Analysing survival rates among Luftwaffe air crew in 'Steinbock' and other operations

[Simon Trew]

Excellent ideas, Laurent, thank you for those (and for the link). I have Fold 3 membership (for FMS manuscripts, mostly) and although I was aware of the Cannock Chase cemetery it hadn't really crossed my mind to use it in the way you suggest.

I don't know quite what limits to set - I don't have any intention (or need, I think) to clarify the age profile of a very large proportion of Steinbock air crew. But using the methods you suggest to find out information about maybe another 100 airmen would be sensible. And if the things I've already found out turn out to be challenged by the additional data, then some work beyond that might be justified.

Thanks again,

Simon

[Simon Trew]

First, thanks to Laurent for his suggestions – which I followed up – and also to Brian Bines for sending me some NVMs as a source of additional data and for pointing out that the I./KG 66 loss lists in RL 10/638 (which I have) contain DOBs, something I had failed to notice.

As a result, I now have dates of birth for 126 of 130 prisoners plus 218 dead Steinbock airmen; a TOTAL of 344 men. This compares with my previous sample of 190 men (126 prisoners + 64 dead airmen).

Having analysed the data, there are no significant changes from my previous figures, which suggests that the initial sample was sufficient to provide a reliable guide.

The average (mean) age for the 344 airmen was 22.5872 years; in my initial sample (190 airmen) it was 22.5842 (i.e. an almost identical figure).

The median age is 22. I made a stupid mistake in my previous calculation; in the sample of 190 airmen the median age was also 22, not 23 as stated.

The modal age (73 out of 344 airmen) remains 21.

200 (58.14%) of the 344 airmen were 21, 22 or 23 years old on 21 January 1944.

The lowest age I found was 18 years (one man out of 344). There were eleven 19-year-olds. The upper age increased from 31 in my previous sample to 36. Of 344 airmen for whom ages are known, 11 (3.2%) were 30 years or over on 21 January 1944 (six 30-year-olds; two 31-year-olds; one 32-year-old; one 34-year-old; and one 36-year-old).

I also did a bit of analysis of pilot ages. I found dates of birth for 79 pilots. The youngest on 21 January 1944 was 19 years old. The oldest was 32. Of the eleven men who were thirty years or older on 21 January, five were pilots. Three of the seven 29-year-olds were also pilots. But the average (mean) age of pilots was 22.898 years old (i.e. marginally older than the average age for air crew). The median age was 22 and the mode (20 out of 79 pilots) was 21 – i.e. the same ages as for the group as a whole. Of 79 pilots, 45 (56.96%) were 21, 22 or 23 years of age at the start of Steinbock.

I hope this of interest to a few people. I would be very interested to learn if any published sources contain similar data for other periods of the war (e.g. bomber crew members during the Battle of Britain), or if any TOCH forum contributor has carried out similar number-crunching for other Luftwaffe operations.

Simon