Quote:
Originally Posted by BC
The Luftwaffe, he states, lost approximately one bomber and four trained crewman for every five British civilians killed on the ground.
BC
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Two things need to be considered.
Firstly, those 300+ plus bombers appearantly include aircraft lost in the accidents/non-enemy related causes, and one has to wonder what a bomber crashing on takeoff at France and becoming a write-off would mean 4 lost bomber crews in each and every case, like it would be if the bomber would be lost over England. I belive Price is actually quoting some Churchillian paper from the given wartime period, actually, estimates on enemy losses, with a bit of a political spin on it. It would be most interesting to see the actual figures.
Secondly, it would appear the targets included a good deal of other things than just civillians - Londond docks for example, and major seaports - so a bizarre comparison of dead civvies vs. dead aircrews is odd, and simplifies things as well.
The '60% lost' figure is also nice, save for it appears to be a smokescreen for the fact that overall, the losses were not particularly heavy by any standard - we`re speaking of a period of five months here, which works out to 60 bombers lost per month, of which about 40-50 lost per month to enemy action over Britain. That`s considerably less than the losses suffered between July-October 1940, and quite miniscule compared to the big picture. Bomber Command lost as many, or even twice as many during
single raids over Germany, rather than a month..
If my Excell tables on German bombers (ie.
Kampfgeschwadern only) losses are correct (I think there are some small glithces, but the number is apprx. good, certainly not
less), it shows for example 191 bombers lost to enemy action, 148 to non-enemy action, and 169 were written off to overhauls and repairs. 508 in a single month to all causes, and yet the bomber force alltogether stood at some 2200 aircraft by the end of January.
From Jan-May, the figures are ~881 enemy, ~700 n-e, ~1063 to
Überholung, total ~2644. It would also appear that some 150 bombers were transferred from bomber units to others during the period.