Loss of Lives in the Air War                              See Danish version           Updated:  01 JUN 2010

On the base of the statue of Sir Arthur Harris more than 55,000 men from Bomber Command who lost their lives are mentioned in the inscription.
The war 1939-45 was really a World War. Allied forces fought against the Germans, supported by the Americans. More than a British/German showdown!

Some of the main sections of the Royal Air Force: Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Coastal Command and Transport Command.
Most of the airmen mentioned in Allied Airmen - Allierede flyvere 1939-45 DK are from Bomber Command and many are from United States Army Air Force.

Bomber Command losses September 1939 - May 1945: 47,268 men killed on operations. Another 8,303 killed in flying or training accidents, total
55,571
. Another 1,570 groundcrew and WAAFs lost their lives from other causes. (Patrick Bishop: Bomber Boys, p. 389)

55,573 aircrew from Bomber Command were killed. A further 9,784 were shot down and taken prisoner. Source: Max Hastings: Bomber Command
55,358 says
RAF Bomber Command and the 8th & 9th US Army Air Forces’ Casualties and Losses in World War II section 6.
38,305 Royal Air Force -                     See Peter Andrew Kleboe
  9,887 Royal Canadian Air Force  -     See Joseph Melvin Hicks
  4,034 Royal Australian Air Force -     See Carl Richard Kelaher
  1,674 Royal New Zealand Air Force - See John Matthew Biggar
     924 Polish Air Force - See The Poles on the Front Lines with The combat went on. See Jan Madracki.
     473 Other allied Air Forces (e.g. French, Czech etc.) - and some Norwegians, see Herman Hirsch Becker.
       27 South African Air Force   Wikipedia-links about all of the Air Forces and links from www.airmen.dk to individual airmen. This is about people.
       34 Other Dominions                    

Of the volunteers who flew almost 60 % were killed. More details in Bomber Command´s Losses at Bomber Command Museum of Canada:
"The successes of Bomber Command were purchased at terrible cost. Of every 100 airmen who joined Bomber Command, 45 were killed, 6 were seriously wounded,
8 became Prisoners of War, and only 41 escaped unscathed (at least physically). Of the 120,000 who served, 55,573 were killed including over 10,000 Canadians.
Of those who were flying at the beginning of the war, only ten percent survived. It is a loss rate comparable only to the worst slaughter of the First World War trenches. Only the Nazi U-Boat force suffered a higher casualty rate. - During the RCAF's Halifax operations between March 1943 and February 1944, the average loss was
6,05%, producing a mere 16% survival rate (for a tour of 30 operations)."

Alone from 8 & 9 AAFoperating from bases in Great Britain, the United States Army Air Force lost from the 54,997 men of which 19,876 are classified
as died and 35,121 as "Missing, Interned and Captured".
See German POW-Camps.
The estimate
of the total number of died (i.e.killed) and missing (now presumed killed) on these operations becomes about 37,000.
Source: RAF Bomber Command and the 8th & 9th US Army Air Forces’ Casualties and Losses in World War II section 24.
See Happy Ending and Lester Schrenk from the USAAF. See American airmen, here 7 in the RCAF,
Airmen 1946, Planes and missions and Types of planes.