More Than a Million

By last week the U.S. counted its World War II casualties in seven figures. Official Army & Navy reports, always weeks behind time, listed 1,002,887 casualties.*

More than 600,000 American men & women have been wounded. Some 60,000 are missing. More than 75,000 are still listed as prisoners of war. Almost a quarter of a million are dead. (World War I dead: 126,000.)

From the now quiet European Theater of Operations came a breakdown of the losses sustained in that bitter, sweeping campaign. From D-day to V-E day the Army counted 65,931 killed, 381,507 wounded. Costliest week (Dec. 19-25) was during Rundstedt's counterattack at Ardennes, when 27,194 U.S. soldiers were lost to combat (1,721 killed). Bloodiest week: the Normandy landing (June 6-12), when 2,880 men were killed.

Some divisions took such losses that they would have vanished completely had it not been for replacements. The valiant 3rd, which fought from North Africa to Berchtesgaden, suffered a total of 34,224 casualties--more than the equivalent of two divisions. The 45th and 36th each lost some 27,000 men. These three outfits and the 9th and 4th Divisions were the hardest hit. Total casualties of the five divisions: 133-394.

In the Pacific, the Army, Navy and Marines already counted the toll at 67,733 dead, 120,893 wounded, 30,388 missing.

*British Empire casualties, for five and a half years of war: 1,128,315.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.