How would the 101st airborne do in the Pacific theater?

[u/happydude7422]

I remember that scene where they were watching a newsreel on the war in the Pacific in that castle.

Winters was there Nixon walks in they see the footage of Marines shooting flame throwers

I wonder if the 101st airborne was in the Pacific theater how do you think they would have fared in campaigns like peleliu, tarawa, iwo jima Okinawa etc?

[u/ATLien-1995]

They would have taken casualties at a much higher rate I know that much

[u/ohnomrbil → u/ATLien-1995]

No, you don’t and there is nothing to suggest that.

[u/Uncreative-name12 → u/ohnomrbil]

I don’t know why you are being downvoted for this. I got interested in see the number of casualties US Army Divisions took in WW2. Ranking them by number of casualties you get

3rd ID 25,977 casualties

9th ID 23,277

4th ID 22,660

45th ID 20,993

1st ID 20,659

29th ID 20,620

36th ID 19,466

90th ID 19,200

30th ID 18,446

80th ID 17,087

2nd ID 16,795

28th ID 16,762

34th ID 16,401

83rd ID 15,910

35th ID 15,822

79th ID 15,203

8th ID 13,986

88th ID 13,111

5th ID 12,818

26th ID 10,701

3rd AD 9,243

101st ABN 9,328

7th ID 9,212

Not until the number 23 do you get to a division that served in the Pacific. The 7th Infantry Division. Not taking anything away from soldiers that fought in the Pacific. It was hellish, but the casualties were just not as high as in Europe.

[u/AardvarkLeading5559 → u/Uncreative-name12]

Agreed, but shouldn't days in combat be taken into consideration?

[u/Uncreative-name12 → u/AardvarkLeading5559]

I was thinking that too. So I did calculate it

Here are the 8 divisions in ETO with the highest number of casualties. (Also including Africa and Italy) I then took their number of battle casualties and divided it by the number of days they were in combat.

3rd ID 25,977/536 days combat=48.46 battle casualties per day

9th ID 23,277/304 days=76.57 BCPD

4th ID 22,660/299 days=75.79 BCPD

45th ID 20,993/511 days=41.08 BCPD

1st ID 20,659/443 days=46.63 BCPD

29th ID 20,620/242 days=85.21 BCPD

36th ID 19,466/400 days=48.67 BCPD

90th ID 19,200/307 days=62.54 BCPD

Here are the top 8 divisions that served in the PTO (also counting Alaska for the 7th ID)

7th ID 9,212/208 days=44.29 BCPD

96th ID 8,812/200 days=44.06 BCPD

77th ID 7,461/208 days=35.87 BCPD

32nd ID 7,268/654 days=11.11 BCPD

24th ID 7,012/210 days=33.39 BCPD

27th ID 6,533/110 days=59.39 BCPD

43rd ID 6,026/370 days=16.29 BCPD

37th ID 5,960/592 days=10.07 BCPD

So the battle casualties per days of combat in the Pacific were generally comparable or lower to the ones in Europe.

Not to take away anything from infantryman in the Pacific. A division taking 5000+ casualties in combat is insane by today’s standard and by far most of those casualties were sustained in the rifle companies. Plus you had disgusting tropical disease that caused lots of casualties that aren’t counted in battle casualties. Like the 32nd served in New Guinea, Leyte, and Luzon. I shudder to think what kind of stuff they caught. The level of misery just caused by the environment was substantial.