The most dangerous job in WWII?

[David Thompson]

Thanks, Ironmachine.

[waldzee]

... I can appreciate - however, the original poster asked for Opinions,not statistics...

I think you will find however that opinion posts are discouraged on these forums (the lounge excepted) as the admin post above indicates. Opinions backed up by fact and logic are however desireable from my readings of the FAQ and postings of various admins.

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Thank you LTD
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/ ... s_01.shtml
found that the most dangerous task was bomber aircrew.

We really need some method to `clean up `the Original posts, as pouncing on innocent posters merely encourages them to `vote with their feet`.

[krazykossack]

U-boats, by far. An approximate 3/4, or 75,000 men out of about 100,000 who served on Uboats ended up in the iron coffin.

[krazykossack]

Oops, scale back those figures but same ratios - I dont know what I was thinking. About 30,000 German sub sailors out of 40,000 who served ended up in the iron coffin.

[77blackbridge]

Chancellor of Germany. 100% mortality rate.

[FrauPanzer]

A Wehrmacht soldier deployed to the Eastern front.

[salmino]

I would've thought the U-boat crews, which I think suffered deaths at the ration of 3 out of 4. It's hard to compare some of the others - some periods were deadly (Battle of Britain), other years/campaigns were less so.

[salmino]

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I would've thought the U-boat crews, which I think suffered deaths at the ration of 3 out of 4. It's hard to compare some of the others - some periods were deadly (Battle of Britain), other years/campaigns were less so.

[von thoma]

Soldiers manipulating mines and grenades...

[Stephan]

Hello!
Soviet gunners of Il-2 double-seater versions - due to relatively weak armor protection their death rate was about 3 times higher than those of Il-2 pilots, i.e. average Il-2 pilot survived his 3 gunners.

Best regards, Aleks

Yes. the gunner was an "add-on". the first Il-2s were single seaters and the cockpit was heavily armoured (Windshield could withstand cannon shells) while behind the pilot, the aircraft was mainly wooden. When the gunner position was added behind the pilot, the gunner was in the wooden section which couldnt be armoured as it would cause the aircraft to become unbalanced. and as the wooden area was the more obvious area for an Me-109 or Fw-190 to slam its rounds into, the gunner would be the first to catch a bullet.

Yes. Also the gunner was typically killed off first, before they even tried to shoot down the plane. Diminishing own risk, and later on downing on the plane become much easier, without any personal risks nor stress.
Also, the planes were quite sturdy, even the engines managed some beating. So it wasnt easy pieasy to show down one. Somebody shooting back the whole time it could easily become dangerous too.
So, begin with the gunners[especielly as he / she was unprotected] , proceed with the rest...

[Stephan]

Re dangers and dangerous tasks.
There are films (Kellys Heros?) where they recruit a group of long term prisoners, to do some commando task too dangerous to do for common soldiers. No else would dare save these desperate ones...
Bullshit.
There were never difficult to find volunteers for difficult, nor even desperate dangerous tasks. Because it was seen as honor, not punishment.

So, prisoners could occasionally be recruited if they had expert knowledge. For example, forgers. Or an excellent local knowledge... A couple of inprisoned Sovjet generals got amnesty this way.

Prisoners could often be recruited as an amnesty sort of, instead of serving some shorter term in prison, they could be given the alternative possiblility to join the army. With youth criminals (but of age) it was fairly common, I think.

But they were never ever recruited just because nobody else dared...

[LWD]

I would've thought the U-boat crews, which I think suffered deaths at the ration of 3 out of 4. It's hard to compare some of the others - some periods were deadly (Battle of Britain), other years/campaigns were less so.

It kind of depends on exactly how you define "dangerous" for instance if you look at fatality rates 8th AF aircrew had higher fatality rates than Marines engaged in the Pacific although the Marines may have had higher casualty (including WIAs) than 8th AF.

In any case being a submariner in WW2 was right up there. I remember being amazed at the USN sub crew fatality rates as well as those of the KM and I'm pretty sure the IJN rates weren't low. Not sure about the British. Air crew rates were likely high across the board as well if you look at the early days of the war. The expansion by the allies in later 44 and 45 combined with the suppression of Axis defenses likely lowered it overall.

[Uncle John]

How about torpedo squadrons?
Very few survived at Midway.....

[LWD]

A lot of the torpedo squadrons in the USN ended up doing ASW and ground support missions. Torpedo bombers that actually tried to torpedo naval combat vessels particularly those that had a CAP usually had a rough time even if successful but they had a lot of other missions.