-
Appendix I: The Reckoning
- The University of Alabama Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
Appendix I: The Reckoning G Company arrived on Utah Beach on September 8, 1944, with a full complement of 187 enlisted men and six officers. By V-E Day, eight months later, 625 men had served in its ranks. Accounting for what happened to those young Americans on the battlefields of Europe provides an indication of the human costs of G Company's war. Following is a breakdown of the losses: K/A. Fifty-one members of G Company were killed on the battlefields of France, the Ardennes, and Germany; six more died of wounds (DOW) suffered on those battlefields, for a total of 57 combat deaths. W/A. A total of 183 G Company men suffered battle wounds serious enough to require hospitalization. Of these, 51 were able to return to duty before May 8, 10 of whom were wounded a second time. Total Lost to Enemy Action. Adding in two men who were taken prisoner and not liberated until the end of the war brings the total to 201 G Company personnel who were permanently lost because of enemy action . Trench Foot and Frostbite. Since trench foot was identified in the morning reports as an "illness" and frostbite as an "injury," one cannot be certain how many cases of each there were. Based on the season and the length of hospitalization, however, one can identify 116 cases of probable trench foot and 51 of frostbite. Only 24 of these men ever returned to G Company, making a total permanent loss of 143 men. S/W. At first the morning reports identified self-inflicted wounds as such, but around mid-November started reporting them under more benign designations. As a result, it is impossible to calculate the number of SIWs. From the early morning reports and specific mention of such incidents in the two journals, we can identify eight such cases. There were probably twice that many. Only one of the eight ever returned . Miscellaneous. The weather that helped cause trench foot and frost- Table 1. G Company's Losses by Replacement Draft Net Left On ReplaceLost to Total Rolls ment No. of WIA Enemy Trench FrostMen 8 May Group Men KIA WIA Twice Action Foot bite SIW Misc Transfer Lost 45 Original Co 193 30 70 (25)* 5 82t 45 (5)* 1 3 (1)* 7 21 153 40 Oct (2 grps) 11 2 6 (1) 7 - - - - 7 4 Nov 10 82 6 20 (1) 25 47 (5) 2 1 4 74 8 Nov 19 117 6 39 (10) 4 39 22 (1) 21 (3) 3 2 9 92 25 Dec 19 82 7 25 (9) 1 24 1 (1) 24 (8) 6 14 60 22 Jan (4 grps) 78 6 21 (5) 22 1 3 (1) 2 11 4 42 36 Mar (3 grps) 55 2 2 - - 3 5 50 Apr & May 7 - - - - - - - - 0 7 Totals 625 57 183 (51) 10 201 116 (12) 51 (12) 8 (1) 30 52 433 192 *The numbers in parentheses indicate the number of men who eventually returned to duty after being wounded in action or hospitalized with trench foot or frostbite. One SIW also returned to duty. tThis number includes two men taken prisoner by the Germans on 7 Nov 44. [35.172.193.238] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 02:43 GMT) APPENDIX I: THE RECKONING • 263 bite also undoubtedly contributed to the permanent loss of 17 men from illness as well as to innumerable temporary hospitalizations. There were also a number of losses from injury and accident, including three cases of accidental shooting, one of which was fatal. Thirty men were permanently lost to G Company from these miscellaneous causes. Transfers. Surprisingly, G Company lost 52 men from transfers to other units, including eight who were furloughed home in April 1945, and assigned to stateside outfits. Most of the other 44 went to rear echelon units. A number of these men appear to have been disciplinary problems. Table 1shows the losses broken down by original personnel and each subsequent replacement draft. Note the excessive losses the November 10 group of replacements suffered, with only eight of the original 82 still on the company rolls at the end of the war. The particularly high incidence of trench foot is an indication not only of the terrible weather conditions they were immediately thrown into but perhaps also the low state of morale, if we are to accept the opinion of the British poet and World War I memoirist Robert Graves that poor morale...