Number of operational deaths for the UK armed forces 1945-2023
conflicts: the Malayan Emergency, the 1951 Anglo-Egyptian War and the Korean War. Between 1959 and 2009 there were only three years that had more than 100 operational deaths: 1972, 1973 and 1982. The spike in deaths in the early 1970s were the result of the political violence in Northern Ireland at the time, and 237 of the 297 deaths in 1982 happened during the Falklands War. Over this period there have been a total of 7,192 British military deaths in conflicts.
Since 1945, the deadliest year for British Armed forces was 1951, when there were 851 operational deaths. This was due to three separate