U.S. Armed Forces in all theaters, December 1941-December 31. 1946:2
|
Personnel |
||||||
|
Total |
16,112,566 | |||||
|
Army (including Army Air Forces) |
11,260,000 | |||||
|
Navy (excluding Marine Corps) |
4,183,466 | |||||
|
Marine Corps |
669,100 | |||||
|
Battle deaths |
||||||
|
Total |
291,557 | |||||
|
Army (including Army Air Forces) |
234,874 | |||||
|
Navy (excluding Marine Corps) |
36,950 | |||||
|
Marine Corps |
19,733 | |||||
|
Other deaths |
113,842 | |||||
|
Wounds, not fatal |
671,846 |
Overseas Deployment of U.S. Forces, December 31, 1943:3
| War Against Japan | War Against Germany | |
|
Personnel |
1,87,8152 | 1,81,0367 |
|
Army |
688,711 | 979,310 |
|
Army Air Forces |
224,231 | 437,175 |
|
Navy |
804,800 | 391,400 |
|
Marine |
160,410 | 2,482 |
|
Divisions |
16+ (13 Army, 3+ Marine) | 17 (all Army) |
|
Aircraft |
7,857 | 8,807 |
|
Army |
4,254 | 8,237 |
|
Navy |
3,603 | 570 |
|
Combat ships |
713 | 515 |
Distribution of U.S. Forces in the war against Japan, December 31, 1943:4
| Pacific Ocean Areas | |||
| and Southwest | China- | ||
| Pacific Area | Burma-India | Alaska | |
| Army | 534,471 | 52,624 | 1,01,616 |
| Army Air Forces | 1,62,376 | 41,936 | 19,919 |
| Navy | 7,72,800 | 100 | 31,900 |
| Marine | 1,59,376 | 0 | 1,034 |
U.S. casualties in the war against Japan:
|
Army (including Army Air Forces)5 |
||
|
Total battle casualties |
169,635 | |
|
Died in action or from battle wounds |
45,621 | |
|
(excluding prisoner deaths) |
||
|
Prisoners captured |
28,256 | |
|
Prisoners died in captivity |
11,516 | |
|
Navy (including Marine Corps)6 |
||
|
Total battle casualties |
127,294 | |
|
Died in action or from battle wounds |
48,426 | |
|
(including 1,343 who died as prisoners) |
||
|
U.S. civilians interned in Asia and the Pacific by Japan during the war7 |
12,100 |
United Kingdom Armed Forces in all theaters, June 1945:8
|
Peak strength |
4,683,000 |
|
Serving in the war against Japan |
666,000 |
|
Royal Navy |
224,000 |
|
Army |
315,000 |
|
Royal Air Force |
127,000 |
U.K. Armed Forces casualties, September 3, 1939-February 28, 1946:9
|
Total casualties in the war |
755,439 |
|
Killed (including died as prisoner of war) |
264,443 |
|
Missing |
41,327 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
277,077 |
|
Prisoners of war who survived |
172,592 |
|
Casualties suffered in the war against Japan |
90,332 |
|
Killed (including died as prisoner of war) |
29,698 |
|
Missing |
6,252 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
16,529 |
|
Prisoners of war who survived |
37,583 |
|
Prisoners of war captured by Japan10 |
|
|
Total captured |
50,016 |
|
Royal Navy |
2,304 |
|
Army |
42,610 |
|
Royal Air Force |
5,102 |
|
Died while prisoner |
12,433 |
|
Royal Navy |
421 |
|
Army |
10,298 |
|
Royal Air Force |
1,714 |
British Commonwealth land forces in Asia, including British, Indian, Canadian, Malay, Burmese, East African (from 1944), and West African (from 1944) forces, December 7, 1941-November 1946:11
|
Total battle casualties |
208,733 |
|
Killed |
16,468 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
47,821 |
|
Missing and prisoners of war |
143,920 |
|
Major sites for missing and prisoner losses, which occurred mostly in 1941-1942 |
|
|
Hong Kong |
10,622 |
|
Malaya |
112,405 |
|
Java and Sumatra |
5,716 |
|
Borneo (including killed) |
524 |
|
Burma |
9,369 |
Australian battle casualties in the war with Japan (all services):12
|
Total casualties |
45,843 |
|
Killed, died of wounds, and missing, |
9,470 |
|
presumed dead |
|
|
Died as prisoner of war |
8,031 |
|
Survived as prisoner of war |
14,345 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
13,997 |
New Zealand battle casualties in the war with Japan:13
|
Army |
|
|
Killed and died of wounds |
97 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
187 |
|
Navy |
|
|
Killed |
94 |
|
Died as prisoner of war |
9 |
|
Air Force |
|
|
Killed |
256 |
Canadian battle casualties in the war with Japan:14
|
Total casualties |
2,282 |
|
Hong Kong capture, 1941 |
2,272 |
|
Killed in battle |
277 |
|
Died as prisoner of war |
277 |
|
Survived as prisoner of war |
1,418 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
300 |
|
Other parts of Asia and Pacific |
10 |
U.S.S.R. battle casualties in the war with Japan, August 1945:15
|
Total casualties |
30,483 |
|
Killed |
8,219 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
22,264 |
Chinese battle casualties, July 1937-May 1945, according to the Chinese Nationalist government:16
|
Total casualties of Chinese regular |
3,177,973 |
|
troops (excluding guerrilla and local |
|
|
militia troops) |
|
|
Killed |
1,310,224 |
|
Wounded, nonfatal |
1,752,591 |
|
Missing |
115,158 |
|
Military deaths, 1937-194117 |
1,740,955 |
|
Deaths in China, 1937-1941 |
185,647 |
|
Army deaths, 1941-1945 |
1,140,429 |
|
Navy deaths |
414,879 |
|
Japanese military and civilian personnel working for the military, killed in combat, July 1937–August 1945, according to the Japanese Ministry of Health and Welfare, 195618 |
2.3 million |
|
Japanese civilians not working for the military, killed in the home islands, Okinawa, and China19 |
658,595 |
|
Japanese civilian casualties in the home islands, November 1944–August 1945, as a result of the Allied strategic air campaign20 |
|
|
Total casualties |
806,000 |
|
Deaths |
330,000 |
|
Japanese armed forces at time of surrender21 |
|
|
Total forces |
6,983,000 |
|
Forces in the home islands |
3,352,000 |
|
Japanese armed forces and civilians overseas at the time of the surrender22 |
6,000,000 |
|
Foreign nationals (mostly Koreans) in Japan at the time of the surrender23 |
1,170,000 |
|
Japanese prisoners of war (both military and civilian) captured by the U.S.S.R. in August–September 1945 |
1,000,000 to 2,000,000 |
|
Japanese prisoners of war captured before the country’s surrender |
|
|
POWs held in U.S. prisons, 1941-194524 |
5,424 |
|
POWs held in Australian prisons, August 194425 |
2,223 |
|
POWs captured during the campaign for Luzon |
9,050 |
|
(Philippines), 194526 |
|
|
POWs captured during the campaign |
7,401 |
|
for Okinawa, April 1-June 30,194527 |
|
1Statistics regarding the war with Japan vary tremendously. The figures for the U.S. and the British Commonwealth are the most reliable, although each nation and occasionally the armed services within each country kept records differently. Information about civilian casualties and deaths in Asia and the Pacific consists primarily of estimates, with widely conflicting results. The statistics selected for inclusion here provide an indication of the war’s tremendous scope and losses. For a discussion of the human costs of the war, see John W. Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (New York: Pantheon, 1986), 293-301.
2U.S. Department of Defense, 1998.
3Maurice Matloff, Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare, 1943-1944, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1959), 398. Beginning in January 1944, the ground forces in the war against Germany underwent an enormous buildup in preparation for the cross-channel invasion of France. By September 1944, 40 Army divisions were deployed in Europe and the Mediterranean, while 21 Army divisions and 5 Marine divisions were in the Pacific (520).
4Matloff, Strategic Planning, 398.
5Army Battle Casualties andNonbattle Deaths in World War II: Final Report, 7 December 1941-31 December 1946 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1953), 8-9.
6U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, The History of the Medical Department of the United States Navy in World War II, vol. 3, The Statistics of Diseases and Injuries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1950), 84, 171-74.
7P. Scott Corbett, Quiet Passages: The Exchange of Civilians between the United States and Japan during the Second World War (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1987), 168.
8W. Franklin Mellor, ed. Casualties and Medical Statistics, History of the Second World War: United Kingdom Medical Series (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1972), 832.
9Mellor, Casualties and Medical Statistics, 836-37.
10Mellor, Casualties and Medical Statistics, 837.
11S. Woodburn Kirby, The War Against Japan, vol. 5, The Surrender of Japan (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1969), 542-44. Australian casualties are excluded.
12Gavin Long, The Final Campaigns, Australia in the War of 1939-1945 (Canberra: Australian War Memorial, 1963), 623.
13Arthur Salusbury MacNalty and W. Franklin Mellor, eds., Medical Services in War: The Principal Medical Lessons of the Second World War; Based on the Official Medical Histories of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1968), 711-13.
14C. P. Stacey, Six Years of War: The Army in Canada, Britain and the Pacific, Official History of the Canadian Army in the Second World War (Ottawa: Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery, 1957), 1:524-25.
15Kirby, The Surrender of Japan, 200.
16Chinese Ministry of Information, comp., China Handbook, 1937-1945, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1947), 301.
17Dower, War without Mercy, 297. Dower uses statistics of the Japanese government.
18Saburo Ienaga, The Pacific War: World War Hand the Japanese, 1931-1945 (New York: Pantheon, 1978), 152.
19Ienaga, The Pacific War, 202.
20United States Strategic Bombing Surveys: Summary Reports (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1945-1946; reprint, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.: Air University Press, 1987), 92.
21 Reports of General Mac Arthur, vol. 1 supplement, Mac Arthur in Japan: The Occupation: Military Phase (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 1966), 117.
22Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 1 supplement, 149.
23Reports of General MacArthur, vol. 1 supplement, 149, 164.
24Arnold Krammer, “Japanese Prisoners of War in America,” Pacific Historical Review 52 (February 1983): 67. Until the fall of 1944, the Allies captured very few Japanese prisoners in the Pacific. Most were housed in Australia or New Zealand until the last months of the war, when sizable numbers of newly captured Japanese were imprisoned in the Philippines or Okinawa (69-70).
25Long, The Final Campaigns, 623.
26Robert R. Smith, Triumph in the Philippines, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1963), 694.
27Roy E. Appleman, et al., Okinawa: The Last Battle, U.S. Army in World War II (Washington, D.C.: Historical Division, Department of the Army, 1948), 489. More prisoners were captured after the end of the campaign.