The Deserters: A Hidden History of World War II (34 page)

Weiss hitchhiked back toward the 36th Division and Captain Simmons. Near the Lower Vosges town of Vesoul, he spent a night in a barn. When he woke up, his desperation was complete. He could not go any farther. If the army had spread the burden of combat more fairly by rotating troops, he thought he could fight again. Troops in the rear had never faced battle, and most men at the front had never had a rest. It seemed unjust. He wrote later, “
Fair play was all I demanded, that each man do his duty and take a turn at the front.” That was not going to happen. “
If one day, you’re the guy pulling more than the other guys, the next day someone takes your place,” he said. “Not in the army.” Weiss saw only an army that had abandoned him to a commander with no regard for his life or well-being, an army that had refused to allow him to continue fighting with the OSS, an army that denied him every alternative assignment he had been offered and an army that had no more consideration for the ordinary dogface combat soldier than it did for equipment to be replaced when it ceased to function. This army was stronger than he was, and its chain of command retained a hold on his sense of duty. He did not question its legitimacy, even when he believed it unfair. “
I was so depressed I didn’t give a shit,” he explained later. “If you want to shoot me, shoot me.”

On Monday morning, 30 October, two American deserters surrendered to military police in the town of Vesoul. The first was Private First Class Frank Turek, who was soon turned over to MPs from the 36th Division. They drove him to their new headquarters at Bruyères, where First Lieutenant Herman L. Tepp of the military police “
ordered him to return to his company and sent him by vehicle to his company kitchen train.” Turek was back in service. The second was temporary sergeant Weiss, who left the barn at about 10:00 that morning and surrendered to an American military police patrol.

Captain Richard J. Thomson, Jr., of the 67th Military Police Company, whom Weiss remembered as “a captain who never heard a shot fired in anger,” placed him under arrest. Thomson, after throwing Weiss into a stockade dug into the wet earth, made a written report: “The soldier was dressed in uniform at the time of surrender. Soldier made the following voluntary statement: Soldier admitted being A.W.O.L. from his unit since 27 October 1944.”
The MPs gave the prisoner a cup of coffee and a cigarette. If they shot him then and there, Weiss thought, “It would be a relief, not a tragedy.”

TWENTY-SIX

There are strains which no man, however tough-minded, can endure.

Psychology for the Fighting Man
, p. 353

O
N 2
N
OVEMBER
, S
TEVE
W
EISS
reported to the division psychiatrist, Major Walter L. Ford, in one of a group of hospital tents where medical staff treated the physically and mentally wounded. The Judge Advocate General’s Office relied on Ford to determine whether accused soldiers were psychologically fit to stand trial or should be discharged from the army under Section VIII of Army Regulation 615-360 for “
inaptness or undesirable habits or traits of character.” (The traits included insanity and homosexuality.)

When Weiss arrived at the hospital tent to see Ford, physicians and nurses were treating hundreds of wounded Japanese-Americans from the Nisei 442nd Regiment. There was neither silence nor a private place to conduct the interview, because the Nisei had suffered more than eight hundred killed and wounded in the previous week. Forty-eight hours earlier, the regiment had rescued a trapped section of the 141st Regiment that the press had dubbed the “lost battalion.” The section, smaller than a battalion with only 211 men, had advanced so far beyond American lines that it was cut off. For a week, German forces on all sides besieged the men. Dug into slit trenches in a thick forest above Biffontaine, they ran out of food, water and ammunition. The division dropped supplies by air, most of which fell into German hands. For a week, the Nisei advanced up steep “Banzai Hill” through mud, forest and thick brush against superior German forces to win the day. However, they lost more than eight hundred men killed and wounded. (
The 442nd did not achieve sufficient strength to return to combat until March 1945 in Italy. It was probably the only American combat regiment in Europe that did not record a single desertion.) The survivors of the rescue party lay all around Weiss, while Major Ford quizzed him about his state of mind.

Weiss responded desultorily to the physician’s questions, more aware of the suffering Japanese-Americans around him than of the psychiatrist. Ford questioned Weiss for a half hour, but he did not ask him about his reasons for deserting, his lack of trust in his commanding officer or his belief that the military machine treated ordinary soldiers unfairly.
Ford declared that Weiss, despite having “psychoneurosis, anxiety, mild,” was competent to face a court-martial.

•   •   •

While Weiss discussed his sanity with the division psychiatrist, Private First Class Frank Turek left the line again. “On 2 November,” military police lieutenant Herman Tepp wrote, “Turek reported to me at S-1 [Personnel] Section, 143rd Infantry in the vicinity of Decimont, France, and he stated that he refused to go to his company. I again ordered him to his company and he stated that he refused to go.” The army had no alternative but to prosecute him.

Like Weiss, Turek had to meet Major Ford for psychological assessment. After a similar half-hour discussion, Ford reported that the twenty-two-year-old Polish-American private “
was suffering from psychoneurosis, mixed, chronic, mild and that this is a long standing emotional disorder which makes it difficult for the soldier to adjust during periods of stress.” Although Ford concluded that Turek’s mental health was more damaged than Weiss’s, the authorities deemed he should stand trial for desertion. The maximum penalty for his offense was death.

Turek’s court-martial convened in Bruyères on 6 November 1944, three days after his psychiatric appraisal. An old, unheated chapel, part of the complex where General Dahlquist had established divisional headquarters on 31 October, served as the courtroom. The town bore the scars of the three-week battle that the Americans had won at high cost, and there was no mood of forgiveness for those who had shirked their duty. The specification was clear: “
In that Private First Class Frank J. Turek, Company C, 143rd Infantry, at or near Brechitosse [
sic
], France, on or about 28 October 1944, ran away from his company, which was then engaged with the enemy.”

The prosecution made a peremptory challenge to remove Captain Eldon R. McRobert from the panel, and the defense challenged Captain Lowell E. Sitton. Both officers were excused. That left ten officers on the court-martial panel, who effectively served as judge and jury. Major Benjamin F. Wilson, Jr., and an assistant, Captain Robert W. Plunkett, defended Turek. The trial judge advocate, or prosecutor, was Captain John Stafford, assisted by Captain Jess W. Jones. The prosecution established that the 143rd Regiment was “tactically before the enemy” near Brechifosse on 28 October, the morning that Turek deserted. It called only one witness, Lieutenant Raymond E. Bernberg, who confirmed that Turek’s regiment was facing the enemy that day. The defense did not contest his testimony. Captain Stafford declared, “The United States rests.”

Major Wilson introduced Major Ford’s psychiatric report as Defense Exhibit A and called Private First Class Turek to testify under oath. Turek admitted leaving his company on 28 October. Wilson asked him about his first patrol. The court reporter, Corporal Maxwell Resnick, recorded Turek’s reply with numerous spelling and punctuation errors:

Well Sir, we were just going into combat, the first time for any of us. We arrived at the front to relieve this outfit about noon of that day I don’t recall the time. During the daytime it was alright. About dusk my squad leader came and said that I and other men go out and contact B Company on patrol. On the way over to B Company about five hundred yards away from our position I saw a man laying on the side of the road and I was in the rear with two fellows in front of me. I nudged one of the fellows and said “Do you see that fellow” and he said “Yes” and he said he was a “Jerry.” I took the safety off my rifle and pumped a couple of shells into it and I went to the front of the men and we moved on. . . . I was jumpy and I just couldn’t stand looking at the trees fearing that there was a jerry behind them and every move out there in front affected me.

Defense counsel Wilson asked him about the effect that shell fire had on him, and Turek replied that the night after his first patrol “every leaf I heard falling on the ground had me jumping.” On guard duty in a foxhole, he went to find someone to relieve him so he could sleep. His testimony continued:

It was so dark that if anyone took my place, I don’t believe that he would be able to find his own hole and come back. I fell into a couple of foxholes and got out, but I couldn’t see anything, do nothing. I went back to the hole and heard these shells coming over. I thought they were our own shells. I asked my buddy who was doing the shelling and he said, “Those are the Jerries.” And he said he thought it was two hundred yards in front of us, and I did not know what to do. I started beating my head and felt like a caged animal and since then I was on edge all the time.

The trial judge advocate’s cross-examination rehearsed the same events, and Turek had little to add. Turek’s replies to Captain Stafford’s final questions, however, determined the outcome of the trial.

Stafford. Would you go back and fight if you had the opportunity?

Turek. I don’t know that is hard to say.

Stafford. Would you or would you not go back and fight if given the opportunity?

Turek. No, Sir.

Major Wilson’s redirect examination allowed Turek to tell the court about his childhood traumas, the amputation of his father’s leg, his loss of a job due to psychosomatic skin rashes and problems at home that continued to worry him. An officer on the court-martial panel asked him whether he deserted alone, and Turek answered that another soldier had gone with him. The court retired to consider its verdict. It found Turek guilty. After a second deliberation, it sentenced him to “be dishonorably discharged from the service, to forfeit all pay and allowances due or to become due, and to be confined at hard labor at such place as the reviewing authority may direct for twenty-five (25) years.” At 3:00 in the afternoon, the court-martial was completed.

•   •   •

The next morning, 7 November 1944, at 9:30, in the same chapel in Bruyères where Frank Turek had been convicted, another general court-martial convened to try Private First Class Stephen J. Weiss. The presiding officer, Major James T. Clarke of the 155th Field Artillery Battalion, sat in the sanctuary at a long table with fourteen other officers, seven on either side. Many of them had judged Private First Class Turek the day before. The senior officer on the court-martial panel was Lieutenant Colonel David P. Faulkner of the 36th Division headquarters staff. In common with other courts-martial at the time, the court judging Private Weiss included no enlisted men. Only one member of the court, Second Lieutenant Bertram M. Lebeis, was a qualified lawyer. Most of the officers, from Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner down to Second Lieutenant William Steger, were not combat veterans. Behind the panel loomed a cross from which defendant Steve Weiss thought the crucified Christ was judging the judges.

The defense counsel was Major Benjamin F. Wilson, Jr., who had defended Turek and, a few weeks before that, Lieutenant Albert C. Homcy, on the same charges of “Misbehavior before the enemy.” Although Weiss would later complain that Wilson was not a lawyer, the major had more legal experience than most other officers on courts-martial. As the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia judge George E. MacKinnon later noted, “
Major Wilson had very considerable training in and experience with the law. He had completed two years of law school prior to entering the service, completed a service course in Military Justice, and continued his study of military justice at the Artillery School, the Advance Infantry Course, and at the Inspector General’s School.” Wilson’s court-martial experience included more than three hundred cases in which he had served as a member of the court, a trial judge advocate (prosecutor) or defense counsel. Judge MacKinnon observed that Wilson was “much better qualified to defend an accused in a court martial proceeding than many fully licensed lawyers.” However, Wilson’s heavy caseload deprived him of time to speak with his clients and to prepare a thorough defense.

Wilson was not the only officer present who had taken part in Lieutenant Homcy’s court-martial. Major Harry B. Kelton, Captain Lowell E. Sitton, Captain Isidore Charkatz and First Lieutenant Charles Hickox had all served on the panel that, under pressure from General Dahlquist, found Lieutenant Homcy guilty on 19 October. Another judge on the Weiss panel, Lieutenant Raymond E. Bernberg, had originally been named as a witness for the prosecution against Weiss. His sworn statement that Weiss had been before the enemy when he deserted formed part of the prosecution’s case. Normal procedure should have allowed him to recuse himself or the defense to challenge him for cause, but he remained a judge. The prosecutor, or trial judge advocate, was the same as in the Homcy and Turek cases, Captain John M. Stafford. In the nearly three weeks since Homcy’s trial, General Dahlquist had not withdrawn his demand that officers produce guilty verdicts and harsh sentences “for the good of the service.”

•   •   •

The defense and prosecution tables were in the nave, between the congregants’ pews and the chancel rail. The trial judge advocate, Captain Stafford, and his assistant prosecutor, Captain Jess W. Jones, faced the court from one side of the aisle. On the other were defending counsel Wilson and his assistant, Captain Robert W. Plunkett, as well as Weiss himself. Looking up at the court, the altar and the cross, the nineteen-year-old Weiss felt insignificant before the full weight of the judiciary, the military and the Almighty. The ritual commenced with the swearing in of the court. The court reporter, Corporal Russell C. Trunkfield, recorded the trial in a shorthand notebook.