Circa 400 BC | Armenia (Xenophon) | ‘Cold’ cause of approximately 6,000 (60%) casualties |
218 BC | Hannibal crossing the Alps | 19,000 (50%) survived from 38,000 |
1719 | Swedish/Norwegian | 3,700 Swedish dead from a force of 5,000; 600 permanently crippled from frostbite |
1778 | American War of Independence | Up to 10% of casualties in some battles |
1812 | Napoleonic/Russian campaign | 100,000 KIA; 200,000 DNBI (majority from cold injury and hypothermia); 12,000 men from the 12th Division all perished except for 350 |
1854–1856 | Crimean War | 2,000 cold injured out of 50,000 |
1861–1865 | American Civil War | 15,000 cold injury casualties |
1870–1871 | Franco/Prussian | 1,450 CI |
1899–1902 | Boer War | ‘Many with cold injuries’ |
1904–1905 | Russo/Japanese | ‘Staggering numbers’ |
1912 | Balkans | ‘Many cold casualties’ |
1914–1918 | World War I | British 115,361; French 79,000; Italians 38,000; Germans (number unknown) but had special hospitals dedicated to treating cold injuries (distinction between freezing and non-freezing injury, ‘Trench Foot’, was first made) |
1939–1945 | World War II | Western Europe: British 500; Americans 91,000 |
Italian campaign, winter 1943–1944: British 102 cold injury casualties (ratio 1:45); | ||
Americans 4,560 (ratio 1:4) | ||
At sea, ‘Immersion Foot’ was first described | ||
Russian Front: Germans massive casualties (special cold injury hospitals) | ||
Attu (Aleutians): US Marines 1,200 in a 15-day period of conflict with a ratio of 1:1 with battle casualties |