re: US Military Campaigns by Casualties

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Darth Vader has discussed this before. ETO was much more dangerous than the Pacific for the American fighting man. I think the 8th AF's KIA rate, not casualty rate, was something over 20%.

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I was just about to post this again. Don’t get me wrong, the Pacific was an unrelenting hell. But the battles of the Pacific, while brutal, tended to be short sharp engagements where units, both Marine & Army, had only brief periods of high casualty rates compared to infantry divisions in Europe.

European campaigns, instead of being short sharp engagements were longer in duration where active combat was always On-going. European battles tended to be more of a long drawn out meat grinder while battles in the Pacific tended to be over relatively quickly, usually, with a few notable exceptions, a matter of days or a few weeks. Really the only Pacific campaigns that can be compared to those in Europe from a size and duration standpoint would be the Philippines and perhaps Okinawa.

I can’t remember where I found it, but of there is a chart online that shows total casualties and casualty rates for all US divisions, both Army & Marine in both Europe and the Pacific during WWII. The castrates are not close. I believe something like 7 or 8 of the top 10 highest casualty rates were US Army infantry divisions in Europe. The highest casualty rate in the Pacific, if I remember correctly, was the 1st Marine Div. And they were not even in the top five of the overall list.

But again, as bad as the grunts and tankers on the ground had it, the bomber crews of the 8th Air Force suffered a casualty rate higher than any US ground division in either theater.