RAF groundcrew numbers.

[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