Quote:
Originally Posted by vienna
The 442nd website is noticeably not complete. Some sections are not yet posted...
From Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/442nd_I...(United_States
I'd say a 93% casualty rate is rather a bit up there. I challenge you to find another regular Army unit of comparable size with a higher casualty rate. The 442nd was nicknamed "The Purple Heart Battalion" during WWII by other units...
Here is a more detailed history of the 442nd from the University of California archives:
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=...ew=entire_text
An couple of interesting side notes:
Units of the 442nd were involved in the liberation of Jews from Dachau prison, an irony since many of the men of the 442nd had families interred in detention camps in the US and had, themselves volunteered from those camps;
In the Riviera, a group of Nisei soldiers on guard duty captured a one-man German submarine, a first for an Army unit... |
The Wikipedia article is the only place that says that and it is lists no source as to where this information comes from.Making the information not valid in my opinion.I am not a fan of placing an a verifiable claim on a unit not matter how outstanding it may have been.
So far as I can tell without going into extensive research and looking at the records of every single regiment of the US Army that was in combat during WWII I find no quick and verifiable way to say what regiment had the highest rates.
Without seeing a verifiable source I am not prepared to make such a claim on any unit.Having said that there where units where almost completely or completely wiped out for example the units that fought in the Philippines these units would have suffered 100% lose rates because every single man was either killed or wounded and became a POW or simply became a POW.
You seem to be taking my claim as a disrespect for the 442nd not so I am an avid reader of military history and am fully aware of what this unit did in combat I am simply saying that no where do I see verifiable information or a verifiable source of information that they are in fact had the highest casualty rate for a regiment but they simply cant because we know that regiments in the Philippines in 1941/42 where totally destroyed as a combat force meaning that their rate which includes KIA WIA and POW was 100%.
I am not saying that the 442nd did not surfer a high loss rate it did but it was not the highest.