From: International Movie Services (ims@telus.net)
Date: Wed Nov 30 2005 - 19:57:17 PST
Lads:
A long haul it was!! My Dad was in the 92nd Anti-Tank Battalion of the
Gordon Highlanders from 1939.
North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy and finished the war in Duisberg,
Germany.
His unit was then transported down to Antwerp, he thought to return to the
U.K. They were well out into the North Atlantic when they were informed that
they would be landed in North Carolina to train with the US Army for the
invasion of mainland Japan. Halfway across the Atlantic the US dropped the
atomic bombs and the war ended.
The troopship turned around, thinks he and the Regiment we're going home at
last only to sail through the Straits of Gibralter to Israel to enforce the
peace between the Jews and Palestinians. Ended up being a target for the
extremists on both sides for almost two years. Finally got home in 1947. He
hates the Army!!
Ubique!
Ian
----- Original Message -----
From: "G Shaw" <milspectruck@verizon.net>
To: "Military Vehicles Mailing List" <mil-veh@mil-veh.org>
Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 4:09 PM
Subject: Re: [MV] Korean war casualty count and related
> Hi Steve
> Definitely makes sense. Those poor US Army soldiers that were actually in
> combat units and did the African campaign, then Sicily and beyond really
> were in for it, but even then not equalling what the Brits, Soviet,
> Polish
> and German soldiers went through, assuming they lived that long, which is
> a
> big if. Those guys sure were in for the long haul.
>
> Regards
> Glenn
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve [mailto:steve@battlefront.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, November 30, 2005 6:08 PM
> To: G Shaw
> Cc: Military Vehicles Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [MV] Korean war casualty count and related
>
>
> Hi Glenn,
>
>> For every combat infantryman it takes X number of rear area support
>> personnel.
>
> In WWII the US had between 3 and 4 non-combat capacity soldiers for
> each division. The US military also had extremely large amounts of
> manpower in non-divisional elements, non-combat elements. If they
> averaged those guys in, the average days for each combat soldier at the
> front would indeed be very low. I don't remember what the ratio was in
> Vietnam, but it was likely closer to 2-3 support for every one combat.
> Then of course, the notion of "combat" has changed significantly, and
> is evolving even more as we speak due to the situation in Iraq and
> Afghanistan.
>
> WIA, KIA, non-combat "injuries" (like the large amounts during Winter
> 44/45 from illness) also lower that number greatly. Casualties in WWII
> were very high, so the chances of surviving a day in combat was
> statistically lower than other conflicts. Some combat units also spent
> little time at the front because they were introduced only at the end
> of the war. A fair number, but not as many as you think, spent
> considerable uninterrupted time at the front. The US had the luxury,
> more often than not, to rotate units out of the front (either in part
> or in whole).
>
> Of course if this was for the full war, averaged together, you're going
> to get really skewed numbers because huge portions of the US' active
> military force sat around waiting (either in the US, Great Britain, or
> various staging areas in the PTO) for combat.
>
> Another thing to consider is that the largest amount of simultaneous
> ops were conducted starting in the summer of 1944 and into the spring
> of 1945. This counts as two calendar years, though in reality it was
> about 10 months of elapsed time. This would mean 80 days out of 300,
> which is actually a pretty large percentage considering this is an
> average.
>
> Anyway... I have no idea of that 40 days of combat per year figure is
> accurate, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand without knowing more.
> Which is why talking head statistics without any context like this one
> are pretty much useless :-)
>
> Steve
>
>
>
>
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