Talk:Pacific War/Archive 6

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Casualty statistics

There's been some debate about the numbers used in the section detailing United States casualties in the Pacific theatre. The current claim is 161000 dead out of a total of 426000 casualties.

Two sources are cited:

• the Army casualties report, produced by the US Army in 1953.
• Michael Clodfelter's Statistical Reference to Casualty, which I can't find a copy of anywhere. If anyone does have access to a copy, please can you provide information about what numbers it claims for this conflict!

The latter source I obviously cannot verify. The former provides numbers for the US Army and Air Force only, leaving out naval deaths, and claims 62462 deaths (p110). This would require an impossible 100000 naval deaths to make up the 161k figure. So, either:

• the report is wrong and underestimates deaths, or,
• I am wrong and have misread the report, or,
• the statistics given in this article are wrong.

What to do? Pinging @Global Cerebral Ischemia:. — JThistle38 (talk) 14:04, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The US Army casualties report also has 997 listed as killed in Alaska, 7,813 in the Burma, China, India theater (which are included as part of the Pacific War in our article here). According to The National WWII Museum's official website, there were 62,614 Navy deaths and 24,511 Marine deaths in WWII, presumably the majority of the naval deaths and essentially all of the Marine deaths were in the Pacific. If you add these numbers together, you get 158,397. Unfortunately, we can't do this for the article because it's WP:SYNTH, so we need to rely on anywhere it's explicitly stated by WP:RS. Nevertheless, the numbers seem to roughly add up. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:55, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I didn't realise quite how many deaths there were in the navy... I retract the 'impossible' adjective used above. Still, the disagreement with Clodfelter leaves some room for discussion. — JThistle38 (talk) 15:23, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

The 4th edition of Warfare and Armed Conflicts gives a total of 92,904 U.S. deaths in the Pacific, and 208,333 wounded in action, making for a total of 301,237 casualties. (p. 529). And regarding the most recent statement, WP:CALC states that basic addition and subtraction doesn't constitute original research. Loafiewa (talk) 15:03, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Good to know, though I wonder whether they're including deaths from some of the above, eg Alaska, Burma, China, India, and Navy. Adding the deaths from the US Army Casualties report (Pacific + Alaska + Burma, China, India) gives 71,272. Add the 24,511 marine deaths (according to the US Marine Corps University, only 51 marines took part in direct combat operations against the enemy in North Africa and Europe), and we get 95,783, already exceeding the number given in Warfare and Armed Conflicts. And this is without adding anything from the 62,614 total Navy deaths. Checking the major naval battles in the Pacific, and the share of US naval deaths in the Pacific should at least be in the thousands. Though the Navy surely sustained casualties during the Invasion of Normandy, and surely lost men in the Battle of the Atlantic, the United States Navy in World War II article does not refer to a single major naval battle for US forces outside of the Pacific. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 15:13, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Interestingly, but 158, 397 dead are only combat losses or is it just that they died and died in the Pacific War? 37.145.61.199 (talk) 19:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

This includes battle deaths and non-battle deaths. So for example, soldiers who died due to enemy artillery are counted alongside those who died to malaria. This is equivalent to "military deaths from all causes" at World War II casualties. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 00:18, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

You may be interested in this source. I don’t know English well, do I understand correctly that out of 296k victims, 105k died and died, and the rest are wounded?

https://books.google.ru/books?id=_ptE9EGO_WUC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq=Anne+Sharp+Wells+us+casualties&source=bl&ots=A4fAiKtn-5&sig=ACfU3U3G4pRzff7TmFD6ZmNaqorJUEhItA&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj9_diO49T2AhVmkosKHb9oD7YQ6AF6BAgCEAM#v=onepage&q=Anne%20Sharp%20Wells%20us%20casualties&f=false 37.145.61.199 (talk) 13:20, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is similar to the 111,914 battle deaths cited in our article here. When you add the 49,000 non-battle deaths cited in our article, you get 160,000. It all roughly adds up. BTW: I think I now see what the confusion was earlier, and it may be a language issue. In English, "casualties" refers to all soldiers who could no longer fight on the battlefield for whatever reason, whether killed, wounded, diseased, captured, etc. They are all considered to be losses. The 296k figure you'd mentioned earlier is total casualties, not total deaths. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Yet the resulting US losses remain a mystery. In the article in the source of 160k killed and dead, I did not find data that they were killed and died specifically in the Pacific Ocean. And so if we take the total figure in WWII 407k dead and subtract 183k dead in the war with Germany (this figure is found in all sources) and 161k in the Pacific Ocean, it turns out 62k died, it’s not clear where. I think that many of the 62k dead were in the Pacific Ocean, the deadly fauna was conducive to losses and it was not as convenient to evacuate the wounded as in urban Europe, but this is purely my guess. And I also forget to ask, is it known that 70k Americans went missing in WWII, are they considered killed or are they considered separately? 37.145.61.199 (talk) 15:21, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The 160k figure for the Pacific War already includes deaths from wounds, disease and accidents. I don't know where you're getting the 183k figure. According to https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/Casualties-2.html total battle and non-battle deaths for the US Army in Europe and the Mediterranean are 198,798, plus another 1,691 in the Caribbean and South Atlantic, 1,787 in the Africa-Middle East Theater, and 39,982 non-battle deaths in the continental US. And that is not including Navy deaths (which is a separate branch). There's no mystery, everything is approximately accounted for. Add all of these together, and you get just over 400,000, matching the total number of US deaths nicely. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:55, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Strangely, in the article "Losses in World War II" it is indicated that exactly 183k died in the war with Germany. But I didn’t understand 39k non-combat losses in the United States are those who died from wounds on the fronts? Yes, and I did not find this column 37.145.61.199 (talk) 17:15, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

And what about the missing? I just didn't find this column. 37.145.61.199 (talk) 17:28, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The deaths in the continental US are on "page 102." You can always just use ctrl+F and search for "39,982" you'll find it. Almost all of them are listed as either "accident" or "disease." The only way that someone "missing in action" would count as a death is if they were "declared dead," which is one of the columns in all tables. I assume pretty much everyone missing in action has been declared dead by now (with the vast majority of such deaths being declared by the time the war ended). Probably a few thousand of these were also declared dead since then, accounting for the slight discrepancy in total deaths. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 17:43, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I found a column with the dead on the territory of America, it just seemed strange to me that the mortality rate was almost 10% of all losses in WWII on the territory of America. We said about diseases and accidents, it means that the soldiers caught the disease from the front? It just seemed to me that the loss of all soldiers occurs precisely in battles with Germany and Japan. And here 39k in the United States, are these soldiers who died during the exercises, or are they those who returned home from the war and died of diseases there 37.145.61.199 (talk) 18:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

And one more thing, I may be weak in history, but it always seemed to me that the Americans suffered the first losses in the European theater on D-Day, and the losses in Italy and Africa are attributed to the Mediterranean theater. Where did the figure of 6k dead Americans in Europe in 1943 come from? 37.145.61.199 (talk) 19:10, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

The deaths in the continental US are just deaths that occurred among military personnel while the war was going on, regardless of the cause. This is how all the deaths are tallied. If someone slipped on a wet surface and died while unloading crates, that would be listed as a non-battle death; if it happened in the continental US, it would be listed there. Maybe many of these men were injured while deployed abroad (whether due to accident or disease) and then later died in the US, or maybe not. As far as your second point, the deaths listed in the European theater include the "Air Corps and all other branches" of the Army (at the time, there was no separate air force branch; The Air Corps was part of the Army). I'd guess that the ~5,000 battle deaths in the European Theater in 1943 probably include many pilots and plane crews. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 00:55, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, now it's much clearer. It turns out that for the Americans, the Pacific Front was the bloodiest in terms of deaths. Caribbean + Afro-Middle Eastern theater (3.3k), Mediterranean (46k) European (152k) and Pacific front (161k). 37.145.61.199 (talk) 20:36, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

The US did not incur 161k deaths in a single Pacific front. As we discussed above, the 161k total includes all theaters involving the war against Japan (which is what our article here is about, despite the name). You are also comparing Army deaths in individual theaters of the war against Germany and Italy to a combination of Army, Navy, and Marine deaths for the war against Japan in all theaters; US Army deaths are 62,462 (as well as 7,813 for Burma, China, India, and 997 for Alaska). BTW, please see WP:NOTFORUM, "article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article." Notice at the top of this page: "This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." Please take any further discussion to WP:RD/H, where you can ask about Pacific War deaths and which was the bloodiest theater for the US, etc. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 23:06, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

You may be interested in this information, you may indicate that 47k soldiers were lost in the war with Japan, in my opinion this would be a very good clarification https://pacificwrecks.com/mia/usa/index.html 37.145.61.199 (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/Monos/pdfs/JM-155/JM-155.pdf Here's some more data from the Department of the Army, but I can't find US losses specifically. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.145.61.199 (talk) 21:45, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

That monograph is about Japanese military operations in Manchuria and North Korea; it doesn't deal with battles involving US forces. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 22:56, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

References

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:23, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

5 Allied Battleships sunk?

Just a question, I’m only aware of 3 allied battleships sunk: Arizona, Oklahoma, and Prince of Wales. What are the other 2 ships? 2601:18D:581:3950:E5B1:6332:8175:DDF3 (talk) 02:48, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I think they were California (later refloated) and Repulse.--Ulises Laertíada (talk) 11:06, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but I think the other 2 battleships are meant to represent West Virginia and California, both of which were sunk during the attack on Pearl Harbor. However to call them losses would be inaccurate, as they were not lost and were fully repaired before the war's end.

I just noticed that the number of cruisers lost is also inaccurate. The US lost 10 cruisers in the Pacific, the UK lost 4 (including the battlecruiser Repulse) and Australia lost 2, for a total of 16 losses. I'm not sure where the other 9 come from, my guess is that Chinese cruisers sunk during the early days of the Sino-Japanese war were also counted. However this would be inaccurate, as the page only covers the Pacific War starting from Pearl Harbor onwards. Pool1429 (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Malaria

I don't know if it's an objective source that almost 60,000 American soldiers died of malaria in the Pacific. https://www.malariasite.com/wars-victims/ 37.145.60.154 (talk) 10:10, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

American missing in action

Why did they delete the clarification about 47 thousand missing Americans, I brought the source here:https://pacificwrecks.com/mia/usa/index.html 37.145.63.226 (talk) 20:37, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

The number of missing in action are probably included in the source used for casualties. I've added a Template:Failed verification tag though, the numbers appear to be a misreading of the source taking the total WW II casualties for those in the theatre. fiveby(zero) 20:58, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

I have edited the infobox and the section in the body accordingly. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:49, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don’t know English well, do I understand correctly that the article indicates precisely the combat losses of US military personnel? But what about non-combat losses? In my opinion, it is incorrect to forget about the non-combat losses of American soldiers, and the first number of 161 thousand dead and dead is closer to the truth 37.145.63.226 (talk) 06:04, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The cited source in the article is the first listed by Fiveby. The previous figures were for the whole war and not just the pacific. The source only gives combat casualties (dead and wounded). The two tables concerned are on facing pages. You can look for yourself. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:11, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, I used to think that the Pacific front was the bloodiest for the US. The last question for dummies, but Japan's loss of one and a half million is Japan's loss on all fronts, or only against the United States and its allies? 37.145.63.226 (talk) 06:23, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Clodfelter (source I referred to gives 2 sources - each about 1.6M. If you read the article and the table, it gives about 2.1M total with about 0.46M in China. Cinderella157 (talk) 06:59, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Is it that the average ratio of losses between the killed Americans and the Japanese is 1:16? Of course, I knew that the American army was powerful, but that much. And why then in the section of the losses of the Japanese is indicated (1,1+ million losses precisely in the war with the Americans) 37.145.63.226 (talk) 08:52, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

The ratio is 2.1M:0.3M or 7:1 overall. The problem with statistics is who is counting what and when. On perusing the table in the text, the 1.1M figure would seem to reflect (per the parenthetic statement) the central and southwest Pacific, and Southeast Asia (ie not China and environs). More detail would be in the cited reference but I cannot speak to this further as I didn't write this. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:18, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

You didn’t understand, I meant the ratio of DEAD Americans and Japanese. 0,3M you are most likely talking about the wounded and killed Americans. 37.145.63.226 (talk) 15:50, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

About losses

Why is the article showing all the losses of the Japanese on all fronts, while the United States has only combat losses? 37.145.63.226 (talk) 10:20, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Japan fought in one theatre of the war. The article compares the losses of Japan in that theatre with the losses of her opponents in that theatre using relevant, verifiable, reliable sources. Your edit was revert because the source was not relevant in that it only reported US Army deaths. There was no page given by which a figure might be confirmed but, given the existing source, the edited figure was likely for all US Army deaths in the war. If you have some relevant source that conflicts significantly with the existing figures, I would suggest you discuss the matter before editing the article, since your previous edits do not appear to be constructive. Cinderella157 (talk) 12:58, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

Past source

And where can I read the last source about 161 thousand dead and dead Americans? It still seems to me more objective than Clodfelter, who only reports US combat losses. Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 14:29, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

American casualties in the war with Japan.

Since the article indicates the combat and non-combat losses of Japan, I consider it necessary to also indicate the combat and non-combat losses of the United States Counting all deaths (battle and non-battle): Europe: 213407 Pacific: 162525 One caveat: US Coast Guard (~1900) deaths and Merchant Marine (~9500) deaths are not included in the above. Here is how the figures break down by service and area: US Army (including USAAF): Africa - Middle East: 1787 Caribbean - South Atlantic: 1691 European: 152109 Mediterranean: 46689 Alaska: 997 Burma - China - India: 7813 Pacific: 62462 Strategic Air Forces: 2158 US: 39982

Navy: Atlantic: 10966 Asiatic: 40920 Pacific: 30765 Mediterranean: 4597 US: 13144

Marines: Pacific: 19568 Other: 165

Above figures based on Army Battle Casualties and Non-battle Deaths in World War II - http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/Casualties/index.html US Navy Personnel in World War II: Service and Casualty Statistics http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/ww2_statistics.htm Lone Ranger1999 (talk) 19:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

Lack of Australian mention

The Dutch and British have their numbers listed, when more Australians fought in the pacific than both countries combined over 800k Australians served during the war. It’s typical due to general McArthur refusing to acknowledge Australian soldiers victories. But you’d think with the thousands of sources indicating Australia’s massive involvement in this theatre, we would be represented much more 2001:8003:E80B:5701:96F:3:C21A:D770 (talk) 12:42, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, because wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse. Nick-D (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Can you encourage the OP to include Australian numbers (or, do it yourself - I have no idea how to)? Australia's significant role in the Pacific theatre remains unacknowledged since the omission was raised in April 2023. Including all British Empire & Commonwealth forces involved i.e. British, British India, Aus/NZ and East and West Africa (SEATO) and even those Canadian defenders of Hong Kong (1942) will most likely exceed the number given for US contribution to the Pacific War - and should produce some lively debate! 2A01:4B00:AE0E:6200:85AF:7E1C:F73B:DE73 (talk) 22:44, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Military history of Australia during World War II is relevant – but on a first look I cannot see any obvious sources there to provide actual numbers. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:39, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Sexual Violence

I have added a section on Japanese and US sexual violence during and after the Pacific War as I believe this is an area that should be included on the main Pacific War so that people can then go and research the topic more thoroughly on pages that are more developed around the subject. Let me know what you think and if you have any points or edits that could improve/aid the development of this topic. T224murray (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2024 (UTC)