America's Home Front

Neither the European theatre where they fought the German war machine, nor the Pacific, where they were locked in deadly combat with the Japanese, was the most lethal area of operations for Americans during the Second World War. In both theatres combined, some 200,000 Americans died in combat. Yet a third front - the home front - was the site of some 300,000 fatalities due to industrial accidents (see Geoffrey Perrett's book Days of Sadness, Years of Triumph, in which he cites statistics on industrial accidents from official figures issued for 1942-46).