When war is fought in a region and the death toll hits 5 digits or more, what are the contemporary on-the-ground logistics for dealing with that many bodies in a war-torn region? Do warring factions prioritize removing their dead? What are the strategies for limiting disease and vermin?
In: 5
Varies massively with nation and even more with the situation. A quick Google turned up the US DoD [manual on the laws of war](https://dod.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/DoD%20Law%20of%20War%20Manual%20-%20June%202015%20Updated%20Dec%202016.pdf?ver=2016-12-13-172036-190) in its December 2016 version. Pages 455-457 are the relevant reading but in summary: Identify the deceased, determine cause of death, bury individually and according to the deceased’s religion as far as practical and return personal effects to next of kin.
This varies a lot. Each war and each battle is very different so the logistics is handled differently. In most wars the lines of battle move too fast for dead bodies to become a problem. The front lines will move quickly on and the dead can be handled by either the civilian population or by the rear military logistics. If the front lines gets bogged down for some time then the transport of dead bodies is generally not a high enough priority as food, ammunition, wounded, defenses, reinforcements, etc. take priority over dead bodies. So the front line troops might end up burying bodies in shallow graves and mark them so they can be moved after the battle.
There are some rare battles that have taken place over months with the same areas near the front lines. Dead bodies can be a problem in these as they can spread disease, feed vermin and make life unpleasant for the soldiers. When there are lulls in the battle, for example at night, then soldiers would often take it upon themselves to remove dead bodies. Preferably carrying them back to where the logistics can take them away but a lot were buried in shallow graves close to where they fell. But again the fighting takes priority over the dead so bodies could be left out in the open for the duration of the battle.
There have also been some ceasefires to take care of dead and wounded. These are the exceptions though and are usually noted prominently in the history books as an exceptional show of compassion.
The US is exceptional in that they prioritize the collection and identification of own dead soldiers quite high. This started in WWI where dead bodies on the battlefield was a big problem already and the US entered the war with relatively little support among the population. So they set up own logistics unit to collect and identify the dead and if possible ship them home, and if not then give them a full proper burial. And this practice continues on to this day and if anything the priorities are even more shifted towards collecting their dead. In a lot of cases soldiers would even risk their own lives in order to not leave a dead body behind.
It depends on a lot of factors. Where the battle is happening and a big one. For example when US sailors would die at sea during ww2 they would be draped in a American flag and dumped into the ocean. In other battles bodies are simply left there. Usually this only happens in cases like Stalingrad where’s building by building fighting. I mean they still find bodies in Volgograd (Stalingrad was renamed to this) from the battle of Stalingrad
In low-intensity conditions, the army deals with bodies individually, bagging them and putting them in coffins and shipping them home to their families, perhaps embalmed on the way to prevent rotting. In high-intensity conditions, this becomes too much trouble to deal with and they resort to burying soldiers on the spot in graveyards they hastily dig. In *very* high-intensity conditions, they won’t be digging individual marked graves in a graveyard, they’ll just be digging a giant mass grave.
>Do warring factions prioritize removing their dead?
Yes. Historically it’s crucial for morale that armies not leave their dead laying out in the air to rot. They try to carry back their dead when they can, and sometimes temporary local truces are agreed between the two enemy sides to allow each side to return to a battlefield to collect their dead. If no truce is declared, the enemy who occupies the territory has a legal responsibility to bury the dead in as organized and dignified a fashion possible. In the Geneva Convention it is considered a war crime to disrespect or dismember enemy corpses (meaning like hanging the bodies from trees or putting their heads on pikes), as well as to leave the bodies out to rot. You’re supposed to put at least some effort into documenting and burying the bodies. In general though, if your body gets left behind on the battlefield, you’ll probably be recorded as “Missing in Action”. The enemy rarely puts in the effort to like write down where individual bodies were buried and send their dog tags home at the end of the war.
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