How Many American soldiers were wounded at the World War 2?

Answer 1

There is no way to give a precise number of which I am aware. Generally, in an infantry unit of foot soldiers, about four men are wounded for every man killed. In WWII however, unless the wound was serious enough to disable a man for further combat service, as soon as he was healed up enough, he had to go back to the front. This would be three to four weeks for a simple gunshot wound that didn't hit the bone or damage nerves, and about that much time for shell fragments. So, many men were wounded four or five times. For a time there was a policy in Europe that after a certain amount of time in the hospital a soldier could be sent back to the front to any unit in need of men, instead of back to his old outfit. The men hated this, and many left the hospital before fully healed, sometimes without orders, to get back to their buddies. A man in combat without friends is in a very bad situation. Sadly, in four weeks, he might find few familiar faces. Most Americans killed or wounded in the war were riflemen, and we really did not have that many of them. In units that saw a lot of heavy action for extended time periods, there would be almost complete turnover. A few wily old hands might remain. But after about eight months total of actual combat at the front, most men were no longer effective, on average. Some made it longer than that. But there were very, very few riflemen who were in that job at the start, who were still around at the finish, if their unit saw much action.

All that being said, there is an estimate of the number of Purple Heart Medals awarded in WWII, from a 2009 National Geographic history. That history says that the number given is only an estimate, as exact records were not always kept, and not all records survive. An additional problem is that a man was only supposed to get the actual Purple Heart Medal for a wound from enemy action one time. If he was wounded by the enemy again he was supposed to get an Oak Leaf Cluster - a pin of tiny bronze leaves, to wear on the ribbon of his Purple Heart. So for each subsequent wounding after the first, he was supposed to get these Oak Leaf Clusters, and its unclear whether this number is only actual Medals awarded, or does the number include Oak Leaf Clusters. The number seems low to me, so I am guessing this number is an estimate of only actual Medals, and makes no accounting of Oak Leaf Clusters (but sometimes, while in the hospital, men were given a second Medal, and NOT an OLC). And of course this number does not include men wounded or killed by friendly fire, or injured in accidents. A man killed by the enemy was also entitled to the Purple Heart. The number given in this history is 1,076,245. Since over 400,000 Americans died, most by enemy action, this number indicates that less than 700,000 were wounded, but lived. I think that FAR understates the actual number. My guess would be that probably somewhere around 1,200,000 to 1,500,000 Americans were wounded at least once, in all branches of the service. That's out of over 16 million who served.