Facing unpleasant facts

G. George Ostrom /The Trailwatcher

I found a disturbing fact this week during research on "that book" I hope to complete before I hit 90. Soon after WWII in Germany, our EuCon Communications Center had a direct line to the American Graves Registration Corps based at St. Germain, Paris, and the daily traffic concerned the ongoing search for U.S. servicemen still "missing in action."

I don't know how long that operation was active but it wasn't there when Iris and I visited Paris in May 1979.

The baffling search for missing soldiers relied on official Army reports, tips, rumors and luck. It was not possible or desirable for me to read any of the constant flowing info from Paris to the Pentagon, but I do recall a lot of communication.

Graves Registration was dealing with a complex situation. When the war ended, there was an estimate of 78,250 total American servicemen officially listed as "missing in action." The percentage of those from just European action I've yet to learn.

There was a kicker in all these estimates due to two factors we do not see discussed in public very often, AWOLs, which stands for absent without leave, and deserters. In the South Pacific, there was very little of that. Where could they go? Completely different story in Europe. At the end of WWII, there were serious discussions of what was called "The Lost Division." Wikipedia on the Internet currently gives a number as 19,000 U.S. Army soldiers considered to be AWOL in France alone in 1945. In 1947 we had estimates higher than that. See the problem? Graves Registration often had incomplete info on who was missing in action, who was AWOL and who had deserted. It was impossible to draw clear lines of distinction in many cases, a massive mystery which will never be solved.

Aiding but not directly associated with Graves Registration were specialized U.S. Army troops whose job was locating AWOLs and deserters in France, as well as all over Europe. They were fairly successful, and I have written here briefly before about those operations, including my accidentally finding of a young sailor in Nice, France, who was over two years AWOL.

The Army arrested thousands and I have no idea how the individual cases were eventually handled back here in the United States. We had a couple dozen of those prisoners on the troop ship that brought me home.

The disturbing fact found this week is that of the 78,250 WWII missing in action, only about 4,000 bodies have been found over the years, leaving 74,213 "missing" still unaccounted for. That figure supposedly comes from the U.S. Defense Department and I'm trying to verify its accuracy. German media reported in 2008 that 1,280,000 German soldiers are still unaccounted for.

As long as I'm on unpleasant subjects, guess I'll throw some startling figures on "desertion." During 3.5 years of U.S. involvement in WWII, slightly over 21,000 of our military personnel were convicted and sentenced for desertion. Approximately 49 of those were given the death penalty but only one was killed. Pfc. Eddie Slovik faced a firing squad in Europe. I have covered that strange incident in past columns.

Comparably speaking, America's military had been very forgiving with deserters. That was not the case among Hitler's Wehrmacht and Stalin's armies. Tens of thousands of soldiers deserted the Nazi military and 15,000 of those were executed before the Wehrmacht surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. Even less forgiving was the Russian Army. Joseph Stalin in August 1941 ordered superiors to begin shooting all deserters on the spot. To make this more terrifying, he subjected the deserters' family members to possible arrest. While this cruel order may have slowed down Russian desertions, it certainly didn't stop that desperate practice.

The Soviets executed 158,000 of their own soldiers during WWII. Many of those were shot by "blocking detachments," troops stationed in the rear of combat units with orders to shoot any fleeing "cowards' or panicked military personnel. The few Russian soldiers with whom I had personal contact were a depressing lot, seemingly fearful of their own officers, filled with hatred of the Germans, eager to the point of greed for food and personal items such as watches. Most of what they had came from what they felt was justifiable looting.

Well! Hope I haven't made a mess out of your day, but writing "that book" has forced me to recall and deal with sometimes unpleasant facts. Being a person who likes to share fun things and good times with my readers, thankfully, I seldom feel the need to share less entertaining realities … but stuff happens.

We'll do better next time.