Missing Body of Deserter Slovik Winds Up in S.F.

Pvt. Eddie Slovik, the only U.S. soldier executed for desertion since the Civil War, finally came home from France on Friday after 42 years and an airlines mistake that sent his remains to San Francisco.

The whereabouts of the black box containing Slovik’s bones was a mystery most of Thursday night as it headed to San Francisco aboard a jetliner, unknown to TWA officials.

“It’s just a matter of lost luggage,” an airline spokesman said. “We’ve misplaced the thing somewhere.”

Returned to Detroit

The box was discovered Friday morning in San Francisco and immediately transferred to a flight for Slovik’s hometown of Detroit.

Upon arrival in Detroit, it was loaded into a coffin draped with an American flag and carried away in a hearse.

The TWA spokesman blamed the confusion on the fact that airline workers were looking for a coffin but the remains were in the box, which was only about two to three feet long.

Nameless Grave

Slovik’s remains were exhumed from a nameless grave Wednesday at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in Fere-en-Tardenois, France, with the approval of U.S. Army officials.

Slovik is to be buried today next to his wife, Antoinette, who died in 1979.

Slovik, 24, was executed on Jan. 31, 1945. Of more than 40,000 desertion cases during World War II and death sentences handed down to 49 people, Slovik was the only one to face the firing squad. It was widely believed that his pleas for clemency were denied because he had a criminal record.