Bombing casualty figures in occupied territories

[Ruy Horta]

Does anyone know if any research has been done into the (total) civilian casualty figures in the occupied countries (mainly western europe) due to allied bombing?

Going one step further is there any statistical data available on civilian casualties figures in the occupied countries due to allied action (aerial bombing, but also ground action during liberation etc)?

Just curious how those figures relate to the total casualty figures in these countries (as in due to the German occupation and military action etc).

[Leendert]

Hello Ruy,

Perhaps this link is a start: http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

The notion of civilian casualties due to Allied bombings applies to my own family: my grandfather was killed in a RAF raid against the German E-boat bunkers at IJmuiden in August 1944.
But of course without the occupation there would have been no bombardment....

Groet,

Leendert

[Laurent Rizzotti]

The book "Quand les Alliés bombardaient la France" (When Allied bombed France) gives the number of 67 078 civilians killed by air raids. This is coming from official reports according to the author.

The precision of the number is making me smile. Extensive studies have been made for the departements of Normandie listing civilian casualties during the battle of Normandy, and in each of them hundred of civilian just went missing, while tens or hundred of corpses were buried as unknown.

I have also not been able to find if this number is just for victims of Allied raids, or also including the victimes of German and Italian bombs in 1940 (and in 1944-45, where they killed some hundred of people).

I also think that these numbers are not including the victims in the various French colonies that were bombed during the war (according to one source, 752 civilians were killed in Tunisia by Allied bombs, while thousand were killed by American bombs in French Indochina between 1942 and 1945).

But my opinion is that between 60 and 70 000 people were killed in France by Allied bombs, and that is roughly 20% of the civilian losses of the country.

[Mirek Wawrzynski]

The only know city is Warsaw, which has a small study concenring Soviet air attack (7 or 8) done between 23 VI 1941 and the end of 1943. This study does not include next few air attack done in VII 1944.
So only Soviet attack on Warsaw had made about a few hundred killed and next several hundred injured Poles.
I do not heard about Allied attack against Gdynia, Poznań (Posen), or other Polish town in Upper Silesia in 1943, 1944.

There were no general study about total losses among Polish civil population during Allied attack, some of our territory was also included into Germany one (cities like: Poznań, Łódź etc.)

This subject is almost still unknow.

Regard
mw

[Jaap Woortman]

Ruy,

For the Netherlands there is Luchtgevaar with in an appendix a survey of
civilian losses. See attachment.

Jaap