What is Wrong With This Picture?

[Paul S.]

The anticipated, planned for and accepted casualty rate during WW2 makes your blood run cold Gil...

I remember reading the excellent memoirs of John Kennelly VC "The Honour and the Shame" The casualty rate suffered by the Irish Guards fighting in Italy meant whole battalions were to all intents and purposes wiped out. The training "factory" back in the UK churning out replacement battalions to keep the advance pushing forward, as the brave men at the end of this production line of death, paid the ultimate price..

D day used the same principle on steroids, with men pushed into the line until they broke through. When you consider that 50% casualty rates had already been taken into account in the planning and failure was not an option ... It's very, very sobering stuff..

That anticipated casualty rate you spoke of was mostly because so many of the Commonwealth's higher officers had served as lieutenants in the trenches during WWI. They'd seen first hand 'the butchers bill' being paid in full. For instance, the Gordons had 9 battalions (1914 strength of 1007 Officers and ORs) on the Western Front and suffered over 29,000 casualties including 9,000 killed. That means that statistically each of the Officers and ORs of all 9 battalions was replaced more than 3 times.