Search results
According to Britannica.com, an estimated 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 people died during World War II. Among the Allied powers, the U.S.S.R. suffered the greatest total number of dead: perhaps 18,000,000. An estimated 5,800,000 Poles died, which was 20 percent of Poland’s prewar population. About 298,000 Americans died.
- Recruiting Labor For The Task
- Processing Hundreds of WWII Casualties
- 6,000 Graves
- Recovering The Dead
- Retracing The Bataan Death March
- Identifying A Fallen Soldier
- Conflicting Witnesses
- “Approaching San Fernando, Casualties Were Naturally The Heaviest”
- “Unknown”
- A Moving Battlefield
A Lieutenant Fraim, the Graves Registration officer for the 82nd, introduced himself to Legg and told him to establish a temporary cemetery in the area while he went into Blosville to draft volunteer civilian labor to dig the graves. Legg said, “When asked how he would pay the workers, he displayed a musette bag full of invasion French francs inten...
The next day Legg returned to the cemetery near Blosville where he found the French labor detail waiting to be told what to do. He said, “During the previous night, a sharp firefight had taken place around the crossroads and apple orchard area. Battle debris was everywhere, including German helmets, weapons, and gas masks. The cemetery area had not...
Legg noted that weapons, ammunition, and equipment that had once belonged to the deceased were piling up at the cemetery. “Most bodies arrived fully clothed and with web gear,” he recalled. “Some had gas masks and small-arms weapons, and nearly all had some sort of ammunition and rations. All usable government equipment was taken from the bodies. I...
As procedures for collecting the combat WWII casualties evolved, it became the responsibility, whenever possible, of the frontline infantry and/or medics to retrieve their fallen comrades and evacuate them through battalion and regimental areas to the division collection point, where GRS men were standing by for the next step in the processing oper...
Even after the fighting was long concluded, challenges remained. According to the Quartermaster Corps’ official history of the Graves Registration Service, in May 1945 the Army’s 601st Graves Registration Company undertook its most difficult assignment when it began retracing the route of the infamous Bataan Death Marchto recover and identify the r...
Because of the lack of official information, Graves Registration officials turned to Filipino civilians for aid. The first platoon of the 601st, under the command of Lieutenant Manuel Nieves, contacted civilians in the town of Balanga, about halfway up from Mariveles, the starting point. Public officials of the town were asked to announce to the to...
Unfortunately, not all recoveries were so easily accomplished. Six months after the job was started, very few bodies had been positively identified. In all towns where meetings were held, Sergeant Abraham was introduced and did his best to search the natives’ fading memories for information. At first the Filipinos were reluctant to assemble, rememb...
The Filipinos’ love for trinkets became another barrier to success. From many talks with the natives along the route, it was evident that they had come into possession of many souvenirs, such as officers’ bars, NCO stripes, unit insignia, and identification tags. These “souvenirs,’’ either given to them by American soldiers or taken from the bodies...
According to Army Field Manual 10-63 (“Graves Registration,” 1945, which superceded FM-630, 1941), one Graves Registration company was assigned to each corps having at least three divisions. Given the size of command they were expected to service, the GRS companies were, during large engagements, chronically understaffed and overworked. Once WWII c...
As was often the case on the fast-moving battlefields of World War II, Americans frequently came across enemy, Allied, and civilian dead. In these cases, too, GRS personnel were given the responsibility of identifying, whenever possible, the names of the dead and placing them in well-marked temporary graves (the U.S. government compensated land own...
People also ask
How many American soldiers died in WW2?
Why did so many people die in WW2?
How many people died in World War II?
What happened during World War II?
World War II had begun. World War II was a conflict that involved virtually every part of the world during 1939–45. The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and China). It was the bloodiest conflict, as well as the largest war, in human ...
- World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and France responded by declaring war on Germany on S...
- The main combatants were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, an...
- The Allied powers were led by Winston Churchill (United Kingdom); Joseph Stalin (Soviet Union); Charles de Gaulle (France); and Franklin D. Rooseve...
- The war in the Pacific turned against Japan during the Battle of Midway (June 3–6, 1942), an American victory that destroyed the Japanese first-lin...
- The Allied landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944, opened a second front in Europe, and Germany’s abortive offensive at the Ardennes in the winter of...
- Estimates of the total number of people killed during World War II have ranged from 35,000,000 to 60,000,000—a significant span, because statistics...
Mar 30, 2023 · 1. In 1942, the US State Department confirmed that Nazi Germany planned to murder all the Jews in Europe. This information was reported widely in the American press. 2. There was a fast growing humanitarian and refugee crisis across Europe during World War II.
It was not until World War II that the enemy killed more American troops than disease did. Thirty percent of those wounded in action during World War II ultimately died; however, the vast majority survived. During most campaigns in World War II, for every single American soldier killed four or five were wounded.
Apr 4, 2024 · During World War II, Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews in a genocide now known as the Holocaust. 3 In addition to the genocide of Europe’s Jews, the Nazis also targeted additional groups of people whom they saw as enemies or threats.
Oct 29, 2009 · Among the people killed were 6 million Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps as part of Hitler’s diabolical “Final Solution,” now known as the Holocaust. The legacy of the war included the...
