World War One

[Schroeder]

Interesting pictures.

[Jimbuna]

Wouldn't fancy being up there amongst all that shrapnel.

[Aktungbby]

A sound (combined negatives) argument there:

[Schroeder]

OT
Am I the only one who thinks the term "casualties" is complete BS? I mean someone gets shot in the little toe -> casualty
someone gets shot in the head and dies instantly -> casualty
So all in all the number of "casualties" doesn't tell me anything about how severs things are. Over here "casualties" are referred to as wounded and dead with the respective numbers for each.

So what does 6,444 "casualties" concretely mean? People we won't see again or people who will soon be there again to fight another day? We don't know and therefore those statistics contain zero tangible info.

/OT

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

OT
Am I the only one who thinks the term "casualties" is complete BS? I mean someone gets shot in the little toe -> casualty
someone gets shot in the head and dies instantly -> casualty
So all in all the number of "casualties" doesn't tell me anything about how severs things are. Over here "casualties" are referred to as wounded and dead with the respective numbers for each.

So what does 6,444 "casualties" concretely mean? People we won't see again or people who will soon be there again to fight another day? We don't know and therefore those statistics contain zero tangible info.

/OT

Technically the 'Second' Battle of Gaza: Gen. Dobell launched another frontal assault on the Turkish defences, which was supported by six tanks: and gas shells. The tanks and the gas were both dismal failures and the attacking forces could make little headway against well-sited Turkish redoubts. After three days of fighting the attack was called off, having not gained any significant ground.

During the battle the Ottoman defenders suffered between 82 and 402 killed, between 1,337 and 1,364 wounded, and between 242 and 247 missing. About 200 Ottoman prisoners were captured.
Unit Casualties 52nd (Lowland) Division 1,874 53rd (Welsh) Division 584 54th (East Anglian) Division 2,870 Anzac Mounted Division 105 Imperial Mounted Division 547 Imperial Camel Brigade 345 Total 6,325 Between 17 and 20 April, EEF lost 6,444 casualties. The infantry suffered 5,328 casualties; 2,870 of these were from the 54th (East Anglian) Division and 1,828 from the 163rd Brigade alone. The 52nd (Lowland) Division suffered 1,874 casualties, the 53rd (Welsh) Division 584, the Imperial Camel Brigade 345 casualties, the Imperial Mounted Division 547 casualties, and the Anzac Mounted Division 105 casualties. Only one brigade in each of the 52nd (Lowland) and the 54th (East Anglian) Divisions was intact or had suffered only light casualties. The 74th Division had not been engaged.
Official casualty figures include 509 killed, 4,359 wounded, and 1,534 missing; including 272 prisoners of war, while unofficially the figure was much higher at 17,000. A slightly lower figure of 14,000 has also been claimed. The 10th Light Horse Regiment, (3rd Light Horse Brigade, Imperial Mounted Division) lost 14 officers and almost half the regiment's other ranks killed or wounded. Three months later on 12 July, General Allenby reported "Units are, however, below strength, and 5,150 infantry and 400 yeomanry reinforcements are required now to complete the four divisions and mounted now in the line to full strength." The Gaza war cemetery bears silent witness to the casualties which were much more severe than the British public was told..

So...it was official BS indeed...and mean! The defeat of the EEF boosted the Ottoman Fourth Army's morale. Within weeks Kress von Kressenstein was reinforced by the 7th and the 54th Divisions, and by October 1917 the Eighth Army commanded by Kress von Keressenstein had been established with headquarters at Huleikat north of Huj. The EEF's strength, which could have supported an advance to Jerusalem, was now decimated. Murray and Dobell were relieved of their commands and sent back to England. Map shows the problem: old-fashioned linear tactics against entrenched Turkish machine guns: simply won't work in 1917:(enlarges)

[Schroeder]

@BBY

Thanks, but my frustration was more with this uninformative term itself and it's wide spread use in the English language.

[Aktungbby]

than the British public was told..

^ As I pointed out: it's intended to keep the public uninformed...

[Sailor Steve]

Posts moved to proper forum.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

@BBY

Thanks, but my frustration was more with this uninformative term itself and it's wide spread use in the English language.

It's an interesting point, and one I've struggled with for several years now. I have always thought of "casualties" in terms of death and injury, but it seems that the common usage refers to any combatant removed from service. A dead man is a casualty. A wounded man is a casualty. A man who deserted is a casualty. A man who got temporarily lost is a casualty.

Anyone not available for even a day due to a battle is a "casualty".

This has been especially interesting in the recording of the Air War. I've discovered many days in which several pilots on one side recording shooting down planes on the other side, but the other side's report reads "Casualties - nil". If the plane has engine damage but lands on its own side of the lines with the crew unhurt, it's not a casualty, at least to them.

How do you reconcile it? I don't know.

[August]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

OT
Am I the only one who thinks the term "casualties" is complete BS? I mean someone gets shot in the little toe -> casualty
someone gets shot in the head and dies instantly -> casualty
So all in all the number of "casualties" doesn't tell me anything about how severs things are. Over here "casualties" are referred to as wounded and dead with the respective numbers for each.

So what does 6,444 "casualties" concretely mean? People we won't see again or people who will soon be there again to fight another day? We don't know and therefore those statistics contain zero tangible info.

/OT

A casualty in military parlance is anything that removes a soldier from duty. Death, illness, injury of course but it also includes POW's and even deserters. It's a calculation used to determine replacement needs so in that sense it doesn't matter if it's a stubbed toe or a fatality.

[Sailor Steve]

Alan Machin Wilkinson scores his last victory today. Wilkinson will become Leader of 23 Squadron RFC until coming down with appendicitis in August 1917. He will end the war as a combat-school instructor. Wilkinson will work in advertising and eventually become a directory of the London Press Exchange. He will rejoin the RAF in World War 2 and will command two different air bases. Alan Machin Wilkinson will die in June 1972, aged 80.
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...postcount=2260

[Jimbuna]

Launch of the USS New Mexico.


John Walter Wilcox, Jr. (1882-1942), U.S. Navy, and Margaret Cabeza DeBaca, daughter of Ezequiel Cabeza De Baca, governor of New Mexico. Margaret christened the battleship New Mexico on April 23, 1917.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

7th May 1917


Top British flying ace, VC Albert Ball falls in battle. Lothar Von Richthofen credited for kill.

Falsely imho:

Ball was last seen by fellow pilots pursuing the red Albatros D.III of the Red Baron's younger brother, Lothar von Richthofen, who eventually landed near Annœullin with a punctured fuel tank. Cyril Crowe observed Ball flying into a dark thundercloud. A German pilot officer on the ground, Lieutenant Hailer, then saw Ball's plane falling upside-down from the bottom of the cloud, Brothers Franz and Carl Hailer and the other two men in their party were from a German reconnaissance unit, Flieger-Abteilung A292. Franz Hailer noted, "It was leaving a cloud of black smoke... caused by oil leaking into the cylinders." The engine had to be inverted for this to happen. The Hispano engine was known to flood its inlet manifold with fuel when upside down and then stop running. Franz Hailer and his three companions hurried to the crash site. Ball was already dead when they arrived. The four German airmen agreed that the crashed craft had suffered no battle damage. No bullet wounds were found on Ball's body, even though Hailer went through Ball's clothing to find identification. Hailer also took Ball to a field hospital. A German doctor subsequently described a broken back and a crushed chest, along with fractured limbs, as the cause of death. (clearly a case of blunt-force trauma from the crash as described by a trained medical person)
The Germans credited Richthofen with shooting down Ball, but there is some doubt as to what happened, especially as Richthofen's claim was for a Sopwith Triplane, not an S.E.5, which was a biplane. Given the amount of propaganda the German High Command generated touting the younger Richthofen, a high-level decision may have been taken to attribute Ball's death to him. It is probable that Ball was not shot down at all, but had become disoriented and lost control during his final combat, the victim of a form of temporary vertigo that has claimed other pilots

Even today: rule one of flying (especially in a Cessna) U NEVER FLY INTO A THUNDERCLOUD...especially dark ones! I've survived two intense microbursts myself one blew down a large professionally erected party-tent literally hitting only the large yard I was in; the other deposited six inches of hail on my 200 yard diameter Napa neighborhood in 10 minutes. Such winds are known to crash modern jet liners, much less a well strung biplane, on approach to landings at near touch-down altitude as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Air_Lines_Flight_191

For aircraft, you have all these hazards and many more. First is the severity of the updrafts and downdrafts; if the currents inside a thunderhead can keep a chunk of ice the size of a softball aloft, just think what it'll do to your little Piper Cherokee (or even a 747). Second is icing; as your plane is getting tossed around, the same near-freezing water condensation that forms hailstones finds the ultra-low-pressure environment over the top of your wings' leading edges simply irresistible. Third is debris; if there's an active tornado or even high straightline winds associated with this event, not only will you have ice flying around, but dirt/sand, rocks of varying sizes, tree branches, all the way up to Dorothy and Toto. Even planes with a military pedigree, like the P-3 Orions that are used to track hurricanes, can't survive this kind of onslaught.
Don't go anywhere near a thunderhead. Just don't. In fact, if you're a private pilot, don't even take off if there's a thunderhead anywhere near you, and if you're flying cross-country and see one, get on the horn with ATC immediately and request information on its course and speed and what you can do to avoid it. For pilots of small unpressurized craft the answer will usually be to put the storm front on your tail, open up the throttle and find the nearest airstrip that can take you.

The cloud spit out a stressed out war-weary ace, inverted at two hundred feet, with an oil-flooded Hispano engine: too low for hope of recovery. Even the artist got the clouds right; Last Fight of Captain Ball https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/16700/why-is-the-cumulonimbus-cloud-formation-so-dangerous

[Giesemaschine]

Hard to believe the END of WW1 was a century ago...wow.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Giesemaschine

Hard to believe the END of WW1 was a century ago...wow.

That's because you're 1.5 years early....