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Picture
Picture
Mobile Data Processing
WW II Mobile Data Processing
WWII US
 bigpigeon.us webpage WWII US > WWII Personnel, © 2023 by Robert A. Christiansen, updated by RAC 15 Jan 2023.
This Big Pigeon submodule contains aggregate data about US military personnel, especially casualties and deaths, during WWII.
Links to Big Pigeon's WWII: US - WWII Personnel subpages:
  •  WWII Battle Casualties - killed, wounded, prisoner & missing.
  • WWII Deaths - battle-related deaths and non-battle deaths - in process.
  • WWII Burials - where the dead are buried and about the unrecovered dead - in process. 
  • WWII Service Numbers - the system of identifying US WWII armed forces members.
WWII Manpower Acquisition
Prior to WWII, US military personnel needs in peacetime had always been met by voluntary enlistments. However, worsening conditions in Europe in 1940 led to the imposition of a draft in late 1940, a year before the US entered WWII.  The accompanying table shows the WWII enlisted/drafted breakdown.
Enlisted      6,332,000     38.8%
Drafted    11,535,000     61.2%
                  ---------------      
Served    17,867,000
  • Draftees were assigned to all service branches.
  • Starting in late 1942, all manpower acquisition was through the draft, except for women, 17-year-olds, and men beyond the draft age.​
  • About 360,00 women, all enlistees, served.
Service Branches
The War Department supported the United States Army, which in WWII consisted of three components, having a combined peak strength around 11.2 million:
  • Army Ground Forces.
  • Army Air Forces, commonly called the Army Air Corps, peak strength 2.4 million.
  • Army Service Forces.

The Navy Department supported the:
  • United States Navy, peak strength 4,200,000.
  • United States Marine Corps, peak strength 660,000.
  • United States Coast Guard, peak strength 170,000 (temporarily transferred from the Treasury Department during WW II).
Casualties and Deaths (and casualty and death codes)
Battle Casualties occur in a combat-oriented environment and fit into one of four categories:
  • Killed in Action - KIA.
  • Wounded or injured in Action - WIA.
  • Prisoner of War - POW.
  • Missing in Action - MIA.

Battle deaths - there were four categories of deaths resulting in battle in WWII:
  • Killed in Action from the above - KIA.
  • Died of Wounds or Injuries - DOW/DOI. DOI was seldom used.
  • Certain deaths as a prisoner of war are also classified as KIA. (e.g., if they were  killed by friendly fire)
  • After one year of MIA status, most MIA casualties were given a death code of Declaration of Death, DOD.

Other deaths were coded as DNB (Deaths Non-Battle). They included:
  • Most deaths as a POW.
  • Certain deaths as a MIA.
  • Deaths from rear-area accidents, even if training related.
  • All deaths from disease.
  • Suicide and homicide deaths.
  • Deaths from other causes not related to combat.
  • All stateside deaths.

Commentary on Casualties and Deaths:
  • I use the War Department's three-letter casualty and death codes. The Navy Department's codes differed.
  • WWII was the first war in which US battle deaths exceeded non-battle deaths.
  • ​Unfortunately, the word casualty is often used instead of death, leading to the spread of massive amounts of confusion.
  • The War and Navy Departments had different systems for recording casualties and deaths, and used different criteria for creating casualty and death lists and tables.
I have been unable to find a reliable source which gives a documented total of US WWII military deaths across all branches of the armed forces. One widely used figure is 405,399, although figures slightly higher are often seen. Below are two examples.
This tabulation of US WWII war dead, broken down by battle-related deaths and other deaths, is taken from p. 193 of World War II by Polmar and Allen.
Service Branch       Battle        Other              Total
                                    Dead          Dead               Dead

Army & Air Force   234,874       83,400           318,274
Navy                          39,950       25,664             65,614
Marines                    19,773          4,778             24,551    
                                 -----------      -----------           -----------
Total                       294,597     113,842           408,439

This tabulation of US WWII war dead and war wounded is by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, LA.


Service Branch     War Dead     War Wounded
Army & Air Force        318,274                  565,861
Navy                                62,614                    37,778
Marines                           24,511                   68,207
Coast Guard                     1,917               unknown
                                        ----------                  -----------
Total                             407,316                 671,278
The US merchant marine was not part of the military, and was overseen by the War Shipping Administration during most of WWII. Deaths exceeded 11,000.  

In most European and Asian WWII combatants, civilian deaths exceeded military deaths. The continental US avoided enemy attack. Thus, civilian deaths of US residents due to WWII were small.

​Many factors have prevented accurate death counts during WWII (and accurate casualty counts such as war wounded). Below I list a few questions regarding published death counts. There are more.

Are the following US military personnel included as among the WWII war dead?
  • Those who died from German attacks on US warships before the US entered the war.
  • Residents of US territories (Hawaii and Alaska were territories at the time).
  • Residents of US possessions (much of the US combat burden during the Fall of the Philippines was borne by Filipino Scouts, United States Army units comprised primary of residents of the Philippine Islands, a US commonwealth at the time).
  • Residents of other countries.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, dpaa.mil, was created as a result of the War in Vietnam, long after WWII ended. Its mission is to recover and identify the remains of United States armed forces members who died from any conflict while in the service of their country.  As of 16 August 2022, DPAA list 72,304 WWII decedents as unaccounted for.

Please note that this is the number of WWII decedents whose bodies have not been recovered and identified. For perhaps 90% of the unaccounted, their fate is well-known. Most were lost at sea or while on an aircraft.  A minority died as prisoners of war and their remains were left in a now unknown location.
Sources for Big Pigeon's WWII US > WWII Personnel webpage:
  • The webpage header photo, WWII Mobile Data Processing, is taken from http://www.ibiblio.org/cizewski/signalcorps/32mru/32mruhistory.pdf - THE HISTORY OF THE 32ND MACHINE RECORDS UNIT (MOBILE) by Otis F. Wollenberg. The photo shows the inside of a 32nd Machine Records Unit truck. In the pre-computer era of World War II, the United States Army used mobile data processing centers to help manage personnel records for the huge US Army. Card punch machines were used to code data onto what were popularly called IBM cards and massive decks of cards were then processed by different machines such as sorters and tabulators. Printers would then generate reports. 
  • Research Starters: US Military by the Numbers, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/students-teachers/student-resources/research-starters/research-starters-us-military-numbers provided some of the WWII dead count by service branch shown above. This is a webpage of the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, LA, https://www.nationalww2museum.org.

​
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