The casualties encompassed every hemisphere and included Linn Farrish, an American rugby gold medalist who operated in occupied Yugoslavia and was executed in 1943; American bobsleigher Billy Fisk, who won two gold medals in 1928 and 1932, volunteered for the Royal Air Force and was killed in a crash landing; rower John Lander, who became Britain's sole gold medallist to be killed in the war during the attack on Hong Kong; Egyptian Farid Simaika, a silver and bronze medallist diver, who joined the US Air Force and was reportedly executed by "headhunters" or Japanese soldiers in Indonesia; and Takeichi, Baron Nishi, a Japanese gold medalist equestrian killed in Iwo Jima.
In Asia, a number of Olympians succumbed to mistreatment and privations rife in Japanese camps, such as Eric Liddell, whose exploits in the 1924 Olympics would be depicted in the movie "Chariots of Fire;" Dutch field hockey players Jan Ankerman, Emile Duson, and August Kop, who won silver in 1928; and Fillipino bronze medallist swimmer Teófilo Yldefonso, who survived the Bataan death match only to die in Capas.
North American sports, unlike in 1914-18, had players enlist en masse with consequent disruption to the leagues and loss of life: Major League Baseball lost Elmer Gedeonin (outfielder, Washington) and Harry O'Neill (catcher, Philadelphia), while 116 Minor Leaguers would never have an opportunity to become major leaguers.
The National Hockey League would mourn Canadian Red Garrett and American Joe Turner, while of the more than 900 American Football players and staff who served, 23 died, with New York Giants end Jack Lummus a posthumous recipient of the Medal of Honor.
For Nazi Germany, which had reduced the 1936 Berlin Olympics to a platform designed to promote "Aryan" supremacy and propaganda, many of its sportsmen died, including gold medallist rower Hugo Strauß, wrestler Georg Gehring, football internationals Ala Urban and Karl Wallmüller (Austrian), and runner Luz Long, who famously finished second to Jesse Owens in 1936.
Italy would degenerate into an effective civil war epitomised by the deaths of two footballers: Dino Fiorini, a Bolonga defender who was shot by partisans, and Bruno Neri, of Fiorentina and Torino, who was killed by the German Army.
After the surrender of the Axis powers, the world attempted to return to a state of relative normality after six traumatic years. A new generation of athlete would emerge from the war itself when some British veterans participated in a competition organised in 1948 by Dr. Ludwig Guttman for hospital patients with spinal cord injuries. That competition evolved into the Paralympics, first officially hosted in 1960, in Rome.
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