‘A history of the peoples of the British Isles’, By Thomas William Heyck, Stanford E. Lehmberg
(WWI) “The British lost 750,000 men in combat, about 9 percent of all men under the age of 45. The upper and middle classes lost more men *proportionally* than the working class. About 12 percent died, but 15 percent of officers and 17 percent of flying officers. Over 19 percent of Oxford students and graduates who served died, and 18 percent of those from Cambridge. 35 fellows of the Royal Academy, 55 from the Royal Institute of Chemistry. Likewise, prominent businessmen, professionals, scholars, and politicians perished.”
What I take complete exception to, as the grandson and nephew of British ww2 survivors, was your offensive remark about those who were left: ‘weaklings’ etc. A remark so ludicrous I am still unsure its meant to be serious.
The men of Britain who were left in 1945 were heroes, good men, who were and still are ten times the man you are. Or I for that matter. HOW DARE you make such insulting comments about any of the men who survived that war.
Far from being the dregs, these were the men who rebuilt a shattered Britain in the late 1940’s and made it a great country again. These were the men who built businesses, raised families, worked long hours and unlike today saw such as their duty and responsibility, and unlike today didnt whine about it.
Do you also think that the GI’s left after 1945 were similar?. Or the Canadians, Aussies, New Zealanders, Irish, South Africans?....
Your comment managed to simultaneously be ludicrous and offensive. Congratulations.
The upper classes may have taken a disproportinate number of dead in ww1, but ‘most’ were not wiped out. This myth has been reexamined by modern British historians in books like the classic ‘Bloody Red Tabs’, which shatters the myth of ‘an entire generation wiped out’.
But a soldier’s chance of dying is lower if they have a higher IQ, lower if they are physically fit, lower if they are good leaders, lower if they have a good sense of humor, and so on, and so on.