1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

Discussions on WW2 in Western Europe & the Atlantic.
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Inselaffe
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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#16

Post by Inselaffe » 24 Nov 2015, 01:37

Hello Mori,

Try WO 177/343 War Diary of VIII Corps Medical Services (1944), this is one I've looked at quite a bit, covers EPSOM, JUPITER and GOODWOOD amongst other stuff. There are many others but I don't have the National Archive numbers to hand. I'll try to find the others and add them to this thread.

Cheers.
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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#17

Post by rcocean » 03 Feb 2016, 05:03

You want to show how brutal the Campaign in NW Europe compared to 1918 and the Eastern front?

The fact is it wasn't brutal at all compared to those two. The US lost 50,000 men on the Western Front in 1918 and most of them in the last 3 months of fighting. We lost 110,000 men in 1944-45. The British suffered through the German Spring offensive and then took massive losses in the "Last 100 days" - throw in the French, and you're probably looking at 350,000 Allied KIA in 1918.

As for 1944-1945, there is nothing "chaotic" about American causality stats. The British are a different case, since they are always vague (for example try finding out how many UK troops were killed in the Battle of France) no doubt because it highlights how little fighting the British army was actually doing in WW 2. That aside, the British seem to have lost about 30,000 KIA while other 21st Army Group nationalities lost about 15, 000. Throw in the french, and you're talking about 180,000 Allied KIA in 11 months of fighting.

Compare that to the Eastern front with millions killed on both sides. In WW1 the British Empire lost 600,000 men on the Western Front. In 1944-45 they lost maybe 45,000.


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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#18

Post by Michael Kenny » 03 Feb 2016, 07:37

rcocean wrote:

As for 1944-1945, there is nothing "chaotic" about American causality stats. The British are a different case, since they are always vague (for example try finding out how many UK troops were killed in the Battle of France) no doubt because it highlights how little fighting the British army was actually doing in WW 2. That aside, the British seem to have lost about 30,000 KIA while other 21st Army Group nationalities lost about 15, 000. Throw in the french, and you're talking about 180,000 Allied KIA in 11 months of fighting.
Ignoring the stupid comments about who was 'doing the fighting the NWE casualties were US 104000, Commonwealth 41000 & French 12000. Total 158000. I believe your juvenile point is casualties in 1944 for Western Allies show they did not fight as 'hard' as in WW1. The counter is that German NWE WW2 casualties were not as heavy as WW1 losses so it must follow that the Germans had it easy as well.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#19

Post by Sheldrake » 03 Feb 2016, 11:41

rcocean wrote:You want to show how brutal the Campaign in NW Europe compared to 1918 and the Eastern front?

The fact is it wasn't brutal at all compared to those two. The US lost 50,000 men on the Western Front in 1918 and most of them in the last 3 months of fighting. We lost 110,000 men in 1944-45. The British suffered through the German Spring offensive and then took massive losses in the "Last 100 days" - throw in the French, and you're probably looking at 350,000 Allied KIA in 1918.

As for 1944-1945, there is nothing "chaotic" about American causality stats. The British are a different case, since they are always vague (for example try finding out how many UK troops were killed in the Battle of France) no doubt because it highlights how little fighting the British army was actually doing in WW 2. That aside, the British seem to have lost about 30,000 KIA while other 21st Army Group nationalities lost about 15, 000. Throw in the french, and you're talking about 180,000 Allied KIA in 11 months of fighting.

Compare that to the Eastern front with millions killed on both sides. In WW1 the British Empire lost 600,000 men on the Western Front. In 1944-45 they lost maybe 45,000.
There is a difference between Casualties and Killed. You have just used the figures for Killed and Missign presumed dead and ignored Wounded and PW, which were the majority of the losses. For example, By the end of WW1 the American Army suffered 52, 947 killed and 202, 628 wounded, a total of around 255,000 men. This is one dead for every five wounded. This is not dissimilar to the figures for WW2 in Normandy of 1:4.5. In the First World War the proportion of British killed to wounded is much higher - some 950k compared to 2.2 million wounded.

So was WW1 on the western front "more brutal" than in WW2 because a higher proportion of wounded survived? Medical advances such as blood transfusions and penicillin helped. However, the high proportion of wounded to killed in the AEF may reflect the high proportion of non lethal gas casualties suffered by inexperienced troops. (Is the use of chemical weapons inherently more brutal than high explosive, flame and bullet?)

Beyond improved medical treatment, there was little difference in the brutality of the experience of the soldiers at the sharp end of either war, or their survival rates. Indeed some modern British historians have argued that the survival rates in Normandy were lower, reflecting the increase in weapon lethality in the intervening decades. The MG34 and 42 and 81mm mortar were more effective than their WW1 equivalents.

What was different was that far fewer soldiers in WW2 were exposed to the brutality of front line combat. In NWE the British deployed a far smaller army than in WW1. Within formations there were fewer men in the front line as a highe proportion manned support weapons or were engaged in the logistics to support these more lethal weapons.

There was a difference in the character of the wars fought in the West in WW2. On the Western front brutality was meted out to civilians by aerial bombing on a scale impossible twenty years earlier and not attempted on the Eastern front in WW2. This did not mean that the civilians escaped in WW1. They were merely exposed to starvation by naval blockades on and below the seas.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#20

Post by AJFFM » 03 Feb 2016, 21:56

Michael Kenny wrote:
rcocean wrote:

As for 1944-1945, there is nothing "chaotic" about American causality stats. The British are a different case, since they are always vague (for example try finding out how many UK troops were killed in the Battle of France) no doubt because it highlights how little fighting the British army was actually doing in WW 2. That aside, the British seem to have lost about 30,000 KIA while other 21st Army Group nationalities lost about 15, 000. Throw in the french, and you're talking about 180,000 Allied KIA in 11 months of fighting.
Ignoring the stupid comments about who was 'doing the fighting the NWE casualties were US 104000, Commonwealth 41000 & French 12000. Total 158000. I believe your juvenile point is casualties in 1944 for Western Allies show they did not fight as 'hard' as in WW1. The counter is that German NWE WW2 casualties were not as heavy as WW1 losses so it must follow that the Germans had it easy as well.
Actually American KIA in NWE (and if I am not mistaken Italy as well) was close to 120k (after including MIA and DoW)*. This of course does not include the 35K who died as part of the USAAF.

For the British and Commonwealth (not to mention Nationalists in independent units attached to British Higher HQs) I never seem to get a grip on numbers but as far as I could gather the consensus is 60k men in total KIA/DoW for the same campaign. The RAF casualties breakdown is not with me but it was quite high too for the time period in question.

* The reference in the 1946 report on WWII casualties issued by the newly formed DoD which is difficult to read but has the best detailed breakdown and general summary of all casualty reports I have read so far. It is worth noting that some historians actually differ with the data provided in that report and cite either higher or lower figures (although percentage wise it is within the normal margin of error) and their breakdown of casualties by engagement is also contradictory with the report but the variance is quite low unlike British, German and especially Soviet casualty data I have read so far.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#21

Post by Sheldrake » 06 Feb 2016, 01:37

AJFFM wrote:
Michael Kenny wrote:
rcocean wrote:

As for 1944-1945, there is nothing "chaotic" about American causality stats. The British are a different case, since they are always vague (for example try finding out how many UK troops were killed in the Battle of France) no doubt because it highlights how little fighting the British army was actually doing in WW 2. That aside, the British seem to have lost about 30,000 KIA while other 21st Army Group nationalities lost about 15, 000. Throw in the french, and you're talking about 180,000 Allied KIA in 11 months of fighting.
Ignoring the stupid comments about who was 'doing the fighting the NWE casualties were US 104000, Commonwealth 41000 & French 12000. Total 158000. I believe your juvenile point is casualties in 1944 for Western Allies show they did not fight as 'hard' as in WW1. The counter is that German NWE WW2 casualties were not as heavy as WW1 losses so it must follow that the Germans had it easy as well.
Actually American KIA in NWE (and if I am not mistaken Italy as well) was close to 120k (after including MIA and DoW)*. This of course does not include the 35K who died as part of the USAAF.

For the British and Commonwealth (not to mention Nationalists in independent units attached to British Higher HQs) I never seem to get a grip on numbers but as far as I could gather the consensus is 60k men in total KIA/DoW for the same campaign. The RAF casualties breakdown is not with me but it was quite high too for the time period in question.
The RAF and USAAF casualties are quite comparable, but one issue of variance is the starting point for casualties in the "44-45 Western Front" At what point do we start the count of air force casualties? How much of the pre D Day activity is part of the preparation? Do the 1,900 airmen killed in Op Croswbow count? One way of looking at the 1944-45 campaign is as an asymmetric race between the German capacity to inflict mass destruction on Britain against the allied invasion. There is no simple answer, because the 1944-45 Western front was part of an overall allied strategy and cannot be entirely separated from wider naval and air campaigns.

I feel slightly uncomfortable reading the Polish Army and the Free Belgians, Dutch, Czechs etc described as "Nationalists."

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#22

Post by rcocean » 06 Feb 2016, 05:57

Ignoring the stupid comments about who was 'doing the fighting the NWE casualties were US 104000, Commonwealth 41000 & French 12000.
Actually American KIA in NWE (and if I am not mistaken Italy as well) was close to 120k (after including MIA and DoW)*. This of course does not include the 35K who died as part of the USAAF.
The official USA KIA/DOW/"Missing presumed dead" stats for the NW Campaign in Europe 1942-1945:

1. Air force - 25,000
2. Ground - 110,000
3. Total - 135,000

The 120K number includes 10,000 Army Air Force deaths for the June 1944-May 45

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#23

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 12 Feb 2016, 13:40

How many POW's the Western Allies took? I have open a topic about this, but it seems it was not very attractive. If one includes the POW figures, it can be said that the West was more effective against the German war machine than is commonly presumed due to the focus on the Germans KIA/MIA/WIA on the Eastern Front?

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#24

Post by Michael Kenny » 12 Feb 2016, 14:05

The flood of German POWs came in 1945. So yes more German POWs in the west than the east from March 45 onwards.
Spin it how you will.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#25

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 12 Feb 2016, 15:01

I guess the question here is: the POW's taken by the Western Allies were fighting them or they were running away from the Soviets? And another thing is in regard to quality: if the 3 or so million men taken by the West as POW's were men capable of conduct effective combat operations. ljawd has said in my topic that the majority of those men were from the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. I think a good indicator in this case would be to evaluate if those men would be able to be employed on the Eastern Front in case the war with the West was absent. If not in order to increase frontline strength at least in order to substitute casualities the RKKA inflicted on the Heer.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#26

Post by Richard Anderson » 12 Feb 2016, 20:49

rcocean wrote:
The official USA KIA/DOW/"Missing presumed dead" stats for the NW Campaign in Europe 1942-1945:
The actual term you are looking for is "battle deaths".
1. Air force - 25,000
2. Ground - 110,000
3. Total - 135,000

The 120K number includes 10,000 Army Air Force deaths for the June 1944-May 45
Yep, pretty close - the actual figure for "other than AAF" was 110,575 battle deaths with 25,000 AAF battle deaths. And yes, it is an oddly rounded appearing number, but exact. However, the numbers killed in action are very different. There AAF was 23,805 and others were 93,186. Total KIA were 116,991. Roughly 89.4% of the total was incurred between 1 June 1944 and 30 April 1945, while likely somewhere more than 95% of the ground forces loss was then.
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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#27

Post by Sean Oliver » 10 Mar 2016, 03:50

So which Allied front was "better" at defeating Germans faster?
Or, if you were a German soldier, which front was more likely to kill or wound you, the West 43-45 or the East?

The German casualty rate (per day per man) seems heavier in the west during 43-45 than the ostfront average 41-45, if my quick + imprecise calculation is correct. Sure, more Germans ultimately became casualties in the east due to its size, but combat in the west after D-Day seems more dangerous for Germans. And when comparing length in km of front, total number of days engaged, Allied vs Axis casualties compared to Soviet vs. Axis casualties, and number of Germans 'taken out' on each front by the end, it seems the W.Allies were faster and more efficient at 'defeating' the Wehrmacht than the Red Army. The West contributed considerably more to victory than many recent historians will acknowledge.
Considering the air and naval war which the W.Allies fought almost singlehandedly since '39, the huge importance of Lend-Lease to the Soviet logistics effort, and the Pacific War which theoretically at least freed up the Soviet's rear, I'd say the W.Allies and Soviet Union each contributed to victory over fascism pretty equally.

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#28

Post by Delta Tank » 16 Mar 2016, 20:24

According to Sergeant Shultz, it was the Eastern Front!! :D

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Re: 1944-1945 Western Europe Campaign in Perspective

#29

Post by Mori » 29 Mar 2016, 12:28

Marcelo Jenisch wrote:How many POW's the Western Allies took? I have open a topic about this, but it seems it was not very attractive. If one includes the POW figures, it can be said that the West was more effective against the German war machine than is commonly presumed due to the focus on the Germans KIA/MIA/WIA on the Eastern Front?
The PoW count is precise until... end of April 1945. Then there are mass surrenders that multiply the total count by 3 or so, and it's hard to make anything of these estimates.

This PoW is not a reliable assessment of the combat strength of the German units, especially for the pursuit periods (August-September 1944 and March-April 1945). You then take as PoWs anything that wears a uniform, including policemen, supply dumps guards, local militia (used to chased escaped Allied PoWs or downed airmen), young flak recruits, railmen etc.

One case example is the number of PoWs taken in the Ruhr pocket (1st April-16 April 1945) : about 315 000. US casualties in the fight are about 8 000 (KIA+WIA+MIA), which shows the Germans prisonners were not all carrying a weapon. Actually, more than 25 000 of the PoWs come from overrun hospitals.

One assessment from US 3rd Army says that 8% of its April 1945 PoWs are combat personnel. Let me again underline that this figure was much higher in non-pursuit months.

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