Re: [eia] US Memorial Day remembrance

[Joel Uckelman <uckelman@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thus spake MICHAEL P GORMAN:
> Your comment got me curious.  My impression was that the Civil War was the la
> st major US military operation where most officers would be expected to lead 
> soldiers into combat in the sense of charging right along with them.  Thus of
> ficer casualties were often proportionally as high as enlisted casualty rates
> .
> 
> I haven't found all the figures sorted by rank yet but I started looking up W
> WII losses for US forces.  I've found the Navy so far, excluding Marine Corps
> , and they're interesting since the total losses for the war are pretty much 
> proportional.  About one in ten of the deaths in the navy were officers and t
> hey made up about 10% of the navy.  But when you start breaking it into categ
> ories it shows up that officers were higher in percentage in non-combat death
> s than in combat and that almost 40% of all officer fatalities were in air co
> mbat where officers made up 50% of the casualties.  Not surprising since pilo
> ts were typically officers, but it does show the unusual structure of the air
>  combat arms in the military.  They are the only arm of the military where of
> ficers typically go out and fight while the enlisted stay back at base in sup
> port roles.
> 
> It was also interesting that the navy estimates that 87% of all of its forces
>  that deployed overseas during the war were directly exposed to combat at lea
> st once in their tour of duty.  Makes something of a mockery of the entire co
> ncept of a non-combat role in a war zone.
> 
> The most concise naval link I've found so far is:
> http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/ww2_statistics.htm
> 
> 
> I'm expecting the army to paint a very different picture as I've heard anecdo
> tally that the army seriously underestimated the percentage of its losses tha
> t would be from frontline units and corespondingly overestimated the losses i
> t would suffer from support roles.  This was attributed to the fact that with
>  the exception of the Battle of the Bulge there were few engagements that the
>  army was heavily engaged in where it was not primarily on the offensive.

I'd expect the Navy to be altogether different from the Army, simply due to
the way that personnel are concentrated. In general, I'd expect the mortality
rate for officers posted on combat vessels to be about the same as that of
the sailors on those vessels (especially for submarines). 16" guns and depth
charges don't care about your rank, after all.

-- 
J.
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