The United States suffered at least 291,557 battlefield combat deaths in WW2, and at least an additional 113,842 military personnel deaths from other causes than direct combat.
We did not casually waste our soldiers' lives as the Soviet Union did, and of course we had far fewer civilian casualties than the countries fought upon, but it wa…
The United States suffered at least 291,557 battlefield combat deaths in WW2, and at least an additional 113,842 military personnel deaths from other causes than direct combat.
We did not casually waste our soldiers' lives as the Soviet Union did, and of course we had far fewer civilian casualties than the countries fought upon, but it was no picnic. That second category being notably smaller than the first is the reason WW2 ranks below the Civil War, when two-thirds of military deaths were from disease and other privations.
We did lose a lot of people but our national infrastructure didn’t get absolutely demolished the way that most European and Asian countries did. And our body count was less than 1% of the total kill count for the war (<500k American KIAs vs more than 50M worldwide). That put us in an extremely advantageous position once the conflict was finished in terms of economics and military power.
The United States suffered at least 291,557 battlefield combat deaths in WW2, and at least an additional 113,842 military personnel deaths from other causes than direct combat.
We did not casually waste our soldiers' lives as the Soviet Union did, and of course we had far fewer civilian casualties than the countries fought upon, but it was no picnic. That second category being notably smaller than the first is the reason WW2 ranks below the Civil War, when two-thirds of military deaths were from disease and other privations.
We did lose a lot of people but our national infrastructure didn’t get absolutely demolished the way that most European and Asian countries did. And our body count was less than 1% of the total kill count for the war (<500k American KIAs vs more than 50M worldwide). That put us in an extremely advantageous position once the conflict was finished in terms of economics and military power.