Deadliest Battles in U.S.History
1. Battle of Meuse-Argonne World War I: 26,277
2. Battle of the Bulge (WW2) 19,276
3. Battle of Okinawa (WW2) 12,513
4. Battle of Gettysburg (Civil) 7,863
5. Battle of Guadalcanal (WW2) 7,099
6. Battle of Iwo Jima (WW2) 6,821
7. Antietam (Civil) 3,654
8. Battle of Shiloh (Civil) 3,482
9. Bull Run II (Civil) 3,000
10. Battle of Saipan (WW2) 2,949
Some famous battles that do not make the list:
Dec. 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor: 2,403
Tet Offensive Vietnam War: 1536
Invasion of Normandy (WW2) 1,465
Famous Battles with few comparable deaths: 400 Colonists died at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Only 267 Died with Custer at the Little Big Horn. 183 Texans died in the Alamo. If you take out the yellow fever epidemic, only 379 U.S. Troops died in the entire Spanish –American War. The entire Persian Gulf War saw only 148 U.S. deaths.
The U.S. has had far fewer deaths than other countries in the same battles. The top 7 deadliest battles in world history have all been fought in Russia! Four Million people died in the sieges of Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad during World War II. That is more than all U.S. Deaths in all wars combined. In World War II, Russia lost 23 Million people and China lost 20 million while the U.S. lost 418,000.
Western culture places high value on Human life, and the sacrifice of large numbers of people is unthinkable. 140,000 Japanese died on Okinawa including 80,000 civilians who committed suicide rather than surrender. The willingness of Japanese citizens to take their own life gave the U.S. the push they needed to use the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As horrible as the bombings were, the 150,000 people who died is only a fraction of the total number of Japanese deaths that would have occurred in the Invasion of Japan.
March 30, 2009 at 4:08 pm |
What about the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest? How many Americans were lost in this battle. I have heard that there were very high casualties during the battle. Thanks for your answer.
Tom
March 30, 2009 at 5:36 pm |
Thanks for the post. There was an estimate of 33,000 Americans KIA in the Hurtgen Forest between Sept, 1944 and Feb, 1945. To me, it seems like more of an operational campaign than a singe battle, so I did not include Hurtgen on the list.
If this is considered a battle, then it would be the deadliest in U.S. history.