Born in 1920 Eddie D. Slovik picked up three convictions for breaking and entering, theft and disturbing the peace in 1932. He was convicted of drink driving in 1939. As a minor ‘criminal’ he was classified as 4F and his draft was deferred in 1941. By 1944 the US Army was in need of manpower and he was reclassified as A1. He trained in the United States and then arrived in France with a shipload of “replacements” – it was only when they arrived in Europe that they were assigned to the regiments who needed men to replace battle casualties.
The truck carrying Slovik and fellow soldiers to the front passed through the aftermath of the Falaise Gap battle, one of the most gruesome sites imaginable. Eisenhower himself had described it:
The battlefield at Falaise was unquestionably one of the greatest “killing fields” of any of the war areas. Forty-eight hours after the closing of the gap I was conducted through it on foot, to encounter scenes that could be described only by Dante. It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.
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