Casualties of World War II

[INFO AT TREGENNA]

Casualties of World War II

Source: Weinberg, Global History of World War II
(90% of German casualties were on the eastern front).

Casualties

USSR 20-25 million
China 15 million
Poland 6 million
Yugoslavia 2 million
United Kingdom 400,000 thousand
United States 300,000 thousand
Germany 4 million
Japan 2 million

Total approximately 50 million

[INFO AT TREGENNA]

Merchant shipping was of overwhelming importance in the two World Wars. Great Britain possessed the largest merchant navy of this period and was dependent on her merchant marine supplying commodities such as food, oil, munitions and raw materials. Merchant ships also transported men and equipment to operational theatres and maintained essential logistical support.

The convoy system for allied merchant ships, established in 1917, was re-introduced in the Second World War. Merchant shipping losses were heavy and new classes of standardized ships were built to replace them. Britain lost 9 million tons in the First World War (approximately half the 1914 merchant fleet) and 11 million tons in the Second World War, near 60 per cent of the 1939 merchant fleet. Far more grievous was the loss of more than 60,000 merchant seamen.