The Second World Wars

The subtitle is How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, and the author is Victor Davis Hanson. I loved this book, even though before I started I felt I didn’t want to read yet another tract on WWII. Most of the focus is on the logistics and management side:

By 1944, the US Navy was larger than the combined fleets of all the other major powers.

At the start of the War, the United States accounted for 60% of world oil output.

The US soldier was treated for psychiatric disorders at a rate 10x that of German troops. The average hospital stay for an American soldier was 117 days and 36% were not returned to the front. Supplies for a typical American soldier exceeded 36 kg per day.

The German army killed ~1.5 GIs for every German soldier lost.

The highest American fatality rate was in the Pacific, at 4%, still a remarkably low rate for the war as a whole. America did so well because of high gdp and remarkably efficient supply lines and equipment and air and naval support.

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