What would happen if you were a coward during World War 2?

Answer 1

Well, it depended. The US only executed one single soldier for desertion in the face of the enemy - Eddie Slovik. Some feel he got a raw deal. If you were a guy in a front line combat unit and were always hard to find when the shooting started it would not go unnoticed, and you were probably treated with scorn by your squadmates, who soon knew not to rely on you. There was a survey done of riflemen after the war, and the result were astonishing, and are still controversial. The results indicated that only about one out of four US riflemen would actually fire their weapon and try to kill someone. The rest would go where they were told, and would be right there when the bullets were firing, but just could not or would not aim at a man and pull the trigger, even if they were killed. So in the rifle squads, they knew who was able to do the dirty work, and who wasn't. This was not much talked about. Some guys were so desperate to get out of combat they would do anything. In some times and places, in some outfits, if you had such a person and were ablt to you might get rid of him, with disgust, so that he would not endanger the others, and maybe you could get a replacement who wasn't spineless. Others might fake "combat fatigue", but the medical personnel were on the alert for this. I've read of one instance where they had a Jeep rigged so it would backfire, which sounded like a gunshot. They'd get all the "combat fatigue" cases in a big tent, start the jeep outside, and when it backfired, any man who didn't hit the dirt got sent right back to the front. But you can imagine how worthless they would be once there, taking up a slot in a rifle squad. The worst cases were "self inflicted wounds", where a man would shoot himself - usually in the foot - to get out of combat. This usually got the guy a five year sentence in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary.