wars & faces OF death

Casualties in World War Two

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70–85 million people perished, or about 3% of the 2.3 billion (est.) people on Earth in 1940. Deaths directly caused by the war (including military and civilian fatalities) are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine. Civilian deaths totaled 50–55 million. Military deaths from all causes totaled 21–25 million, including deaths in captivity of about 5 million prisoners of war. More than half of the total number of casualties are accounted for by the dead of the Republic of China and of the Soviet Union.

Recent historical scholarship has shed new light on the topic of Second World War casualties. Research in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union has caused a revision of estimates of Soviet World War II fatalities. According to Russian government figures, USSR losses within postwar borders now stand at 26.6 million, including 8 to 9 million due to famine and disease. In August 2009 the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead at between 5.6 and 5.8 million. Historian Rüdiger Overmans of the Military History Research Office (Germany) published a study in 2000 that estimated the German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders, in Austria, and in east-central Europe. The Red Army claimed responsibility for the majority of Wehrmacht casualties during World War II. The People's Republic of China puts its war dead at 20 million, while the Japanese government puts its casualties due to the war at 3.1 million.

russian-soldiers-hurry-past-dead-german-soldier-berlin-1945.jpeg

Russian soldiers hurry past dead german soldier in Berlin-1945 (Above)

The photo of the same dead soldier from a different angle

in front of the Brandenburg gate(Below)

German cavalry

The French battleship Bouvet, at her last mission in Dardanelles. 1915

A Japanese soldier attempts in vain to rouse his dead comrade.

The end result of John Barkley’s implacable defense was bodies stacked like cordwood

When the dust settled German dead were scattered all around Barkley’s position..jpg

The end result of John Barkley’s implacable defense (Above)

John Lewis Barkley (August 28, 1895 – April 14, 1966) was a United States Army Medal of Honor recipient of World War I. Born in Blairstown, Missouri, near Holden, Barkley served as a Private First Class in Company K, 4th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Division. He earned the medal while fighting near Cunel, France, on October 7, 1918. Private First Class Barkley, who was stationed in an observation post half a kilometer from the German line, on his own initiative repaired a captured enemy machinegun and mounted it in a disabled French tank near his post. Shortly afterward, when the enemy launched a counterattack against US forces, Private First Class Barkley got into the tank, waited under the hostile barrage until the enemy line was abreast of him and then opened fire, completely breaking up the counterattack and killing and wounding a large number of the enemy. Five minutes later an enemy 77-millimeter gun opened fire on the tank pointblank. One shell struck the drive wheel of the tank, but this soldier nevertheless remained in the tank and after the barrage ceased broke up a second enemy counterattack, thereby enabling US forces to gain and hold Hill

Death bodies from battle of Verdun World War One