[Brian Bines]

Hello Byron and Juha,

Thanks for the advise about the books. I gathered the claims of 350 a/c destroyed in the Christmas raids was far to high.
A quick count up of what losses I could find showed just under 500 a/c damaged, crashed or missing from the Transport units and supporting Bomber units. Of these losses 71 were destroyed in air raids, by Soviet ground troops or by German troops.
One thing that was repeated in several books was that aircraft from schools were used which ofton meant the loss of pupil and instructor pilots. Unless these school losses were not included in the QM's list the majority of losses only showed one pilot, typical Ju52 crew being Ff, Bf, Bm and Bf althogh some also had a B.
Some books also show the loss of up to 1100 aircrew what I could find was 680 killed or missing with 200 more injured/wounded. However around 40 aircrew originally shown as missing or wounded were later corrected to returned or unwounded.
I hope to be able to improve my rough loss lists and have a more accurate count later when time allows, and any further information can be added,

Regards

Brian Bines