|
Replies: 11
| visibility 1,721
|
Hall of Famer [22127]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 5026
Joined: 2/25/13
|
WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 8:34 PM
|
|
The most recent data I have seen (Sept 2019) show 380,292 WW2 veterans still living. This equates to about 2.36% of the 16,112,566 who served. It is estimated that 294 WW2 veterans die each day, a total of about`107,310 this year.
Assuming the minimum age of someone serving at the end of hostilities in 1945 to be 18, the youngest WW2 veterans still surviving would be about 92. Of course there will some who will survive well into their hundreds but those numbers will be quite small.
|
|
|
|
 |
All-In [27366]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 26233
Joined: 9/19/11
|
They could serve at 17 with both parents signatures.
Nov 26, 2019, 8:48 PM
|
|
My dad volunteered near the end of the war. Lucky for me it ended before he went overseas. Unfortunately he passed away a few years ago.
You're right, it won't be long before they're all gone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
CU Guru [1468]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 437
Joined: 11/18/99
|
Re: They could serve at 17 with both parents signatures.
Nov 26, 2019, 8:53 PM
|
|
My Dad, ‘49’ was D Day+6. He passed away in 2006. A member of The Greatest Generation Ever. God Bless Them...
|
|
|
|
|
|
Freshman [-72]
TigerPulse: 61%
Posts: 329
Joined: 8/22/19
|
I had a WW2 vet cousin that just passed away at 95...
Nov 26, 2019, 8:53 PM
|
|
his plane went down behind enemy lines in Europe after his plane was shot up 400 times. It was thought he didn’t make it through, so my father was named after him
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orange Blooded [4142]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 4935
Joined: 3/30/03
|
Re: I had a WW2 vet cousin that just passed away at 95...
Nov 26, 2019, 9:56 PM
|
|
That was one helluva plane . And that was one helluva cousin .
|
|
|
|
|
|
Legend [16412]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 14899
Joined: 1/26/99
|
Alarming, but still staggering to me to think that we
Nov 26, 2019, 8:54 PM
|
|
still have that many heroes at 92+ years of age walking among us.
Joe, in 6 months, you will have outlived my WWII vet grandfather by 50 years.
|
|
|
|
|
|
CU Medallion [67611]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 115373
Joined: 11/30/98
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 9:10 PM
|
|
I was raised by one for 14 years before he passed. I wish I had been a more obedient son and listened more carefully to what he said. I miss him every day.
|
|
|
|
|
|
CU Guru [1273]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 1561
Joined: 2/9/15
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 9:51 PM
|
|
My father passed away twenty years ago at the age of 85. He landed on Omaha with Patton's 3rd Army on D-Day +14 - his 30th birthday, June 20 (the thought never crossed his mind...) He (Joe Hogan) had graduated Miami, Ohio, and was working as the "fair haired child", for IBM on Madison Ave. in NYC in 1943, where he met my mother. His number never came up at the time, but my mother remembers hanging out in restaurants and clubs with all these girls giving her hard looks, like, "why isn't your guy over there doing what my guy's doing...?" He enlisted in Dec.'43, they were married Jan 11, 1944, and he fought through Normandy, battle of the bulge, etc., all the way to the end without a single day of not being in combat. He was "the old man" in his unit, but he survived and raised three successful children, and has left a heritage of no-nonsense determination in us all. Yeah, the greatest generation, indeed.
Go Joe 21, go "the memory of my dad and all who served with him", and GO TIGERS!!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orange Blooded [3370]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 5017
Joined: 4/12/01
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 9:23 PM
|
|
So, unfortunately based on the numbers you cite, after 3 years and 198 days, none will be left. Sincerely hope many are able to beat those statistics and you are among them. Wish two of my cousins who served then had been able to live to this day. One who jumped with the 82nd on D-day did have a reasonably long life while the other died in his B-17 in 1944 on the way to bomb the Peenemunde rocket factory.
|
|
|
|
|
|
110%er [6966]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 6345
Joined: 9/21/04
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 10:28 PM
|
|
There will be all always be statistical anomalies. I’ll be willing to bet at least 100 vets will live to be over 110 years old so they’ll be with us for at least another 18 years. The last world war 1 vet didn’t die until 2012!
|
|
|
|
|
|
CU Guru [1510]
TigerPulse: 94%
Posts: 2314
Joined: 1/14/05
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 9:49 PM
|
|
I went to The Citadel where our president and a number of others involved with the school were WW2 vets. I thought then that they were pretty impressive but have since come to understand those folks, and even many who didnt serve but were if that generation were heroes.
think about that for a second and how fortunate we were to have been influenced by that crowd. wow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Orange Blooded [2064]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 1008
Joined: 11/25/14
|
Re: WW2 Vet Numbers Shrinking Rapidly
Nov 26, 2019, 10:02 PM
|
|
My dad is a WWII Marine vet. Fought on Saipan and Iwo Jima. Served in the same outfit as Lee Marvin. I’ve been missing him since 1990. It’s sad to think all these heroes will be gone one day. God bless you Joe and your whole generation.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Replies: 11
| visibility 1,721
|
|
|
50
