą. Glass przez to, że otwiera oczy czytelnika na wiele aspektów wojny, jest tym cenniejszy dla polskiego odbiorcy, niszczy bowiem wiele złudzeń na ten temat.

Wracając do dezercji i jej konsekwencji, zwrócić należy uwagę, iż z reguły najsurowiej byli karani szeregowi piechoty, którzy jednocześnie byli najbardziej zagrożeni i mieli do dezercji największe powody. Im wyżej w hierarchii służbowej, tym kary mniejsze, aż do bezkarności całkowitej.

Ciekawostką jest też, iż zbyt realistyczne filmy dokumentalne, nawet zamówione przez wojsko u znanych reżyserów, cenzurowano. Choć płacono za nie spore pieniądze, nigdy ich nie publikowano.

Wątków, które nie przystają do popularnego obrazu wojny, jest mnóstwo. Jak choćby to, iż były momenty, że w Anglii wojskowe obozy jednostek alianckich były lepiej strzeżone przed ucieczkami niż mieszczące się w Wielkiej Brytanii obozy jenieckie, a do piechoty, by uzupełnić straty, werbowano nie tylko złapanych dezerterów, ale nawet zwykłych kryminalistów, którym obiecywano darowanie więzienia i zatarcie wyroków.

Wielką zasługą autora jest, iż nie tylko podaje fakty, często takie, które mogą szokować, nie tylko szuka prawidłowości i wniosków, ale równie wielką wagę przykłada do poszukiwania przyczyn takiego, a nie innego stanu rzeczy. I jest w tym bardzo dobry. Między innymi wyraźnie ukazuje negatywną selekcję do piechoty (dostawała ochłapy pozostałe po wszelkich innych rodzajach wojsk, a nawet po przemyśle, który był ważniejszy).

Ciekawym wątkiem, który mnie uderzył, nie pierwszy raz zresztą, były tematy damsko-męskie. Burdel wydaje się nieodzownym elementem i wojny, i pokoju, tymczasem w naszym, polskim obrazie świata, jakby nie istniał. Może dlatego, że uwiedzenie niewinnej dziewczyny czy namówienie mężatki do zdrady uważa się za coś lepszego, niż odwiedziny w domu publicznym. Jeszcze ciekawsza sprawa, to rzecz, która szokowała wielu Amerykanów, czyli polsko-francuski zwyczaj znęcania się nad kobietami, które świadczyły usługi seksualne żołnierzom państw Osi. Te „wyroki”, w rzeczywistości prawdziwe samosądy, to najgorsza parodia sprawiedliwości, a ich wykonawcy… Takie litościwe niedomówienie. Raz, że te w większości biedne kobiety nie miały innego wyjścia i Bóg wie jak bardzo zostały skrzywdzone przez los. Dwa, to analogia. Co myśleć o bojownikach, którym nie starczyło siły, by karać tych, którzy naprawdę wspierali faszystów, czyli właścicieli i pracowników wszelkich firm działających pod okupacją? Fabryki, rolnictwo, usługi... Od milionera do przysłowiowego szewca, każdy pod okupacją świadczył usługi okupantom. A znęcano się tylko nad dziwkami. Wielce wymowne.

Jedynym naprawdę wielkim minusem naszego wydania jest tragiczny spis treści, który uwzględnia tylko spis ksiąg, ale rozdziałów już nie. Inna sprawa, do której można się przyczepić, to miejscami nienadzwyczajny styl***. Daleko tutaj do precyzji, klarowności i płynności, które była taką frajdą przy poprzedniej mojej lekturze faktu – Wyspie Klucz. Czasami zdarzają się też sformułowania wynikające z założenia, iż czytelnik już ma pewną wiedzę na omawiany temat, co sprawia, że nieobeznany będzie musiał przerwać lekturę i sięgnąć choćby do internetu. A wystarczyłoby jedno lub dwa zadania objaśnienia.

Nie są to jednak wady istotne wobec wymowy tej przełomowej książki i wielkiej wartości, jaką jest ona dla skierowania świadomości społecznej na tory normalności i prawdy. Prawdopodobnie, gdybym miał wybrać jedną, jedyną książkę o froncie zachodnim, by pokazać prawdziwy obraz tej wojny, to byłaby to właśnie ta.

Zdecydowanie i absolutnie polecam

recenzja pierwotnie opublikowana na blogu klub-aa.blogspot.com

[Hans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Since it is easy to glorify and embellish combat it is always useful to get a balanced perspective and hear the other side. The side that often is silent, untold and full of deep seated anguish and pain. Charles Glass does a decent job following the lives of three average G.I.'s who were classified as "deserters' and explorers their stories as well as the larger story of all the many hundreds of thousands of deserters during WW II. Desertion is usually something most people would see in black and white but the author shows how nuanced these stories really were and how the American and British Military tried to cope and understand the phenomenon. The reasons for desertion are so varied and numerous that there is a wide spectrum with one of the most common causes being purely psychological, the near-catastrophic mental and spiritual break down and fatigue of the common Infantry soldier. The author does a great job breaking down just how much of the burden of war was placed upon the shoulders of so few men who were over-worked, under supplied, under fed and under-appreciated. The infantry Soldier was thrown into the fight again and again with little respite. This was especially true of certain divisions who saw almost incessant action like the 36th Division.

The most disturbing part of the book is how some of the people who were classified as deserters never should have been. They were combat veterans with numerous medals and acts of valor and self-sacrifice. But when they had reached their breaking point they just wanted to be re-assigned and the unempathetic rear echelons Soldiers who knew nothing of the mental and emotional exhaustion of combat refused to let them.

[Ryan Fohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly focuses on three “typical” deserters. A Scottish boxing poet, a young Jew who joins the resistance, and a southerner who joins the criminal underworld. Although I appreciate personal accounts from the war, this is too detailed, the court marshal transcripts are a slog. I also wish the scope was broadened more often. It is an overlooked and interesting aspect of the “good war” that I think more people should know. Some Important lessons I learned: Why MPs are so necessary. How quickly deserters can turn into criminals and just how much war material the black market sucked up. How rotation and replacement of American units was screwed up. How harsh military justice can be. Why psychoanalysis had a post war rise in popularity. And that War creates lawlessness at home and abroad.

This book puts the podcast Serial season 2 into some new perspective for me.

What I learned: The army promoted some Texas joker to hangman (even thought he had almost no experience at hanging) and he hung 70 soldiers, overwhelmingly black, for non-military crimes. The term “Black Maria” is slang for police vans. The amphibious invasion of southern France went very well even though Winston Churchill thought it was a bad idea and Churchill was present to witness the invasion. Post liberation Paris was full of deserters from every army in Europe, and they made the city a scary place.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought that this book would have been a more broad series of tales and exploits of dozens of deserters from all of the armies involved in the war. However, this book followed just a few soldiers from the time they entered the army until their deaths many decades after the war. It was still a pretty good read and I learned quite a bit about desertion in the war. I was astounded by the sheer number of soldiers who deserted and how many of them resorted to pilfering allied supplies and selling them on the black market. I was absolutely astounded by the number of supplies that they stole. Supplies that had a direct effect on the war effort. A sobering read for any World War II enthusiast. Another aspect of this book that still rings true today is the armed force's and general public's complete lack of understanding for people who suffer from mental trauma and stress. We still struggle with this as a society and probably will continue to do so for many years to come.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was perfect preparation for the return of Bowe Bergdahl. It explained what happened to make men desert their units and how the US government handled these men. Only one man was executed in WWII for desertion, and he should not have been. In the process of explaining things from the point of view of the deserter, the reader gets a good picture of the mistakes made in strategy that used up its men instead of attempting to give them some rest to recover from the hyper alert status of active duty on the line. I was also impressed with the coverage of the enormous difficulty the US had in keeping its supplies from thieves foreign and domestic. Every deserter is the same in that he has reached his limit. Each is different in the way he handles it. The army was implicated in the rate of desertion, and it was well-known that units with more desertions were badly lead. All in all, a good portrait of the underside of the good war.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

During World War II the USA and Britain had over 15,000 deserters between them. The US rarely executed theirs with Private Eddie Kovacs being the exception. The author tells the stories of the deserters using three soldiers as case studies telling of their lives and military careers. An usually unstied area of the war.

[Regis Dean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every man has a breaking point. This was a well written look at a few specific characters that reached theirs. Literally picked up the book because I recognized the name of the author. Met him in a bar in Georgetown over 30 years ago.

[Lenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charles Glass, the author puts you right in the middle of the battles. Your face to face with the enemy.

[Miles Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a flawed but deeply fascinating look at a totally neglected and even taboo subject -- Allied soldiers who deserted their colors World War Two. Author Charles Glass plunges into this unfamiliar territory with a great deal of gusto from the very first page, and delivers a book which is informative and highly readable, but also structured in such a way that, at the end, we feel as if we've barely scratched the surface of a massive subject.

Glass examines the phenomenon of desertion through three particular soldiers -- Bain, a Scotsman with the Argyll and Southerland Highlanders; Whitehead, an American from Tennessee who ends up in the 4th Infantry Division; and Weiss, an American from New York who serves with the 36th Division. Each man's story is markedly different, as is their characters and background. Bain, a boxer by trade but a poet at heart, is disgusted by the cruelty and ugliness of military life. Whitehead is a hard-drinking chronic liar from a broken home who seems to be destined for the stockade almost from his first day in the military. Weiss, a volunteer, is a fine combat soldier who ends up with the OSS and does good work there, but, transferred back to the infantry, cannot endure the savagery and slaughter of the Vosges campaign and finally breaks under pressure. In each instance, we see not only the basic character but the specific pressures the soldiers were subjected to that caused them to walk off the line, and the different ways in which they were caught, punished, and responded to punishment. In the case of Whitehead, we also get to explore yet another taboo subject (touched on in "The Dirty Dozen"): how Allied, and especially American, deserters fueled organized criminal rings which made their living in Allied-occupied Europe by stealing and robbing supplies meant for the troops on the front line. These gangs committed murder, rape and fought savage gun battles with military police, and were not fully wiped out until several years after the war.

This book is as readable as a novel, and expresses both the terrible cruelty of the front line and the merciless punishments handed out by military courts for deserters, which were often composed of officers with no frontline experience at all, and in some cases under intense pressure by their own superiors to render savage verdicts. Whenever it broadens its scope to discuss the phenomenon of desertion in Allied armies itself, it is even more interesting, noting that 100,000 British and 50,000 American soldiers left the colors between 1939 - 1945 (the British have more, despite their smaller population, because they were at war much longer). Glass notes, for example, that desertion in the Pacific was almost unheard-of, because "there was no place to go," whereas in Europe and North Africa there were wealths of choices. Issues like how social class, rank, and psychological factors (1.8 million men were DQ'd from service because of mental health issues) factored into how and why desertion occurred are also discussed, and seem to have played as much of a role as the conditions of combat.

Where the book left me wanting was in Glass' choice of structure. By focusing mainly on three men who may have been atypical (especially Weiss), he leaves me with the impression that there is much, much more to this story than he is able to tell in the 400 pages of DESERTERS. His broad overviews are good but all too brief, and when I finished, I couldn't help but feel he had selected his three subjects out of convenience rather than because they were archetypes of Allied deserters generally. Many readers object to Whitehead being part of the book at all, since he is a chronic liar with deep psychological problems, and many aspects of his story may be simply made up. However, Whitehead may in fact be representative of a certain type of deserter, one who entered the army with two (psychological) strikes against him.

Overall I think this a very good book, extremely reader-friendly and quite vivid in its depictions of the horrors the men had to endure both at the front and at the hands of military justice: but it is only the tip of an iceberg I would like to see explored much further by additional authors. As for those readers who say that "the author was just trying to make me feel sorry for these men," I am tempted to reply: fuck you. Unless you're a combat veteran yourself, you should think three times before presuming to judge men in whose boots you ain't walked. That is for their comrades to do. (It is worth noting that the Indianhead Division refused Whithead admittance to the unit reunion in 1970 on the grounds of his desertion. There. They did it for you.)

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the three personal stories of desertion in this book, I am giving it 2 stars because the title does not accurately reflect the content of the work. A more proper title would be Three Deserters from the North African, Mediterranean / European Theatres of Operation in World War II. One sentence mentions the Pacific war. While it may not have been as easy to go AWOL on Okinawa, there are other ways to "desert" duty. Soldiers administered wounds to themselves, refused direct orders, committed crimes that removed them from battle or found other ways to leave the front line. Are we to believe that none of this occurred in the Pacific Theatre. Mr. Glass acts as though the only war was against the Nazis. The author states that 150,000 Allied soldiers "deserted" during WWII, 90% of the book tells us about three. This is not exactly an adequate sample of the nature of soldiers who fled from / avoided their duty. Any reader of WWII history knows how George Patton felt about combat fatigue. Despite numerous death sentences for American soldiers, only one man, Eddie Slovik, was actually killed by firing squad. Eisenhower did nothing to prevent the event largely because Private Slovik was unlucky with timing. He deserted during the Battle of the Bulge, a time of reversal for the Allies and an added desire to discourage others from abandoning their duties.... There were four major reasons for "desertion" during WWII: Failure of leadership, keeping front line forces on duty for months at a time without relief, adding replacements who had bonded by training together into established units one by one to the front lines rather than as a unit, and lack of rear facilities to provide rest and recovery in order to return soldiers to the line. I was very proud to read that the only unit that experienced NO desertions was the 442nd Infantry Regiment formed almost exclusively of Nisei - second generation Japanese Americans, many of whom had been in concentration camps before enlisting. The regiment is best known as the most decorated in U.S. military history. They suffered the same issues as Caucasian American soldiers plus more. They were treated as cannon fodder ( by General Dahlquist who is prominent in one of the three biographies in the book ) and sent on the most hazardous missions. Read the story of the rescue of the "lost regiment" which had become surrounded by Germans in France. Though they suffered worse "battle fatigue" than other units, they had a common bond and the desire to prove they were Americans.... As to the 3 biographies, though I had some initial sympathy with the deserters, later actions on the part of the men, one of whom joined criminal gangs in Paris, decreased my empathy. If the purpose of the book was to show that "desertions" were always the result of stress / fatigue in honorable men, the three choices do not exactly demonstrate this idea. Only one seemed to be haunted by the fact that others died because he left his front line duty. One stole military supplies including food, cigarettes, clothing, ammunition, weapons, that actively caused more American casualties. ***** I can only recommend this book on the basis of three interesting stories of British and American deserters. Do not read this book to understand how "combat fatigue" was addressed by the military leaders, what percentage of deserters were "legitimate" and might have been returned to battle following proper treatment, or the statistics of "deserters", e.g. age, time on the front line, loss of comrades, numbers by particular leaders, or any other factors related to causation. Kristi & Abby Tabby

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was younger I liked to read a lot battle-ortiented books about WWII, I liked to read about the strategies, tactics, weapons, vehicles, descriptions of violence, etc. I liked to read about the source material of the video games and movies I enjoyed.

However, as I've gotten older I've moved away from the somewhat juvenile fascination with the battles violence and instead I've become increasingly drawn to the human side of the war as revealed through personal stories which shows it to be invariably a tragedy for everyone involved, regardless of which side they were on. This book shows that in spades.

I thought it was effective for the author to focus on three individuals in the American and British infantry who deserted and told their the stories, it made it all very personal. Personally, after reading their experiences I don't blame those guys for deserting, I probably would done the same. The main takeaway from this book is that many soldiers deserted not because of any cowardice, they all 'proved' themselves on the battlefield on multiple occasions, but rather there's only so much inhuman violence that anyone can take before they mentally go to pieces and just have to get out of there.

I took two more overarching themes from this book. First that I was kind of appalled by how poorly the soldiers were treated by their own side at the time, even by the ''''goodest'''' of the allied powers (USA and UK). The descriptions what they endured in military prisons at the hands of their captors was kind of shocking to me, especially as an American, steeped in the cultural mirage of the righteous American war machine in WWII. The not-quite legal shenanigans of the kangaroo-court martials were particularly interesting in this regard.

That ties into my third main takeaway from this book. That the whole war effort was an incredible mismanaged mess, even within the US forces. There was poor strategic and logistical decision making at every level, infantrymen in particular were often short on ammunition and basic supplies like food and weather appropriate clothing. More pertinent however, was the American infantry reinforcement system which alienated infantrymen and kept men on the front lines for far too long. Figures given the book show that a surprisingly small percentage of combat infantry deployed in Europe actually did most of the fighting while the greater portion did little or none. We Americans (civilians at least) are fed this image of our military forces as being (and having always been) efficient, expertly led, and mostly well behaved. However as actual history has shown, the whole thing has always been a SNAFU, we have our fair share of corrupt leadership, bad decision making, and war crimes on civilian populations (though not nearly as much as the Soviets or Axis powers).

I did knock off a star because the narrative of this book is weirdly organized, it's not always chronological and it jumps between the stories of the three characters at seemingly random intervals. You get kind of lost among all the different battalions and companies, and some times the author shifts to talk about the perspectives of other figures outside of the main three and you have wait till he jumps back to one of their perspectives to reorient yourself. However, this flaw does not detract from getting the author's main points across.

[Yany · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Y el peor sonido, en una batalla,
El que todavía oigo,
La voz de los camaradas
Gritando de terror y agonía.»

No es sorpresa que cada libro que vea ambientado de forma ficticia o real en las guerras me llama la atención, mayormente cuando las tramas incluyen niños, o mujeres o sí, Desertores, también animales. En fin que me llaman muchísimo la atención y no me importa el formato en el que vengan, ya sean novelas o diarios, memorias, documentos, novelas gráficas o cuentos.

En este caso el autor Charles Glass (especializado en la Segunda Guerra Mundial) nos trae en este libro una recopilación de historias reales de vidas, destruyendo la imagen de héroes y dando a conocer, explorar, entender aquellos a los que la historia (los humanos) los tildan de cobardes.

En mí opinión, una persona que deserta, a mis ojos nunca va a ser un cobarde, es absurdo pensar que todos tenemos el mismo corazón, mente, cuerpo y alma para soportar lo que conlleva una guerra, ni por amor, orgullo, o patria, o por amor, miedo y supervivencia.
En este libro Glass hace un trabajo impoluto metiéndose en las mentes y vidas de estás personas, mostrando sus capas, sus matices, mostrándonos al lector que son humanos y no se merecen ser llamados cobardes.
Charles nos cuenta la historia de soldados que lucharon y luego desertaron, tras los testimonios y trabajo exahustivo documenta este libro que no debe ser desapercibido, nos pone sobre la mesa los miedos, las vivencias, la confusión y las injusticias por las que han pasado como por ejemplo la historia de John Blain, soldado británico participe en la Segunda Guerra mundial destinado a la batalla de El Alamein, donde ve morir a su sargento por una metralladora, y tras los horrores que vive en este escenario decide escapar y luego es capturado y enviado a una cárcel para desertores en el norte de África dónde es sometido a otras torturas por parte de su propio ejército.

Es un libro para ser leído con tranquilidad y comprensión, no es un libro para devorar, es para entender, aprender y ver más allá de lo que vivimos o sentimos.
Esta clase de libros siempre me mueven por dentro, me hacen apreciar siempre mí día a día, y siempre me quitan lágrimas.

"El olor de la guerra era el mismo en todas partes: ese aroma dulce pero penetrante de la cordita, el miedo y la putrefacción. (...) la sensación de ser deshumanizado, reducido a poco más que una extensión de tu equipamiento y tus armas, la constante sensación de ser empleado como un objeto, de ser manipulado por manos invisibles y ciegas, controlado por una fuerza que es o bien maligna o bien estúpida, el sentimiento de estar agotado en una oscuridad metafórica y, bastante a menudo, literal, de estar extenuado, asustado, enfermo, a veces tan exhausto que uno se duerme de pie, como un caballo. E ignorancia. Una ignorancia pasmosa, penosa."

[Luke Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lacking in focus, The Deserters isn't so much an overall history of men who abandoned their posts for a variety of reasons during WWII, instead it's the tales of just a few men all of which fought in the Mediterranean and Europe theaters. It does cover soldiers from both the US and UK but so much is irrelevant, so much may be highly exaggerated tales retold as fact that the book being taken as any kind of scholarly achievement is laughable.

What is the author trying to say? Is Glass trying to make a point about PTSD / shell shock / battle fatigue? If so, why leave out the widely known tale of General George S. Patton berating a man at a field hospital for his (not physical but) psychological wounds? I think Patton is referenced three times in this book and yet not this account? It almost cost Patton his stars. Is it a commentary about difficulties faced by the men? Lack of food, warm clothing, rest, and good leadership. Is it a criticism of racial bias between black and white soldiers who went AWOL? All these issues, and many more, come up but they never get tied together.

I do applaud Glass for presenting the war in a different light compared to the masterful Stephen Ambrose, and I did very much enjoy the section late in the book of how one AWOL soldier joined a gang of black marketers in Paris, but again, so often the men's accounts of what happened does not match military records that the reader is left wondering what is true and what has been distorted in the fog of war.