I've always wondered, and never found out, which British armed forces members were most likely to be killed? ie did a higher proportion (per membership) of the army, navy or airforce die? I suppose to put it simply, under which armed forces were you must likely to make it home?
Of the allies, or all round? Obviously civilians, if you look at the broader casualties. I would think it would be the army by quite a margin. I have been trying to look up a Great-Uncle who died at Normandy and found a shocking statistic of French civilian deaths during the invasion. An estimated 15-20,000 deaths, as opposed to estimated 10,000 Allies and 9,000 German enlisted fatalities. Doesn't answer your question conclusively but quite a shocking statistic. Mainly from Allied shelling, armed resistance and indiscriminate murder on retreat, I would imagine. A dreadful subject, I dwell on these things much longer than is good for me.
Without looking up any figures I would have thought as a percentage of front line fighting men actually in combat,the RAF would probably have suffered the highest losses.
That is most likely true, re-reading Arks initial question - proportionately as regards combatants, with respect to the essential ground support.
As a proportion, I'd guess it was RAF Bomber Command. They lost over 55,000 men killed in action, which was around half of those who enlisted. My wife's uncle was one of them. Bomb aimer, 77 Squadron.
Not very scientific, but on family experience the RAF; my Dad was in the Army, and his three brothers were in the RAF. One of the brothers was shot down and killed in 1943 (aged 23), another took part in some "wartime chemical tests" and died in 1969 at the age of 46; all the others who took part in these "tests" died at an early age. Thankfully the third brother escaped unscathed and died in 1989 aged 73. My Dad was in the army in India and Burma, came back and is still with us (and living an independent life in his own home) aged 94. I have great respect for them all.
A quick bit of research shows that bomber command had probably the highest losses, but a lot depends on where people were based and what campaigns they were in. We (as a country) were lucky in that we weren't really involved in the really nasty battles (Stalingrad, Leningrad, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, etc), but the losses at Normandy were really high and the majority of the 80,000 captured at Singapore died in prison camps...
Merchant Navy had the highest losses, although, not considered one of the armed forces. If your ship went down in the atlantic then unless you were picked up very quickly you died. Same goes for the Pacific, although that was probably a more terrifying death. 63000 dead 4000 wounded 5000 taken prisoner. That is about 90% deaths to 10 wounded compared to approx an 80/20 split in the army. Only U-boat crews suffered a higher rate of death. The Merchant Navy got hardly any acknowledgement of their suffering after the war, no war pensions or medals.
Cheers everyone, some really interesting answers. I was watching a documentary on the bombing of Malta and they went inside a British submarine and it really struck me how scary it must have been being under the water with no sense of escape if you were attacked. Which then got me on to thinking if I had been in the horrible position so many were in World War Two which armed force would I rather be in? Would it be worse running towards fixed machine guns in Normandy, being in a spitfire when one hit and you were destined to your fate, or bobbing around the pacific waiting for a shark or hypothermia to get you. I concluded I couldn't even begin to think about it and count myself extremely lucky I didn't have to. But it did interest me as to which armed force members were more likely to come home. And also I suppose which endured the worst day to day conditions.
Although Army casualties were comparatively low, that is because the spearhead only contained a proportion of the men in the army. Many soldiers were involved in activities behind the front line - regimental aid stations, artillery, catering, transport etc or further back - rear area troops, transport, administrative posts etc. Frontline units were rotated as often as possible, experience was learned from WWI about shellshock (PTSD) and the rigours of life at the very front. However, if you did want a short life, then infantry junior officers were certainly one place to spend your final days. Expected to lead from the front and take risks you were first choice target for snipers and machine gunners as well as the usual risks of artillery, mortars, small arms fire, mines, tanks and grenades.
You might not even have been allowed to join up in the first place - living in this area during WW2 there is a strong possibility that you could have been working in a reserved occupation e.g coal mining or steel production.
True. I had one grandad who was a steel worker and was classed as reserved occupation and one a butcher who was a tank driver in North Africa
Similar to me, one grandad was a miner - reserved occupation, one grandad was a butcher - airfoce instructor in South Africa. It appears putting meyt in peoples bellies wasn't a reserved occupation.
Apparently the shortest life expectancy was Flame Thrower operator on the Pacific Islands. Life expectancy was 7 seconds...
