The single most important determinant of camp survival was the number of men in POW camps. If everyone had been in a camp holding 7,500 men, survival probabilities would have been less than 60 percent instead of more than 80 percent. With greater camp populations survival probabilities would have been even lower. Another important determinant of camp survival was age. Had all men been of Thomas Withington’s age (47), only 70 percent of them would have survived. The next most important determinants of camp survivial were the number of friends, rank, and height. Men who were not either commissioned or noncommissioned officers fared poorly, as did those with no friends and those of Hnery Haven’s height.
Of course that is from the Civil War and it is from the new book by Dora Costa and Matthew Kahn. Here is my previous post about the book, see also the links suggested by Matt in the comments. You can buy the book here.
I can’t help using this as an excuse to give my favorite quote:
“In camp too, a man might draw the attention of a comrade working next to him to a nice view of the setting sun shining through the tall trees of the Bavarian woods (as in the famous water color by Dürer), the same woods in which we had built an enormous, hidden munitions plant. One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, ‘How beautiful the world could be!’
Whups, the positive correlation between mortality and camp size is in there, just slightly obscured
Either it’s poor quoting, or it’s poor writing
Or poor reading.
Whoops.
Yeah, what about that reverse causality between survival and number of friends? Living people can be really unsociable towards unliving people you know.
Hoe do you know sheis the Real DOra Costa?
And you need maturity too since you do the same
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