Flight Training accidents in WWII

[Ward Miller]

From the National WWII Museum US MILITARY CASUALTIES IN WORLD WAR II

Army and Air Force	318,274	565,861
Navy	62,614	37,778
Marines	24,511	68,207
Coast Guard	1,917	Unknown
TOTAL	407,316	671,278

Dave, what do the numbers represent? Killed? Accidents? Injured? What does column 1 represent? Column 2?

[Dave Siciliano]

That was done on my I-Phone. Here's a better copy. Unfortunately, the pilots of each service aren't shown separately. It's one of he issues in researching this. That's why I thought the paper posted above was so helpful. US Military Casualties in World War II

Army and Air Force	318,274	565,861
Navy	62,614	37,778
Marines	24,511	68,207
Coast Guard	1,917	Unknown
TOTAL	407,316	671,278

---

Merchant Marine Casualties

Died as POWs	37
Dead	5,662
Missing/Presumed Dead	4,780
Killed at Sea	845

[Ward Miller]

I just finished reading the entire report. Nice compilation of a lot of aircraft accidents during WWII. The tables at the end are worth saving for future discussions.

I'm reminded of the description I read many years ago about a raid on Europe before precision bombing became the rule. One hundred bombers, 1,000 men, went on a daylight raid. When the crews saw the lead bomber drop his bombs, they would drop theirs. Just the lead bombardier called the shots. All lead by a 26-year-old lieutenant colonel, with less than 400 hours in his log book.

The reason that it's significant is because this report on WWII aircraft accidents only mentioned once, in passing, the young age of the pilots. I can remember many r8sky things I did at age 21 I would never have done 5 or so years later. Many of the aircraft commanders were 21 years old. I believe that was a factor in the number of accidents.

[Dave Siciliano]

For some reason the column titles won’t copy. The left is deaths, the right is casualties.

[Ralph Jones]

Many of the aircraft commanders were 21 years old.

The B-25 that hit the Empire State Bldg was flown by a 27-year-old L/C...but his log had 1000 hours and one war in it.

[Dave Siciliano]

In Max Hastings’ book on page 318 it says: By 1945, every heavy bomber carried an extraordinary weight of high technology and skilled manpower to operate it. A B-24 Liberator contained 1,550,000 separate parts.

Does that sound accurate?

[Rod Madsen]

If so, then the average part weighed 0.28 ounces or 8 grams (27,500 lbs/1,550,000). Sounds doubtful.

[Dave Siciliano]

They must be counting rivets :-)

[Ralph Jones]

They must be counting rivets :-)

Definitely. 0.28 ounces would be in a comparable order of magnitude for a rivet

[Dave Siciliano]

Another figure in Hasting’s book: in January 1944, during the RAF’s so-called Battle of Berlin, Bomber Command lost 314 aircraft, or 5 percent of its strength, on every raid. Since a British bomber crew was obligated to carry out thirty operations to complete a tour of operations, and an American crew twenty-five, it needed no wizard of odds to compute that an airman was more likely to die than to survive his personal experience of bombing Germany.

[Dave Siciliano]

The above was on page 300

[Ralph Jones]

an airman was more likely to die than to survive his personal experience of bombing Germany.

Yep: that's a 21% survival rate.

[Randy Sohn]

ferry an airplane cross country:

"What kind of airplane?"
"B-29."
"Never flown one."
"Here's the manual, there's your crew."

Chuckled here - then I got to think'n 'bout it and me at China Lake with 44-62070!
"What kind of airplane?"
"B-29."
"Never flown one."
"You did bring your own manual, right?" "And your crew?"

best, randy

[Tom Charlton]

Chuckled here - then I got to think'n 'bout it and me at China Lake with 44-62070!
"What kind of airplane?"
"B-29."
"Never flown one."
"You did bring your own manual, right?" "And your crew?"

Hi Randy,
Well . . . you did have a bit of time in her Stratocrusier progeny. Almost the same thing . . . right<grin>.
Did your side saddle guy have any 29 time?

Regards,
Tom Charlton

[Randy Sohn]

Well . . . you did have a bit of time in her Stratocrusier progeny.........Did your side saddle guy have any 29 time?

Tomasina, now you made me think back, I've sorta lost track now of just who WAS along with me on that recovery mission. Been a l-o-n-g time ago! I do remember that L.P.'d told the CAF's GS - "Well, hell's bells, the kidz flown both the R-3350s on the 7s and the "corncobs" on the 97s and he's been instructing on our B-17 and the thing's gotta fly about like the C-97s!" "So tell'im to recheck the repack date on their parachutes and get going, that airplane will complete our WWII collection".

I do know that Darrell Skurich was along, took a lot of faith for that ex fighter pilot to come along in that back end with someone who'd never flown the machine before. I do remember now that he'd been with me the day before when we arrived at China Lake/Inyokern and the USN's "shore patrol" had tossed us in their base hoosegow for some reason, can't recall now why, had to be one of those misunderstandings! And the flight engineer, for some reason now his name escapes me, Duane Egli meb'be?, he'd been out in Tucson at the USAF boneyard getting variuos flotsam from that big surplus storage area ready to ferry/fly so yes, he knew how to get it started and running.

And the co-pilot "Marvelous L" Gardner was a fighter pilot but Lefty'd flown B-17s in the big war. And Roger Baker hadn't yet figured out how to mutter "Nope, see'ya".

Been a long time ago now!

best, randy