Estimating the Actual Number of Casualties in WWII U.S. Tank Units

The figure commonly cited for the total number of casualties among U.S. tank crewmen in World War II, 6,827, is too low, although the Sherman, or any other U.S. tank, was still not a “death trap” in the pop history sense, and it doesn't challenge well-established statistics such as the number of men killed or injured per tank disabled or destroyed to various causes, or the percentage of men who became casualties inside their tanks versus outside of them.

The Armored Force replacement training center at Fort Knox, Kentucky initially trained both filler and loss replacements for all elements of armored divisions and tank battalions; tank, artillery, infantry, signal, quartermaster, medical, and the like, but these were dispensed with by the fall of 1941 and delegated to their respective arms' centers. From then on, the center only trained men for tank and cavalry reconnaissance elements of armored divisions and tank battalions.

First, a quick prefatory note.

In the United States Army during World War II, the Antiaircraft Command, Armored Force, Center, and Command, and Tank Destroyer Center and Command were not legally-authorized branches such as the Infantry or Cavalry, but “pseudo-arms,” commands within the Army that exercised all or nearly all of the powers of statutory arms, without being considered as such. As a result, men could be assigned to them, but (with one notable exception and probably a few typewriter errors) did not have them listed on their Army records for personnel accounting purposes, instead serving nominally in one of the statutory arms.

• Officers and enlisted men assigned to units activated and trained by the Antiaircraft Command served in the Coast Artillery Corps. I have seen it listed as “AAA” on the WD AGO Form 53-55, when the proper abbreviation should be “CAC.”

• Officers and enlisted men serving in units activated and trained by the Tank Destroyer Center and Command initially retained the branch of service they entered the Army with, chiefly the Infantry and Field Artillery. After 8 June 1943, to simplify personnel accounting, all enlisted men assigned to combat units of the Tank Destroyer Center and Command came from the Field Artillery branch.

• Officers assigned to units activated and trained by the Armored Force, Center, and Command were commissioned in arbitrary numbers in the Infantry and Cavalry branches

• Enlisted men assigned to units activated and trained by the Armored Force, Center, and Command, it seems randomly, served in either the Infantry branch or, in much smaller numbers, a “branch” called “Armored;” this could have possibly been because of the way these men found themselves serving in units originating from the Armored Force, Center, and Command.

The total number of casualties for enlisted men whose branch of service was “Armored” breaks down as follows. I go into detail below about why using “Armored” as a branch of service to deduce all casualties in armored units is problematic.

Theater	Total casualties	Killed	Wounded	Captured	Missing
European Theater	5,778	1,226	4,256	247	55
Pacific Theaters	733	97	475	156	5
Mediterranean Theater	310	80	219	17	1
U.S. Army Strategic Air Forces	4		4
Burma, China, and India Theaters	1	1
Enroute (not chargeable to any command)	1	1

While examining the records of American tank units, particularly the 37th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armored Division, and the 741st Tank Battalion, something stood out to me; only a small portion of the enlisted men had “Armored” as a branch of service. Only the records of the 37th Tank Battalion were conducive to any kind of statistical analysis, so the records of the 741st Tank Battalion basically prove that this was not an isolated incident.

I've come up with a few ideas, along with my justification;

1.) The "Infantry" personnel were members of various Infantry branch tank units (the light and medium tank infantry regiments, separate tank companies, and National Guard tank companies of divisions) that were then absorbed into the Armored Force. This seems likely for the very earliest Armored Force, Center, and Command tank units, but would not hold up for later ones.

2.) "Infantry" was used as a personnel accounting identifier for men who entered the Armored Force, Command, and Center early on, but later it was changed to "Armored."

3.) "Armored" was used as a personnel accounting identifier for men who entered the Armored Force, Command, and Center early on, but later it was changed to "Infantry."

The above three were proven incorrect, at least in two cases, by my below analysis.

4.) "Armored" was used as an identifier for men who, after, receiving the assignments given to them by the classification specialist, chose to specifically volunteer for the Armored Force, Command, and Center, while "Infantry" was used as an identifier for those men who were just assigned to the Armored Force, Command, and Center out of hand because of personnel requirements and did not specifically request it.

Given that there’s a smattering of “Armor” among mostly “Infantry” men from 1941 until 1944 makes this seem more logical.

Week 49

 

With the last week of September 1918, the “periodical of the Futurist Political party” - as the subtitle proclaimed – the obviously Rome based Roma Futurista opened publications (n.1 on September 20^th – n.2 on September 30^th ). The periodical was a creature of three men: the writer and journalist of futurist orientation Emilio Settimelli, the futurist and veteran of the Arditi Mario Carli and the leader of the Futurist Party and founder of Futurism himself Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Marinetti gave his imprint to the new press outlet – according to his excessive personality – by manners of advice, requests, and encouragement; but the actual day by day running was mostly left to the other two: Settimelli for the practical organization, Carli especially for his ties with the Arditi and the growing “veteranism” environment in general, at a time when the new “most advanced” generations involved with the War appeared on the verge of some form of radicalization; a promising turn for those forces which aspired to a renovation of the Italian society.

The attention to the veterans was an explicit trait of the new publication – and in fact a decisive trait of Political Futurism since its beginnings. The manifesto of the Futurist Party, published first in February 1918 and reissued on the first page of the first issue of Roma Futurista listed among other points the:

Creation of a land estate for the combatants. It is necessary to acquire a certain portion of the Italian owned land […] in order to give it, after duly examination [of the various circumstances], to the combatants, or, in case of their deceasing, to the families. The payment of the land acquired in this manner must be provided by the Nation […] All the manual workers who served (active duty) in the military will be registered on the State's behalf in a “National Assistance Fund for invalidity and seniority of the workers”, effective from the first day of their active service. The State will provide the annual contributions for the entire duration of the War. The registration of the enlisted men to the “National Fund” will take place automatically […] and will produce a continuous obligation for the registered individuals for the remainder of their life. The reward for the award of military honors will be tripled […] For the veterans of active service, when entering a public job, the duration of service will count for the purpose of seniority and pension, with the State taking care, where needed, of the contributions to the pension fund for the time of service [counted to the work related pension]. - For ten years after the end of the War, the administrations will alternate open competitions [for jobs] with others reserved exclusively for veterans of active service and mutilated veterans suitable for the occupation.

While the manifesto mixed progressive and traditional themes in a manner typical of the so called national radicalism of the early XX Century, this set of measures in favor of the veterans – paired with the progressive reduction of the size of the army advocated for the years after the end of the conflict; the creation, that is, of an army of officers [“for instance 200,000 men with 60,000 officers” as the manifesto explained] – betrayed the approach to the Great War as an aristocracy formation event (as Carli explained in his monograph Arditismo, the Arditi stood at the top of a “hierarchy of courage” - it was “a phenomenon of selection, a deeply aristocratic phenomenon”). A view that was intrinsically conflicting (again, as was typical of all national radicalism) with the vague appeal to social and popular-progressive measures.

Nonetheless it would be wrong to just label this confuse imprint as disingenuous – the problem of how to appeal to the veterans mirrored the traditional divide between “legal country and real country” that had been a constant for the Italian establishment since the unification and that even the new rising forces could not escape.

The need of an instrument to appeal to larger numbers had been one of the inspiring factors behind the choice to found an official “party newspaper” - as Carli had explained in a letter to Marinetti (August 1918), the three Futurists needed “to band together to form a true and steadfast stronghold of Futurism, opening immediately, with the creation of a newspaper, an energetic offensive action against the enemies, internal and external alike, of the glory and youth of Italy.” And on September 26^th Marinetti had replied inviting Carli “to gather around the newspaper all the war mutilated, supporting their interests and going to their defense against defeatists and shirkers”.

What we may describe and understand as a form of radicalization of the fringe masses coming out of the experience of the Great War – a capital not to be squandered according to the many forces expression of the national interventionism (already in February 1917 perhaps over optimistically Settimelli had explained that “every Italian was now living intensely the national life of Italy and trying themselves at understanding its interests. Such a political evolution was an immense wealth. One that could not be squandered when, after the war, a large national party would dictate the rhythm of the new Italian life” but similar considerations were abundant in Mussolini's pieces as well) – was already perceived and taken under the more generic shade of “politicization” by the Italian authorities. On June 10^th 1918, Chief of Staff Armando Diaz replied to the concerned inquiries of Prime Minister V.E. Orlando stating that:

It was true that, by the socialist interventionist, the republicans, and also by a few action committees of mutilates, wounded and invalids of war – such as the one in Milan – there appeared to be a tendency to secure the favor, by all means of incentives and active propaganda, not only of the elements of arditi battalions but also of any men who distinguished themselves for acts of valor.

Their efforts proceeded through the frequent mailing of gifts, promises to be done after the peace, the propaganda of the madrine di guerra [that is, the war godmothers, who sponsored soldiers without close relatives by writing them and sending gifts], through the creation of rewards for the combatants and the gift of cartels of the [national] loan to the assault battalions as well as to the brigades mentioned for their valor – as done for instance by the Popolo d'Italia and the Military Action Committee of war invalids, wounded and mutilated, of which the direction board, constituted for the most part by extremists, made no secret of the influence it intended to gain over the combatants.

That the aim of this tendency was for a true and proper recruitment with subversive goals, it wasn't possible to say; doubtless though, as for its immediate results, and also thanks to the popular origin [of this effort], it had been an effective encouragement for the troops and an incentive for their combative spirit and resilience; and therefore the Supreme Command – who certainly could not deny the assault corps the right to receive, like any other unit, the proof of the country's gratitude – thought better not to place any obstacles to this tendency, taking effort only to regulate it with the purpose of profiting from its beneficial intentions.

Diaz finished by admitting:

I do nonetheless acknowledge that the creation of such ties between the Arditi elements and the subversive parties could create some concern over the eventual return of those elements to civil life; and I will therefore not omit an active surveillance over any recruitment manifestation aimed at the troops by the extremist committees.