More than 550,000 men and women of Jewish faith served in the armed forces of the United States in the course of World War II, according to statistics made public today by the Bureau of War Records of the National Jewish Welfare Board.
The data is included in a new edition of “These Are The Facts,” which the Jewish Welfare Board is publishing this week. While the returns on casualties are not yet complete, close to 7,500 Jews are known to have died in service. The total number of casualties thus far definitely authenticated as Jewish approaches 25,000.
Calling attention to the fact that the number of Jews in service was the equivalent of 37 divisions, the Jewish Welfare Board discloses that close to 17,500 Jews in uniform were recipients of citations for valor and merit, and that they hold an aggregate of 33,446 awards. Jews served in every type of military activity, the figures show. Eighty percent of the 550,000 Jews were in the Army, 17 percent were in the Navy, two percent were in the Marine Corps, and one percent in the Coast Guard.
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