What is Wrong With This Picture?

[mrclark303]

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..

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[Merle]

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 and the expected casualties for invading Japan......

[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.

[Gil Boyd]

Only JKF and Ronald Reagan can hold a candle up when it comes to speeches and mean it.
Great piece there.

[mrclark303]

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.

Hi Paul, the casualty rate of WW1 was unimaginable, I have yet to visit even the tiniest village in the UK that doesn't have a war memorial and lost men in the great war.

Some villages and towns vertually loosing an entire generation of young men.

It's a rate of casualties and loss of life that simply wouldn't be tolerated today.

[Paul S.]

Hi Paul, the casualty rate of WW1 was unimaginable, I have yet to visit even the tiniest village in the UK that doesn't have a war memorial and lost men in the great war.

Some villages and towns vertually loosing an entire generation of young men.

It's a rate of casualties and loss of life that simply wouldn't be tolerated today.

Mate, You will find memorials in the majority of the small country towns in NSW. There's one in Rugby. It's a bush town with a population of 70 some odd people on an unpaved road part way between Young and Crookwell. The whole town is just a a few houses, a school,the memorial and not much more.

[mrclark303]

Mate, You will find memorials in the majority of the small country towns in NSW. There's one in Rugby. It's a bush town with a population of 70 some odd people on an unpaved road part way between Young and Crookwell. The whole town is just a a few houses, a school,the memorial and not much more.

Those memorials really drive the point home don't they Paul, every loss was a tragedy, but the loss of of so many young lives from small isolated farming communities must have been almost unbearable for the families left behind.

[philb]

No rds in their Garand belts

---------- Post added at 11:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 PM ----------

The pfcs boots have dubbing on them, there not black

[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

I am sure this has been posted previously but I heard it yesterday on the radio and thought I would share it again.

Quite moving.

[Paul S.]

True indeed. In some of the small bush towns, every lad who joined up back then was known to every one in the town. In fact, in most cases, since most of the families in those towns were original settlers, they related in some small way (distant cousins, etc.) to almost everyone else in the town.