|
 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!
RAF Bomber
Command Memorial - see
photo
- on 28 June 2012:
Queen unveils RAF - * Veterans -
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 www.airmen.dk are from Bomber Command and many are
from United States Army Air Forces. Over DK, see
Airmen 1946.
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)
55,573 aircrew from Bomber Command
were killed. A further 9,784 were shot down and taken prisoner.
Source: Max Hastings: Bomber Command
RAF Bomber
Command Losses of the Second World War, Roll of Honour 1939-47, Volume 9,
Appendix 1 Casualty Statistics, p 484:
38,462 Royal Air Force -
See Peter Andrew Kleboe
9,919 Royal Canadian Air Force
- See Joseph Melvin Hicks
4,050 Royal Australian Air Force
- See Carl Richard Kelaher
1,679 Royal New Zealand Air Force
- See John Matthew Biggar
929
Polish Air Force - See Jan Madracki.
473 Other allied Air Forces
(e.g. French, Czech etc.) - and some Norwegians, see
Herman Hirsch Becker.
34
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.
27 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, 58,000 were killed including over 10,400 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 AAF, operating
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.
It could be fatal to be shot down, but some airmen survived. The number of
escape exits was vital! See Lancaster Bomber
emergency exits.
Survival rate of those who were shot down: Lancaster: 18.8%. Halifax: 34.7%.
About 50% bailed out from B-17s
and B-24s.
(Source: Royal Air Force Magazine 1995)
On 17 AUG 1943 36 of 230 B-17s and 5 fighters were lost on a mission to
Schweinfurt. 68 airmen perished and 248 were captured. Survival rate 78.5
%.
(Source: Militærhistorie 10/2010 p. 49, a magazine in Danish) In
www.airmen.dk four sets of numbers can be
compared:
Airmen from a B-17: 677 of which 318 survived,
survival rate 47.0 %. Airmen from a Lancaster:
694 of which 87 survived, survival rate 12.5 %.
B-24: 132 of
which 42 survived, survival rate 31,8 Halifax:
502 of which 87 survived, survival rate 17,3 %.
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