Talk:World War II casualties/Archives/2019/March

On the UK WWII Deaths Calculations

I spent a little time looking at the stats for UK WWII deaths in the article.

A fundamental difficulty here, which I believe might make this calculation incorrect is the conflation of what is considered the UK. Many articles referencing this Wikipedia article simply use the figure as 'United Kingdom'.

Firstly, the calculation before my last edit stated 'UK Including British Colonies' now ('Crown Colonies'), which would include would include, at the time India unless I'm understanding the term wrong.

The statistics on deaths are drawn from page 39 of the 2014 annual commonwealth war graves report, which states india, canada and other parts of the wider british empire separately. It appears, then that the identified graves and memorials under United Kingdom were added together to get the current 383.758 war deaths currently in the article.

The statistics on the population of the UK at the beginning of WWI were drawn from this website which has sections for data for 'the whole country' and for 'administrative division prior to 1974'. The population of the UK used in the table, 47,760,000 appears to be, in essence only the British Isles, as implied by: "Until 1922 only figures of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland); from 1922 onwards Northern Ireland is included.". The 'administrative division prior to 1974' page has a more accurate breakdown which shows the stats not including any of the crown colonies.

The statisics on the number of civilian war dead come from the same report as military war deaths, but from the previous year. This report doesn't actually state the number of civilian war dead, only that 67,000 are commemerated in the Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour in Westminster Abbey, London.

The best source on the Civilian War Dead Roll of Honour is Westminster Abbey's own page on the roll of honour. Though I don't know how much of a difference it makes, it does state that several hundred were added later based on further research. More importantly, I'm unsure whether the Roll is explicitly for deaths of those born in the british isles vs those in the commonwealth realms as stated in the war graves commission report, as the Westminster Abbey page on the document says they're listed first by county, then by local government area -- I'd expect some mention of country otherwise.

In conclusion, it seems that the calculation is true for the United Kingdom, but I'm not sure about the crown colonies. If there were any larger crown colonies at the time, they would not have been factored into the UK census calculations used.

I've updated the citations with better links to the referenced material and more detail on where these statistics come from. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zemnmez (talk • contribs) 18:57, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

On Wikipedia we can only report what the source tells us. If you bore down into the details on the CWWGC website you will see casualties from the various Crown Colonies, East and West Africa, Malaya, Burma ect. As Wikipedia editors we cannot second guess the CWWGC, we will need a reliable source that will support your speculations.--Woogie 10w (talk) 20:00, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

If there is a more detailed breakdown of these statistics the CWWGC website, I'd rather base the statistics on that. The current statistics are based on the somewhat nebulous 'United Kingdom' designation where it occasionally intersects with the crown dominions, protectorates and colonies Zemnmez (talk) 20:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

The population data is a bit tricky, since the casualties of the colonies casualties were only a about 30,000, including the total population of the Empire would be misleading since only a tiny portion of the Crown Colonies population served.--Woogie 10w (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2019 (UTC)

A few years ago I contacted the CWWGC and inquired about a detailed breakout of the casualties of the colonies They did not respond. This is a bit tricky, a white officer in the West African forces would be from the UK proper and be listed with the colonial forces regiments. In the past Wikipedia editors wanted to take an estimated percentage of the total UK casualties and include them with Ireland!--Woogie 10w (talk) 20:24, 5 March 2019 (UTC)