I'm presuming merchant navy deserters would be included in The Police Gazette (Hue and Cry), but whilst FMP does have some issues, I don't think it has any for WW2. They are at TNA.
Whilst looking, I saw this on TNA info:
The National Archives of Australia has a large number of record series concerning ships’ crews and the merchant navy. They include registers of engagement, articles of agreement, registers of discharge, registers of deserters, and employment history records. All these record series are indexed on the RecordSearch database.
https://recordsearch.naa.gov.au/Sear...sicSearch.aspx
As for newspapers, there's FMP and
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/