A total of nearly 50,000 awards for valor and meritorious service was received by Jewish men and women who served in the United States armed forces during World War II, it is revealed in the fifth issue of the Jewish Welfare Board booklet, “These Are the Facts,” published today. The publication also disclosed that 550,000 American Jews, or the equivalent of 37 divisions, served in the armed forces.
The total number of Jewish casualties reported to date, the J.W.B. said, is 38,338, of whom 11,000 are listed as dead. More than 80 percent of the Jews in service were in the Army, 17 percent in the Navy two percent in the Marine Corps, and one percent in the Coast Guard, the booklet notes, adding that more than one-third of all Jewish physicians in the United States served in the armed forces.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.