17-9-25 Garand Picture of the Day

[Mark in Rochester]

Pair of French women and a little girl pose w. a group of American soldiers after German troops were driven from the area.


Location: Avranches, Normandy, France

Date taken: August 1944

Photographer: Frank Scherschel

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Mike Haas]

if alive is approximately 8 years older than I am. I sincerely hope she is alive.

[CINDERS]

Band of brothers for sure though you cannot hide the look in their eyes despite the smiles from a small respite at the sharp end I sincerely hope they all got back home alive.

[Mark in Rochester]

Band of brothers for sure though you cannot hide the look in their eyes despite the smiles from a small respite at the sharp end I sincerely hope they all got back home alive.

What Were a U.S. Soldier's Odds of Dying in Each War?

• War of Independence: 2 percent (1 in 50)
• War of 1812: 0.8 percent (1 in 127)
• Indian Wars: 0.9 percent (1 in 106)
• Mexican War: 2.2 percent (1 in 45)
• Civil War: 6.7 percent (1 in 15)
• Spanish-American War: 0.1 percent (1 in 798)
• World War I: 1.1 percent (1 in 89)
• World War II: 1.8 percent (1 in 56)
• Korean War: 0.6 percent (1 in 171)
• Vietnam War: 0.5 percent (1 in 185)
• Persian Gulf War: 0.03 percent (1 in 3,162)

Of course this does not consider the unit

I am sure infantry was much higher

Major General Charles Hunter Gerhardt was one of the European Theater's more controversial commanders. His critics held that he was lacking as a military tactician and careless with the lives of his men; often pointing to the astonishingly high casualty rate of the 29th Division, which, from June 6, 1944 to May 8, 1945, suffered over 20,600 men killed, wounded or missing. It was said that Gerhardt actually commanded three divisions: one on the field of battle, one in the hospital and one in the cemetery.

[Flying10uk]

What is striking from the photo is just how young the U.S. soldiers all look which they were, probably in their late teens, most of them. It's sad when you consider what they had probably been through and were about to go through and equally sad that possibly not all of the soldiers in the photo made it home at the end of the war.

[Mark in Rochester]

What is striking from the photo is just how young the U.S. soldiers all look which they were, probably in their late teens, most of them. It's sad when you consider what they had probably been through and were about to go through and equally sad that possibly not all of the soldiers in the photo made it home at the end of the war.

WWII

The average age (according to General William C. Westmoreland before the Third Annual Reunion of the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association (VHPA) at the Washington, DC Hilton Hotel on July 5th, 1986) was 26