Ship losses to aircraft
 

Are there any on line sources for ships lost to aircraft attack? I am trying to do a quick & rough estimate of the effectiveness of German aircraft vs Allied cargo ships in the Atlantic & Med. A source that braks down the numbers into some detail would be nice.

Thanks for any help in locating this

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

You may find convoy.web helpful and there are files at the National Archives that would help regarding the Mediterranean. If you have the name of a ship it's surprising how often there is an online source either about the individual vessel or the company it sailed for.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

That one wont be quick but thanks anyway. Perhaps I can make time later & count ship by ship. meanwhile I'll hang on to the hope that the Brits did a analysis/summary & it lurks on the web somewhere

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Yes, this data exists. One table available on the Web is there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Losses_...tic_(1939-1945)

Sources listed are books, not WWII-time reports.

Please note that "sunk by mines" shipping is counted twice. I mean that the "total sunk shipping" does not include this number, probably because the shipping is aslo counted on the U-boat, air or raider figures depending who put the mine in place.

Despite the title I'm not sure if these figures are only for the Atlantic. They certainly include actions off Great-Britain, and possibly raiders and U-boat attacks in Indian Ocean.

I also find the air attacks figures for late war strange: 7176 tons sunk by air attack in May 1945 ? This figure is corresponding to one Liberty Ship but it seems to me that by this date the Luftwaffe was no more active against Allied ships.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

You also have to look at the number of sorties required to achieve those losses.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Thanks for this

Its a start. If I pursue this far enough the sources can be investigated. In the mean time I can make some checks of the gross numbers against Ellis 'Brute Force' or Hughes & Costello 'The Battle of the Atlantic'. Both have quarterly totals.

That is not made clear in the other books I've looked at. Was the mine laid by submarine. aircraft, or surface ship???

A a wild guess this may have been in the North Sea, perhaps on the approach to Antwerp. There were still a few aircraft operational in Norway & Denmark in May as well.

I notice that in April 1941 the losses to aircraft are larger than to submarine. If accurate this is interesting as the submarine losses are not trivial.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Bekker 'Luftwaffe War Diarys' seems a bit uneven on detail, and perhaps a bit dated. Any recomendations for books on the GAF vs Allied ships?

This web site has extracts from several books. The wide variation in some numbers is interesting

http://www.usmm.org/battleatlantic.html

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

It seems to me that the last antishipping missions flown by the Luftwaffe were flown from Norway against Artic convoys in March or April 1945, and AFAIK the last ship sunk by the Luftwaffe was the SS Henry Bacon on 23 February 1945.

Between UK and Antwerp, Allied ships were lost to pocket submarines, S-boats and mines but I have never heard of an air attack against them in 1945.

Regarding the heavy losses to air attack during the spring of 1941, I think a good part of them were lost in British ports during the Blitz, but I also suspect that the heavy shipping losses off Greece are included into this total. My impression is that the table is showing Allied shipping losses not in the Atlantic (even including N Sea and Channel) but in all theaters.

Actually I wonder if the losses to air attack in April and May 1945 were not caused by kamikazes off Okinawa...

Edited: The loss of Feb 45 is the Henry Bacon. The loss in Jan 45 should be the Alcoa Banner, bombed by German jets (Ar 234 of KG 76?) in Antwerp on 24 Jan 45 and declared total loss later. So I was wrong, there was at least one air attack in Antwerp area in 1945.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Actually I'm a bit suprised the last ship sunk by a air attack was only in Febuary. I'd have guessed something might have been sunk in March or later. I have a fair ammount of detailed information on submarine attacks, but the air strikes seem to be much less well documented.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Carl, I take it you are aware of the HMSO publication of 1947 '' British Merchant Vessels Lost or damaged By Enemy Action During WWII''. It lists ships by date, name, ship type, tonnage, position, cause (ie AC) and How Lost ( is T or B Torpedo or Bomb ). Bearing in mind this is British ships only it shows no losses to aircraft in 1945 with the only loss in May being the Avondale Park of 2878 T on 7th May to a U-Boat off the Firth of Forth. I do not know if this publication is available in any US archive, I have not seen it on-line. On 21st.April-1945 KG26 lost a number of aircraft to the Banff Wing in an attempted anti shipping mission off Scotland,

Regards

Brian Bines

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Carl remember that in 1945 most Luftwaffe bomber units were disbanded or converting to Me 262, while Jabo were used on bombing enemy troops invading Germany itself rather than ships. The KG 26 Gruppen in Norway were the last units specialized in an anti-shipping role, and were not very successful in 1945.

If you want to search details, this is the most complete list of lost ships I have ever found on the Web:
http://www.schiffswrackliste.de/Statistik.htm
(first serie of link between 1939 and 1945 is for merchant ships, second for warships)

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Thanks for that. I was aware of this doc, but have not located a copy on line or in the library here. I dont have the option of traveling to do this research

Thinking this over the 1945 events are interesting, but the data that matters to me would be from 1939-1942.

Perhaps an account of German air operations vs shipping would have usefull numbers to losses? Anything written for that subject.

Appreciate the answers here

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

You can check Neitzel (or rather, with someone who has a copy of it), 'Der Einsatz der deutschen Luftwaffe ueber der Nordsee und dem Atlantik'.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Looks like the information is scattered across multiple sources. Someone offered to pass along Dutch statistics, something I thought would be difficult. Perhaps the Norwegian ship losses will turn up soon as well.

Aside from a comparison with losses t submarines and surface ships I'm a bit curious about the efficiency of air attack vs transportation targets. I'd read some literature concerning the attacks on railroads and it appears that once the right techniques and target mix were found this had excellent results.

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

This was published in 1976 by PSL as a 2 volume work dealing with both World Wars.
In 1988 they consolidated it into 1 volume.
'British Vessels Lost at Sea 1914-18 and 1939-45'
ISBN 1852601345

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

http://www.naval-history.net/NAVAL1939-45RNLoss.htm

Don

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Odd, the automatic email notifications stopped during the last 30 + hours ????

Thanks for the additional links and information. It should all be usefull in one form or another. There are two surges or high points in sucessfull air attacks. One in the summer of 1940 & the other in the spring of 1941. Not clear yeet how many aircraft or sorties were required to achieve this, but the gross results rivaled that of the submarines in those months

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

I think that particular story is quite well told in Neitzel.

All the best

Andreas

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Hello Carl

TNA, Kew, has the Daily Shipping Casualty Lists reported to the Ministry of Shipping Intelligence Branch in Board of Trade BT 347/1. Ships name, date, whether enemy action etc. I saw it two days ago.

It is a thick, narrow volume with 5 or 6 ships listed per page.

I was looking for aircraft incidents and notice incidents with shipping are recorded in the War History cases Volumes in ADM 199, see also ADM 1 and ADM 116.

But you will need to find the ADM Subject Code for shipping.
Code 2 = Accidents and Casualties to HM Ships
Code 3 = Actions with the Enemy
Code 5 & 19 = Accidents and Disturbance to HM Ships
Code 29 = Boards of Inquiry
Code 31 = HM Ships Damage and Loss
Code 90 = Aviation [e.g. aircraft attack on convoy in 1940 was under Code "90"]

You can usually find all the Admiralty filing Codes (including the above) by typing in the word for example "Ship" or "ship*" (or the subject required), the years in the "Year range" and in the "Department or Series" type "ADM 1" on the TNA Catalogue and the filing code is usually bracketed in the catalogue descriptions returned in ADM 1.

Then look in ADM 12 paper indexes and look for the DIGESTS section, then look for the year you want and order for example the Digests Volume which covers the Admiralty number subject Code 90 (being Aviation) for that year.

For example, for 1939 / 1940 the Digest (covering Aviation - Code 90) would be:
ADM 12/1752
Digest 72-90A
[the above TNA Cat number in the ADM 12 paper / online index, must cover the Admiralty Code number 90 in the number range in the description]
Dates Covering 1939 to 1940


You will get a huge Digest volume like an index covering your subject Code and usually other adjacent Admiralty Subject Codes, the example above covers all the subject Codes between 72 to 90. These digests have brief reference to each incident.

If you want to delve deeper, it is possible in most cases to trace each original Report from the Admiralty file reference number or War History Case number. (This is lenghty process looking back in the TNA paper indexes, because if the online TNA, catalogue show no return, it might because you have not entered the original Naval reference or War History Case number exactly as the PRO originally entered it in their computer.)

Having said that, the Digests themselves in ADM 12 for the year and Admiralty subject Code number can be a rich source of information, without the need to trace the TNA Catalogue number for the original Admiralty report reference. The Digests are huge and have many pages to look through.

Each Digest volume is in number order by Subject Code, so go to where 90-1 starts and 90 is further sub-divided under various title subjects. It sounds really complicated, but once mastered there is a rich source of information in the ADM 12 Digests and ADM 1 (searchable online).

The ADM 12 Digests can lead to further information amongst the cases in the ADM 116 and ADM 199 volumes, which each hold many cases etc.

I like the suggestion, to find someone else who has already done the analysis!!

Mark

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Hi,

Morten Jessen and I have recently posted a document to our company website that lists Allied ships sunk or damaged by Axis aircraft in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1943. Please go to this page and scroll down to download it: http://airwarpublications.com/articl...lated-material

Cheers,
Andrew A.

Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com

Re: Ship losses to aircraft
 

Thanks for that refrence. If I advance far enough on this project the comparison between theatres will be usefull.