Divisional/Corps/Army losses by month and campaign?

[Stoat Coat]

If anyone is interested, I found this honor roll listing the battle deaths and dates for the 87th ID, and you can seperate them by campaign based on that. (See the spreadsheet linked in the below article)
http://87thinfantrydivision.com/final-roll-call

[Carl Schwamberger]

Im always surprised by how many family are researching their grandfathers or great grandfathers war service.

[Texas Jäger]

According to this, the 35th Division suffered 462 battle deaths during its period in the Ardennes 12/26-1/28
http://www.coulthart.com/134/35id-battl ... deaths.htm

Sorry, forgot to get back to this.

The actual period for the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign is 16 December 1944-25 January 1945, not 28 January 1945. Battle deaths as recorded by Measuring Intensity were 543. Total division deaths for the period as found in the AG count of 1947 was 538.

Would you say that the 75,482 casualty number that Pogue uses in Supreme Commander (page 396, from the SHAEF G-3 file) or Thompsons 81,521 figure in Measuring Intensity using the MRU data is the more definitive, accurate number for the Ardennes December 16-Jan 25 fighting? Especially when Thompsons typos are corrected.

[Geoffrey Cooke]

Pogue…now there is a name I haven’t heard in awhile.

He’s the guy who back in the day wrote a book on Marshall instead of just Eisenhower like everyone else.

[Richard Anderson]

Would you say that the 75,482 casualty number that Pogue uses in Supreme Commander (page 396, from the SHAEF G-3 file) or Thompsons 81,521 figure in Measuring Intensity using the MRU data is the more definitive, accurate number for the Ardennes December 16-Jan 25 fighting? Especially when Thompsons typos are corrected.

I suspect that Thompson's figures would be more accurate since he based them on the work done for the AG's report on Army casualties published in 1951. I've inferred that he had access to more detailed MRU runs that gave campaign casualties by divisions and non-divisional units that were never published.

BTW, it was Sergeant Forrest Pogue who led the OPD Historical Section team on OMAHA. Internal evidence in his notes indicate he probably landed on D+1 and he is the source for quite a bit of what we know of events on OMAHA.

[Texas Jäger]

Would you say that the 75,482 casualty number that Pogue uses in Supreme Commander (page 396, from the SHAEF G-3 file) or Thompsons 81,521 figure in Measuring Intensity using the MRU data is the more definitive, accurate number for the Ardennes December 16-Jan 25 fighting? Especially when Thompsons typos are corrected.

I suspect that Thompson's figures would be more accurate since he based them on the work done for the AG's report on Army casualties published in 1951. I've inferred that he had access to more detailed MRU runs that gave campaign casualties by divisions and non-divisional units that were never published.

Bringing up the possibility of other MRU runs, it’s interesting to me that MacDonald went with a similar total figure of 81,000 for the Ardennes in his book “A Time for Trumpets”.
The exact quote from his book:

Among 600,000 Americans eventually involved in the fighting — including 29 Among 600,000 Americans eventually involved in the fighting — including 29 divisions, 6 mechanized cavalry groups, and the equivalent of 3 separate regiments — casualties totaled 81,000, of which 15,000 were captured and 19,000 killed. Among 55,000 British — 2 divisions and 3 brigades — casualties totaled 1,400, of which just over 200 were killed. The Germans, employing close to 500,000 men — including 28 divisions and 3 brigades — lost at least 100,000 killed, wounded, and captured.divisions, 6 mechanized cavalry groups, and the equivalent of 3 separate regiments — casualties totaled 81,000, of which 15,000 were captured and 19,000 killed. Among 55,000 British — 2 divisions and 3 brigades — casualties totaled 1,400, of which just over 200 were killed. The Germans, employing close to 500,000 men — including 28 divisions and 3 brigades — lost at least 100,000 killed, wounded, and captured.

The problem is that, at least for the kindle version I have, there’s no footnote provided for this.
Another obvious problem is that this was a book he released after his OCMH days, but his total figure is so similar to Royce’s it makes me wonder if it was based on similar MRU data. I have no way of knowing for sure. His killed number is very similar to the total given for “Ardennes-Alsace Campaign” (just ~200 lower) that doesn’t exclude non-Ardennes losses, but at the same time the rest of his figures are different and total are different, makes me wonder if he just tried to reconcile the “missing” differently and came up with that death toll. Sounds like an over estimate of killed and under estimate of prisoners to me personally.

The history of the OCMH itself and it’s historian/researchers is interesting enough for its own book. I wish I was old enough to have know men like MacDonald, Pogue, Cole, etc personally.

[Richard Anderson]

Bringing up the possibility of other MRU runs, it’s interesting to me that MacDonald went with a similar total figure of 81,000 for the Ardennes in his book “A Time for Trumpets”.
The exact quote from his book:

The problem is that, at least for the kindle version I have, there’s no footnote provided for this.
Another obvious problem is that this was a book he released after his OCMH days, but his total figure is so similar to Royce’s it makes me wonder if it was based on similar MRU data. I have no way of knowing for sure. His killed number is very similar to the total given for “Ardennes-Alsace Campaign” (just ~200 lower) that doesn’t exclude non-Ardennes losses, but at the same time the rest of his figures are different and total are different, makes me wonder if he just tried to reconcile the “missing” differently and came up with that death toll. Sounds like an over estimate of killed and under estimate of prisoners to me personally.

The history of the OCMH itself and it’s historian/researchers is interesting enough for its own book. I wish I was old enough to have know men like MacDonald, Pogue, Cole, etc personally.

I don't recall Mac mentioning anything about what figures he used in A Time for Trumpets so I can't really clarify that. IIRC when we did the ACSDB we used - in no particular order - the 12th Army Group G-1 Daily Reports, which had significant holes in them as well as obvious errors, the Divisional G-1 Daily Reports, when available and ditto, and estimated figures for the real problems - like the 106th Inf Div. I spent weeks going through the extant reports trying to figure out what its casualties "really" were. Those were then "sanity checked" to other sources like Thompson, which helped except we counted the "Ardennes Campaign" as 16 December 1944-16 January 1945 rather than how the Army Campaigns and Thompson defined it (don't look at me! Thanks U.S. Army CAA for putting that in the contract and then refusing to change it!)

And, of course, we had no way of doing MRU runs, nor do I think anyone does now, except possibly NARA, which has a couple of Hollerith card readers for just in case.

Mac MacDonald and Doc Cole were wonderful - both were true old school gentlemen. I never met Pogue he retired and moved to Kentucky the year before I started working for Trevor and he was unable to come to the review conference that we had with Mac and Doc.

[Carl Schwamberger]

"And, of course, we had no way of doing MRU runs, nor do I think anyone does now, except possibly NARA, which has a couple of Hollerith card readers for just in case."

Be amusing to use that equipment just to see the antiques run. The computer version of a steam tractor show.

[Richard Anderson]

"And, of course, we had no way of doing MRU runs, nor do I think anyone does now, except possibly NARA, which has a couple of Hollerith card readers for just in case."

Be amusing to use that equipment just to see the antiques run. The computer version of a steam tractor show.

They are there because they have old media - punch cards - that can only be run on them. Same for the floppy discs.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Now I want to get my Apple IIe out & see what still runs.

[Geoffrey Cooke]

Did Royce Thompson gives numbers for “Alsace” or just the Ardennes?

[Geoffrey Cooke]

Now I want to get my Apple IIe out & see what still runs.

Text based adventure games are where it’s at…

[Richard Anderson]

Did Royce Thompson gives numbers for “Alsace” or just the Ardennes?

"Alsace" was not a campaign. It was a subset of other campaigns. He subtracted the Alsace data - and other that was not directly Ardennes - from the total to arrive at his total.

[Geoffrey Cooke]

Did Royce Thompson gives numbers for “Alsace” or just the Ardennes?

"Alsace" was not a campaign. It was a subset of other campaigns. He subtracted the Alsace data - and other that was not directly Ardennes - from the total to arrive at his total.

Ah I see.

[Carl Schwamberger]

Now I want to get my Apple IIe out & see what still runs.

Text based adventure games are where it’s at…

I Paid somewhere around $2,400 for my first IIe. Off the shelf at the Post Exchange. CPI inflation calculator says this is $6,700 in March 2023 Dollars. For the next 19 years I kept the thing running and upgraded with free hardware and programs people gave me out of their closet cleaning. Finally replaced it as my bookkeeping machine in 2005.