What were the thirty-one crash landings in Starship Troopers?

Question

In Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers reference was made a few times to "the thirty-one crash landings", the thirty-one offenses that warranted the death penalty for the soldier who committed them. One was "striking a superior officer." Another was "pusillanimous conduct in the face of the enemy" which covers desertion, hiding or turning tail and running instead of fighting.

Since Heinlein borrowed liberally from military lore and tradition for this novel I have long assumed the other crash landings were lifted from some military code of conduct somewhere. But I could be wrong about this--- the non-military parts of the Troopers society handed out the death penalty for things we would not say rated death even when Troopers was published, except perhaps in the Jim Crow South. So the crash landings could just be a grim dystopian invention.

Is there a list somewhere of the thirty or so offenses that would get a soldier hung in a typical Western style army and presumably Heinlein's M.I.?

Answer 1

There was no detailed list I'm aware of, several of them were listed in Chapter 8, discussing Dillinger's fate.

Not counting the technical matter of desertion, Dillinger had committed at least four capital crimes; if his victim had lived {{meaning murder was one of 31 -DVK}}, he still would have danced Danny Deever for any one of the other three — kidnapping, demand of ransom, criminal neglect, etc.

However, this seems to likely have been applicable to civilians as well, not just the military.