RAF groundcrew numbers.

[RodM]

Re: 'Nightbombers' - from memory, the briefing segment was filmed in early March 1945 (source: Jones, W. E. 'BOMBER INTELLIGENCE - 103, 150, 166, 170 Squadrons Operations and Techniques '42 - '45': an autobiography by the Intelligence Officer who appears in the film), while the footage of Lancasters shown over the target with flares going down was filmed in B&W over Pforzheim on 23-24 February 1945, being colourised for the Nightbombers movie.

'Nightbombers' was just a movie to document the activities of Bomber Command in colour, no more and no less, and as to the Luftwaffe having been "destroyed," I will simply point out that a couple of weeks before the briefing was filmed, Bomber Command, for example, lost 45 aircraft one night when the Luftwaffe sortied 170 night fighters and claimed 65 bombers shot down, while a few nights after the briefing was filmed Bomber Command would lose another 49 aircraft, with 60 German night fighters being sortied, and then two nights after that another 40 aircraft were lost, with 121 German night fighters being sortied.

With respect, please check facts before issuing generalised statements.


Cheers

Rod

[tcolvin]

You object to my 'generalised statements' made without checking the facts.
Here are three 'generalised statements' taken randomly from Webster & Frankland, which can surely truthfully be said to imply that the Luftwaffe was destroyed towards the end of 1944;
1. "Thus in the last and utterly crushing Battle of the Ruhr between the beginning of October and the end of December 1944, some 14,254 sorties were despatched, 60,830 tons of bombs were dropped and only 136 bombers failed to return. This was a missing rate of less than one per cent of the despatched sorties". VolIII, page 184.
2. "in February and March it was comparatively easy to pursue the offensive to its logical conclusion, for there was hardly any resistance by the Luftwaffe." Page 235.
3. "Thus, the Allied air fleets, except on rare occasions, had almost complete air ascendency both by day and night...". page 238.

As for Nightbombers, the DVD blurb states this: "In the winter of 1943-44 RAF Bomber Command was sending massive raids almost every night into the heart of Germany. This is the story of one of them, an attack on Berlin, probably the most heavily defended target of them all and one which made terrible demands on the courage of the aircrew....................One must imagine that they were terrified much of the time, but there is very little signs of doubt or anxiety on the brave faces in Iliffe Cozen's film. Although certain scenes had to be re-created for technical reasons, the raid is a real one and there are no actors".
Your information reveals that this blurb is not true, because the film was shot in March 1945, By then, according to Webster & Frankland, the Luftwaffe was putting up "hardly any resistance", so there was no longer any reason why the crews should have been "terrified much of the time".

Nightbombers is unique. It was not filmed for public release, but used internally for training. As such I would have thought it would need to be accurate. I therefore have difficulty understanding your statement that "Nightbombers was just a movie to document the activities of Bomber Command in colour, no more, no less". Are you saying accuracy was unimportant? I would appreciate a fuller explanation of your meaning.

Thank you for the reference to the autobiography
Tony

[SimonE]

According to Fahey's thesis: "the strength of Bomber Command never rose to 250,000 men and women and that 125,000 men served as aircrew within the Command during World War II". (p. 407)

He estimates that Bomber Command was provided with 125,000 aircrew and 300,000 ground crew during the war, at a cost of £646.87 million. Bomber Command comprised about 12.5% of the RAF's strength during the war (p.446-448)

From p. 408 (emphasis mine):

"In July 1943, the official establishment of Bomber Command was 147,923 positions of which Bomber Command claimed only 91,564 (61.9%) were filled. The Air Ministry rebutted these claims by pointing out that 139,195 of the 147,923 positions were filled and that the percentage shortfall was only 5.9%.

In mid 1944, the Director General of Manpower noted that Bomber Command had an establishment of 143,171 positions of which 135,607 personnel were posted in the Command. The establishment figures clearly show that between July 1943 and July 1944 the size of Bomber Command fell by 3.22%, whilst the size of the RAF increased by 2.14 percent, from 1,148,600 to 1,173,200 over the same period....

The figures also show that between 1943 and 1944 Bomber Command contained an average of 12.53 percent of the RAF’s total manpower."

On aircrew/groundcrew numbers:

"Between July 1943 and July 1944, when the average strength of Bomber Command was 147,923, the number of aircrew was probably around nine percent, or 13,904". (p. 438)

The majority of ground crew were British. "Australia, Canada and New Zealand were unable to provide large numbers of personnel for ground crew. These nations did not possess large-scale aircraft industries and they had a small pool of qualified manpower." (p. 437).

On casulaties (p. 410):

"The casualty figure for Bomber Command is estimated by Richard Overy as being 79,172, a few more than the 79,147 reported by Harris in his official report"

"Aircrew losses were disproportionately large within Bomber Command with 61.45 percent (76,817) of the 125,000 aircrew becoming casualties and 44.45 percent (55,573) being killed" (p. 411)

Ground crew casualties from Fahey - quoting Hiarris' 'Dispatches':

"Between 3rd September 1939 and 8th May 1945, 1,870 men and women died serving in Bomber Command, almost one for every day of the war. A further 759 ground crew were seriously wounded or injured and 78 were listed as missing or prisoners of war before being returned safe". (p. 439)

Fahey has an interesting graphic on p. 416, showing that nearly 5 million volunteered as ground crew in the second half of 1940 and 5.5 million volunteered as ground crew in the first half of 1941.

According to Fahey "80 percent of all volunteers for service wanted to be ground crew and only 17 percent expressed a clear preference for aircrew". (p. 416)

WAAF strength peaked in the first half of 1943, at a little over 3.6 million (p. 417)


**************
Summing up:

Peak Bomber Command strength: about 130-145,000 in the last 2 1/2 years of the war
Aircrew: Around 9% of strength
Ground crew: About 115-130,000 at any one time in the last 2 1/2 years of the war