Letters

Civilian Deaths in World War II

To the Editors:

Glen Jeansonne's otherwise engaging essay "A Half-Century of Paradox, 1900-1945" (January 2012) contains a widespread misconception about the number of home front accidental civilian deaths during World War II. Jeansonne states that "we would lose more workers to industrial accidents on the home front than in battle during World War II." This erroneous factoid has also appeared on History Channel programs and in the blogosphere. In fact, according to the National Safety Council, about 85,000 civilians died in industrial accidents during the war. The most commonly accepted figure for military deaths during the war is about 416,000. Andrew Kersten's Labor's Home Front: The American Federation of Labor during World War II (New York University Press, 2006), chapter 6, is an excellent source on this subject.