Monday, Apr. 17, 1944

CASUALTY FORECASTS

Last week Lieut. General Omar N. Bradley, senior U.S. ground-forces commander in Britain, surprised many a newsman and newsreader by publicly pooh-poohing talk of big casualties in connection with the invasion of Europe. Said he, in a speech to U.S. officers:

"This stuff about tremendous losses is tommyrot.... When the time comes you will be surprised by the naval gunfire and air power we have. Some of you won't come back, but it will be very few. In the Tunisian campaign we lost only an average of three or four men to 1,000, and certainly seeing a show like this ought to be worth that chance."

General Bradley's optimism was in sharp contrast to solemn warnings emanating, all through the winter of 1943-44, from top U.S. and British officials and experts. Notable warnings:

A Government Spokesman (later identified as OWMobilizer Jimmy Byrnes) said last December that in the next three months, with the invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe in prospect, casualties might run up to three times what they had been (at that time, 130,000).

Winston Churchill, talking in the House of Commons, warned that he could not guarantee an end of the European War in 1944. President Roosevelt, in a press conference, said that went for him, too.

General Marshall, broadcasting to the nation in February, said: "I feel that here at home we are not yet facing the realities of war, the savage, desperate conditions of the battle fronts."

Assorted High Allied Military Authorities (talking off the record last winter to newsmen with good ears): "We really ought to be braced to stand several hundred thousand casualties."

Eddie Rickenbacker, World War I ace and, on occasion, envoy extraordinary for Secretary of War Stimson: "Sorrow will come to a million American homes."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.