War Diaries Talk

Casualties

  • pmj by pmj

    Over the course of the war there will be many cases of soldiers being reported dead or wounded from causes other than enemy action, such as accident, fratricide, illnesses etc. So it is misleading to report them all as Killed in Action, which is the only option at present.

    Posted

  • SarahtheEntwife by SarahtheEntwife

    Oh, that's a really good point. Does anyone know how soldiers dying of other causes would be officially categorized at the time?

    Posted

  • spof by spof moderator

    After the war, an attempt to compile a complete roll of those who died was attempted. It is called 'Soldiers Died in the Great War' and in print form it came to 80 volumes for each regiment or corps. They used 3 categories-

    Killed in Action which covered deaths caused by enemy action (and I think "friendly fire" was covered by this) and anyone who died of wounds before getting medical attention e.g. a shell in the trench
    Died of Wounds for anyone who was wounded but got into the medical system.
    Died for other reasons such as illness or accident like being run over by a lorry. I've even heard of one man who fell of the transport carrying him across the Channel.

    There really does need to be another option and I've suggested Died - Non Combat to avoid confusion.

    Posted

  • grahambutler by grahambutler

    Talking of casualties, I've come across a situation where the entry is just "Casualties : 2 officers and 38 o.ranks".

    Do we assume they are deaths rather than simply wounded?

    edit : actually, I've just realised it's a summary and the 2 officers were mentioned earlier as wounded. Still no idea about the 38 Tommies though.

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  • bobg51 by bobg51

    Am i correct in assuming that German casualties are to be aggregated in too? I have been recording known 'Bosch' killed and wounded in the figures. Is this correct or not?

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    I think this has been asked before and that the answer was that it's Allied casualties only. In fact I think it's only the casualties belonging to the Unit whose diary you are tagging that should be counted, otherwise if you count those from other Units they may get included twice.

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    I agree with Heather. If the casualties tag is used for German casualties, then those figures will be counted as casualties for the current battalion when we come to analyse that diary.

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  • bobg51 by bobg51

    Moderators - many thanks for the clarification. There will be errors in my pages then as i counted all casualties up to now. If a large number of casualties is listed eg 377 men gassed but no mention of 'killed' how does one classify this?
    I had one diary where the officer clearly thought the soldiers were a sub species and recorded 2 officers killed 1 wounded casualties in other ranks 6. That was pretty galling to read.

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  • eatyourgreens by eatyourgreens moderator, admin

    Hi, adjutants are instructed to name officers but list totals for other ranks, according to the 1913 Field Service Regulations. Not everyone appears to have followed this procedure in their diaries, from the comments here. I posted the text of the relevant section of the FSR, for anyone who might be interested: http://talk.operationwardiary.org/#/boards/BWD0000005/discussions/DWD00000tz

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  • Historygurrl by Historygurrl in response to spof's comment.

    I agree. Amongst many deaths and wounded soldiers at Ypres in October 1917, the diary I'm tagging records one man killed and one wounded when the wall of a ruined house fell on them. I don't feel that I can record them as combatant casualties, but they did happen on the front line. What were the families told?

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