Eric Pleasants (1911–1998) was a British citizen during World War II who defected to serve in the Waffen-SS. Pleasants attended school in Norwich to age 14, then worked variously as trainee electrician, forester, boxer, wrestler and then showman weight-lifter in Britain and continental Europe. In late 1939 he joined the Merchant Navy as a "compromise" between military call-up and distaste for war. He served on a freighter bringing potatoes from Jersey to Southampton, but overstayed his time ashore on the island, missed his boat, and was caught there when the Channel Islands were occupied by the German Army in July 1940. He obtained temporary farm work as a potato picker, but also began stealing from empty properties, resulting in arrest and prosecution in the Magistrates' Court, and eventu