AUSTRALIA’S LOSSES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1758, 29 November 1917, Page 3

AUSTRALIA’S LOSSES.

ANZACS’ DESPERATE VALOUR. ONLY 2.5 PRISONERS. According to the official return issued by the Federal Defence Department, 117,284 members of the Australian Imperial Forces are out of action. The details are melancholy, reading, yet the nature of the list must fill Australians with pride. For example, of all that great number of those who have suffered that their country and the Empire may be free, only 2.5 per cent, have yielded themselves as prisoners. Here is the whole list reduced to percentages Percentage Total. of total. Dead 36,369 31.0 Wounded .... 50;155 42.9 Missing ...... 1,616 1.4 Sick 25,963 22.2 Prisoners .... 2,933 2.5 In these numbers all classes —officers, other ranks, chaplains, and nurses —are taken together. In the military hierarchy (hoy differ, but they rank alike in the affection of their fellow-Austrnlians. ■ The enormous percentage of the dead to the wounded is one of the most striking elements in the return," and shows the desperate valour with which the Australian soldier fights. Where three have made the last sacrifice, four have been wounded in action. Sickness has claimed many. Against the insanitary conditions of Gallipoli the preventive measures taken proved unavailing, and what, in other days would have been considered whole armies fell victims to disease. Even now 25,963 men, or 22 per cent, of the whole casualty list, are disabled by sickness.