I am reading a collection of interviews about WW2 ("The Good War" by Studs Terkel) and often the interviewees mention that they suffered a casualty rate well in excess of one hundred, such as 160% or 300%. Does anyone know what this means?
I've searched around online, but I only find casualty rates explained in the sense which I would have expected, with 100% being the maximum. I'm not sure if there's some kind of weighting going on or what.
I hope this is the right place to ask. Judging from what I saw online, it seems like this may be an outdated system so I figured it was more of a history question. Thanks!
In WWII, US casualty rates were calculated as the total number of battle (killed, wounded, missing in action, or captured) and non-battle (disease, accidents, etc) casualties divided by the number of men authorized by the unit's Table of Organization and Equipment.
For example, in the European Theater, the 1st Infantry Division (keep in mind the following numbers are only for the casualties they suffered while fighting in Europe; they had previously fought in North Africa and Italy) suffered the following battle casualties
| Killed | Wounded | Missing | Captured |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,973 | 11,448 | 951 | 631 |
This gives a total of 15,003 battle casualties
The 1st Infantry Division also suffered 14,002 non-battle casualties for a total casualty count of 29,005
Per the 1944 tables of organization, a US infantry division had about 14,250 men (this varied as changes to tables of organization of divisional subunits were made over time)
The casualty rate for any kind of unit can be given using the following formula:
(battle + non-battle casualties) / (total number of men authorized by TO&E)
Hence, the 1st Infantry Division as a whole had a casualty rate of about 205.9 percent, using
(15,003 + 14,002) / (~14,250)
The 16th Armored Division, the last US division of any kind to enter combat in the ETO (5 May 1945) fought for only three days and had only 12 wounded in action. Combined with 231 non-battle casualties, for a total of 243, the division's rate was only 2.3 percent.
For the purely combat-oriented elements of the divisions, casualty rates using the above formula could be far higher, in some cases well in excess of 500 percent. Some infantry squads (for example, the 3rd squad of the 1st platoon of B Company, 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division) had to be replaced five or six times over the course of the war, especially in the case of particularly vicious combat.
Sources:
ETO Order of Battle- DIVISIONS
http://www.history.army.mil/documents/eto-ob/etoob-toc.htm
US infantry division organization
To add onto what was already posted here, I have an example from the Pacific.
In the Papua New Guinea campaign, some Australian units suffered peaks of 4840 malaria related casualties per 1000 soldiers per year.
So completely disregarding combat injuries, non-combat injuries, psychiatric disability, and all other illnesses, Australian units were suffering up to 484% casualties annually from just malaria.
The reason this was possible is because a soldier would be hospitalized for malaria, given treatment until he was deemed fit for service again, and then at some point later, he would be hospitalized again for malaria. "Fit for service" was an interesting concept. On Guadalcanal, Malaria and other illnesses were so bad that Major General Vandegrift issued a standing order that any serviceman was fit for combat as long as their fever was below 103F.
So, there were two major causes: replacements, and reoccurence. If two thirds of a company is killed, then it is reconstituted to full strength with replacements, and then two thirds is killed again, you have a company that has had over 130% of its nominal strength KIA. The unit is the same, but the individuals constituting the unit have changed.
Most things, other than death, can be recovered from. If you are shot, recover, rejoin your unit, and get shot again, you have become a casualty twice. If you are removed from combat and hospitalized five times in a year for malaria, you have become a casualty five times (a whopping 500% personal casualty rate!). The average serviceman in those Australian units was being hospitalized for malaria 4.84 times per year just for malaria, and the casualty rate would have been much higher when you factor in other diseases (dengue, beri beri, fun stuff like that), combat injuries and deaths, non combat injuries, self inflicted injuries, and psychiatric disability.
Robert J.T. Joy, "Malaria in American troops in the South and Southwest Pacific in World War II," Medical History 43. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1044732/pdf/medhist00019-0044.pdf