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Comment by xkcd-sucks | Hacker News Reader

Now the popular portrayal of WWII seems kind of idealistic, but there's plenty of historical evidence to suggest many Allied troops really did not want to be there, and the scale of desertion [1] was quite high - In addition to corruption, mismanagement, and racketeering [2].

I only really considered this after encountering "Deserter: The Last Untold Story of the Second World War" by Charles Glass in a used bookstore, which is appropriately referenced etc.

[1] But what is desertion, really? A legal matter the facts of which are decided through process...

[1] like, Catch-22 was actually toned down from reality so to speak, yes it's technically written by a Korean war vet but

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What did Charles Glass estimate the WW2 desertion rate to be?

Here’s one that estimates 0.22%, which is low historically. https://www.armyheritage.org/wp-content/uploads/ref-bibs/sub...

I’ll certainly check out the book; thanks for the recommendation.

It seems to me that a deserter in the hands of the US military system was an asset that a) had undergone training, b) was on the action side of whatever ocean, c) must be made to understand that there were worse things than the front line. The retraining camps were brutal, I gather, but the only deserter convicted by a court martial and then shot, Eddie Slovik, had said outright that if returned to the line he would desert again.

And Joseph Heller was a veteran of WW II. The NY Times Magazine's issue for the 50th anniversary of VJ day included an essay by him. Some reservists were called back for Korea, but was he one of them?

[Edit: added qualified military system with "US".]

New Zealand had the [Furlough Mutiny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fraser#Furlough_Mutiny), where several thousand troops refused to go back to the fighting in Europe.

Canada had the [Terrace Mutiny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrace_mutiny) where conscripts were told they were going to be sent overseas after being assured that only volunteers would go. A train travelling from BC to Halifax with thousands of soldiers headed overseas arrived at its destination several thousand men lighter, due to desertions.

The Italian campaign was infamous for the number of desertions in all the Allied armies. General Alexander wanted to bring back the death penalty to curb the losses.

Hmm, I don't know, I feel like America in perticular came away from WWII with pretty clean hands, bombing Japan aside, the pacific war devolved into something a bit grotesque. The American soldiers marched towards Japan carrying around the skulls of the Japanese as trophies. A representative gave Roosevelt a letter opener made out of a Japanese soldier's arm. The Americans were WAY more chill in the European theatre and generally fought "A good war".

The rest of the Allies always struck me more as cynical imperialists, and the whole narrative of the British desperately trying to stop that madman Hitler but Chamberlain loving peace too much to stop him as being a bit naive. Stalin saw things differently and saw the allies as trying to intentionally make Hitler stronger to keep the USSR in check. From that perspective, it's not shocking the allies went to war against the Nazis almost immediately after Molotov-Ribbentrop was signed. Plus you know, there were all the colonial shenanigans.

Also, with all that being stressed, it is actually unbelievable how comically supervillaniously evil the Nazis actually were. These were a group of people who made Josef Stalin seem ethical. It's hard to fight the Nazis and NOT be the good guys.

>bombing Japan aside, the pacific war devolved into something a bit grotesque. The American soldiers marched towards Japan carrying around the skulls of the Japanese as trophies.

If you think that was grotesquely terrible, I really recommend a thorough reading of what the Japanese themselves did during their imperial conquests, WWII and their increasingly bloody, desperate retreats in the face of American power! You'll be breathtakingly surprised by what barbarity can look like outside what the Nazis did.

There was of course a major element of racism in the hatred American soldiers had for Japanese soldiers, but it was only part of it. The Japanese did themselves zero favors in their conduct toward.... pretty much everyone, and were barbaric even in their handling of captured or wounded enemies (not to even mention how they behaved towards conquered civilian populations, which in their own form of nearly nazi-like racial disdain, they often looked upon as little better than animals). All the racism aside, the Americans also had an enormous multitude of good reasons for hating them so much.. The Empire even treated its own soldiers viciously and inhumanely in just about every way, which certainly didn't help those soldiers' attitudes towards all others..

Further note, fully agreed on the nearly cartoonish evil of the Nazis. I can't really think of another political system that took things to such deliberate extremes in the rest of known, relatively modern history. The closest anyone comes might be Stalin, or maybe the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, but even these examples don't quite match the sheer open viciousness of Nazi policies and practice.

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