"In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

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Felix C
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"In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#1

Post by Felix C » 07 Jul 2021, 13:16

64,000 American civilian workers die in accidents". Does that sound correct? If so that is quite a loss among workers. Wonder how many are war related industries and how many were women.

Heard it on History Channel's America the Story of Us, Episode 9 Bust, War regarding WW2.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#2

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 07 Jul 2021, 16:06

For industrial workers thats 3,879 a month or 129 a day. I wonder where they sourced that from? A friend or two & I watch the History Channel occasionally, to see how many bloopers we can catch them on. We can seldom watch a entire hour.


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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#3

Post by OpanaPointer » 07 Jul 2021, 16:44

And "Buddha save me from a person who has only ever read one book." (General comment.)
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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#4

Post by Felix C » 07 Jul 2021, 17:30

Here is a bit found by searching. Seems amazingly high the number. "The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that each year between 1942 and 1945 there were some two million disabling or deadly industrial accidents, a total of more than six million. More than 75,000 Americans died or became permanently and totally disabled in industry during the war. Additionally, some 378,000 industrial workers suffered a permanent partial disability."

The National Safety Council indicates 67500 factory deaths 1942-1945 which does not include work outside of factories. Cited in Labor's Home Front: The American Federation of Labor During World War II, p.167. Well there is much more info and just getting into it.

Fascinating the Home Front cost. Wonder how many were women new to the industry.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#5

Post by Pips » 09 Jul 2021, 05:02

Those are mind-boggling numbers, especially when compared to war related losses.
The US Military suffered 407,316 killed and 671,278 wounded in WWII (figures taken from https://www.nationalww2museum.org/stude ... ry-numbers )

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#6

Post by Takao » 09 Jul 2021, 17:11

75,000 dead, permanently disabled, or totally disabled 1942-45.
https://ehistory.osu.edu/exhibitions/machinery/index

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#7

Post by R Leonard » 09 Jul 2021, 19:09

Interesting, it would appear that with the exception of 1944, the largest contributor to the deaths and permanent disabilities came from the agriculture sector, even with the proviso that data in that sector in fragmentary. That means that if Uncle Billy working on the farm had both his legs hacked off at the knees, whether he died or survived, that death or injury may not have been reported to the bean counters. My bet is that reporting was even less likely with migrant workers.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#8

Post by reedwh52 » 11 Jul 2021, 16:37

Context is everything.

First, US Military deaths December 1941 thru March 1943 were in excess of 36, 695 excluding Navy deaths for 1Q1943.

Second, the two death numbers are not related. If there was no war, then military casualties would have been miniscule while industrial deaths would have been substantially similiar to the actual data.

It is a reflection of the workplace conditions which were considered NORMAL for the time.

Note that normal does not mean good. Workplace safety was poor in comparison to current practices.

Most of the workers
US Work Related Deaths
Year Deaths Workers Per Million
1928 19,000 47.92 396.5
1933 14,500 38.76 374.1
1936 18,500 44.41 416.6
1938 16,000 44.22 361.8
1939 15,500 45.75 338.8
1940 17,000 47.52 357.7
1941 18,000 50.35 357.5
1942 18,500 53.75 344.2
1943 17,500 54.47 321.3
1944 16,000 53.96 296.5
1945 16,000 52.82 302.9
Deaths per National Safety Council, Accident Facts, 1946
Workers: Employed workers via BLS
Rate: deaths per million

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#9

Post by rcocean » 23 Aug 2021, 04:37

Felix C wrote:
07 Jul 2021, 13:16
64,000 American civilian workers die in accidents". Does that sound correct? If so that is quite a loss among workers. Wonder how many are war related industries and how many were women.
How many women? That's unintentionally hilarious. Yes, death was common among the female miners and steelworkers. :roll: BTW, 6,000 USA coal miners died from 1942-1945, but that's lower than the 2,000 or more who died each year in 1920s. Total 18,000 workers died in 1940. In 1992 it was 5,000.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#10

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 23 Aug 2021, 14:44

reedwh52 wrote:
11 Jul 2021, 16:37
... It is a reflection of the workplace conditions which were considered NORMAL for the time.

Note that normal does not mean good. Workplace safety was poor in comparison to current practices. ...
& better than fifty years earlier. My grandfather fired a employee who left a board with the nails protruding upwards. In that pre penicillin era it was normal for a dirty wound to kill the victim.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#11

Post by Felix C » 23 Aug 2021, 23:06

reedwh52 wrote:
11 Jul 2021, 16:37
Context is everything.

First, US Military deaths December 1941 thru March 1943 were in excess of 36, 695 excluding Navy deaths for 1Q1943.

Second, the two death numbers are not related. If there was no war, then military casualties would have been miniscule while industrial deaths would have been substantially similiar to the actual data.

It is a reflection of the workplace conditions which were considered NORMAL for the time.

Note that normal does not mean good. Workplace safety was poor in comparison to current practices.

Most of the workers
US Work Related Deaths
Year Deaths Workers Per Million
1928 19,000 47.92 396.5
1933 14,500 38.76 374.1
1936 18,500 44.41 416.6
1938 16,000 44.22 361.8
1939 15,500 45.75 338.8
1940 17,000 47.52 357.7
1941 18,000 50.35 357.5
1942 18,500 53.75 344.2
1943 17,500 54.47 321.3
1944 16,000 53.96 296.5
1945 16,000 52.82 302.9
Deaths per National Safety Council, Accident Facts, 1946
Workers: Employed workers via BLS
Rate: deaths per million
When I looked into this the majority in the early non-war years were from different occupations compared to wartime. Gross nos. are gross numbers and not too revealing unless dealing into the specifics.

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#12

Post by Sid Guttridge » 24 Aug 2021, 10:49

Hi reedwh52,

Interesting stats. Thanks

It appears from those statistics that there may have been few, if any, excess factory deaths caused by the switch to war production. Indeed, as full employment was only acvhieved in the war, deaths per capita of the employed work force might even have fallen marginally. Do you have comparable employment statistics?

Cheers,

Sid

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#13

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 25 Aug 2021, 04:13

Appros to nothing in particular one of my customers did her PhD research on accident correlation in the workplace. After doing tricky stuff to raw OSHA data she found the most significant correlation was to hours worked. The accident rate remained low and fairly steady through the first six to seven hours on shift, then rose a bit in the eight hour, enough to be outside the error margin. By the tenth consecutive hour on shift the accident rate was clearly rising to significant levels & by the twelfth hour on shift was still rising.

Looking at this I started to wonder where the crossover in production return occurred as medical, time, and equipment losses from the 9-12 hour accidents occurred. & to return to topic I wonder the decline in 'long shift' hours during the Depression & War years years had anything to do with the decline in workplace deaths per million then?

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#14

Post by Sid Guttridge » 25 Aug 2021, 08:25

Hi Carl,

A plausible observation.

Sid

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Re: "In the first 16-1/2 months of the war 12,000 military men die and

#15

Post by reedwh52 » 25 Aug 2021, 19:14

Sid:

The numbers under workers are the civilian employed data i.e. 47.92 equals 47,920,000 employed civilian workers. The rate per million employees dropped overall. I added an index column showing the decline in death rates

Year Deaths Workers Rate Index
1928 19,000 47.92 396.5 100.0%
1933 14,500 38.76 374.1 94.4%
1936 18,500 44.41 416.6 105.1%
1938 16,000 44.22 361.8 91.2%
1939 15,500 45.75 338.8 85.4%
1940 17,000 47.52 357.7 90.2%
1941 18,000 50.35 357.5 90.2%
1942 18,500 53.75 344.2 86.8%
1943 17,500 54.47 321.3 81.0%
1944 16,000 53.96 296.5 74.8%
1945 16,000 52.82 302.9 76.4%

Index 1929=Base

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