Casualty Reports (KIA, WIA, MIA)

Casualty reports provided details about every soldier who was killed, wounded, or listed as missing in action during the course of the war. In the post-war years, the men of the 103rd Infantry Division Association created additional casualty lists for the men who became Prisoners of War (POW’s) and where they were detained during the course of the war. For the POW only lists, they have the name of the soldier, the date that they were put on the original reports and their original status (most of whom were MIA), and the prisoner of war camp that individual was imprisoned in.

The purpose of the casualty reports for the military is to help with accountability, and to know where all of the soldiers that were assigned to the unit were at each day the division and each specific unit was engaged in combat. These reports were also used to help a unit or division determine how many soldiers that they needed to obtain from the replacement depot in order to remain at fighting strength. Because of the dual importance of accountability and logistics, the casualty reports were extremely important and had to be kept up to date each day.

On the original casualty reports that were created during the war, each regiment or battalion had a master casualty report created each month that was broken up by company, serviceman’s name and ASN, and the “type and date of casualty” if known. On the casualty reports that were created by the men of the 103rd Association after the war, there was additional information about internment in POW camps for those who that information applied to.