Total number of Luftwaffe aircrew killed over Britain

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Bombphoon

Yes Chris. The only figure that is commonly given is Luftwaffe losses for the Battle of Britain - but that is less than four months of almost six years war.

I appreciate that it would be a slog but you’ve indicated that you have the sources to arrive at a figure for the Luftwaffe aircrew who died and who came down on UK soil.

Then it gets complicated … Those who later died in captivity of wounds or of natural causes would be additional to that figure, as would any who were repatriated with severe injury and later died. Taking your “killed over Britain” literally, then some will have died in aircraft that either got home or fell into the sea. Some were killed taking off for, or returning from, operations against the UK and so on. You’ve raised an interesting question but I suspect that any figure would have to be carefully qualified and would give a good idea of the scale of the death toll rather than being absolutely precise.