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Nautikos
Exactly, this is only a small proportion of the world war casualties. It also shows how the Germans raids on London spurred the allies on to develop more efficient bombs and delivery systems, which is why we always have to watch out for the results of our actions.
Incidentally, my wife's family was associated with two major raids - her father was in Coventry on the night of the raid (his father was an Air Raid Warden and was seriously injured by a bomb that night) and her mother was one of the school children sent to help out at Hiroshima.
posted by
wislon
on February 3, 2006 at 6:59 AM
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Trevor
By the time the war came we had taken precautions - people had shelters in the garden/backyard, there were public shelters and many slept in the Underground stations. Here in Nottingham they used the cave system as a shelter. One of our neighbours still has the Anderson shelter in the garden; it is linked to the house by a tunnel because her grandmother was disabled and sheltered in the reinforced cellar during alerts.
posted by
wislon
on February 3, 2006 at 6:49 AM
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wislong - Conversley once a number gets TOO big, people start ingnoring it
again (referring to my earlier comment on another post about the value of big round numbers to draw attention). We estimate the total loss of life in WWII to within a million or so. Isn't that absolutely horrific? But to a dead individual one is a big as the number can get.
posted by
blogflogger
on February 2, 2006 at 1:07 PM
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Great post, Wislon. You've pointed out some interesting facts in your post, as well as showing a different perception of the numbers involved. It's sad when any soldier is killed and everyone should be remembered in the same way.
posted by
gingerassasin
on February 2, 2006 at 12:51 PM
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You're making a a valid point Wislon...
and, Trevor, this is only about the
servicemen killed, not civilians. As far as the bombing of London is concerned, it was a tea party compared to what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and earlier in cities like Hamburg and Dresden. Overall casualties in WWII, on both sides? Hard to determine exactly, although a figure of 35 million wouldn't be far off, especially if you consider the roughly 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust.
posted by
Nautikos
on February 2, 2006 at 10:34 AM
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That's a huge number.
I still expected more for some reason. I think that's because of the reading I did about the bombing of London in World War II. It sounded pretty relentless.
posted by
Trevor_Cunnington
on February 2, 2006 at 10:13 AM
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