>During 1943, only about 25% of Eighth Air Force bomber crewmen completed their 25-mission tours—the other 75% were killed, severely wounded, or captured.
https://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact...
The US built ~35k bombers during WWII, generally with large crew sizes: 8 for the B-24 Liberator (18,118 built), 10 for the B-17 Flying Fortress (12,731), 11 for the B-29 (3,970). That's ~35k aircraft, which would have required at least 3,500 crew members, and probably a multiple of that (presuming several crews per aircraft to sustain multiple missions).
That does make the bomber crew contingent itself smaller than the merchant marine, and air losses seemed to be concentrated among bomber crews, which were larger, slower, and generally more vulnerable than fighters or fighter-bombers.
Everything I have ever read suggests crews “owned” their bombers. This is how you see nose art.
There weren’t multiple crews per aircraft although sometimes crews would share planes if their aircraft was damaged and the other crew suffered casualties but that wasn’t a daily thing. Certainly there weren’t multiple crews per aircraft.
Wikipedia says 350,000 Americans served in the 8th air force alone. That’s larger than the 215,000 of the maritime service.
Wiki says 3.4 million total in the Air force but most of that is not air crews. You need a literal army of mechanics, ground crews, and mission planners.
I can’t find numbers to answer the “most dangerous job” question but everyone suffered greatly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighth_Air_Force (Defeat of the Luftwaffe)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#mili...
If you could turn up any information either way, I'd be interested to see it.
I can't find any clear statement. I'm familiar with nose art and pilot-specific names (e.g., "Bockscar", named after Captain Frederick C. Bock, which dropped the atomic bomb over Nagasaki). Wikipedia states that the practice varied by country and force, e.g., the US Army Air Forces permitted the practice, it was uncommon for the UK RAF and Royal Canadian Air Force, and the US Navy prohibited the practice.
What nose art says about specific crew-aircraft assignments and their specificity or exclusivity isn't clear.
Multiple sources note that crews would rotate out after 25 missions, though heavy casualties meant that both crews and aircraft faced challenges surviving that long.
And I still find it implausible that aircraft would be idled between individual crew missions, though overhauls and repairs might well account for that.
> What nose art says about specific crew-aircraft assignments and their specificity or exclusivity isn't clear.
The B-17 was named “Ye Olde Pub”. There’s a chapter describing the crew meeting each other and naming their airplane. I don’t recall any mention of another crew being involved. But I did get a strong sense of connection and ownership between the crew and plane.
I believe after their return they fly another B-17 that lost much of its crew, maybe combining crews to fill in losses. It has been a while since I read the book.
I don’t recall ever reading anything to suggest B-17s were regularly flown by multiple crews.
> And I still find it implausible that aircraft would be idled between individual crew missions, though overhauls and repairs might well account for that.
Yes, I believe this is the case.
> So began Fitzpatrick’s life as an air warrior. At first, bomber crews had to fly 25 missions to earn the right to rotate home. Because of high casualties, the Army Air Forces leadership increased the number to 30. The crews rotated, and as a result Fitzpatrick flew every third day. “I got 25 missions in before the end of the war,” he said. “I did most of my flying in the winter of ‘45 and the spring.”
They often flew 20+ hour missions. I have no idea how they'd operate like that without switching crews or underutilizing the plane.
[1] https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/25-missions-over-f...
[1] https://www.historicflyingclothing.com/en-GB/ww2-usaaf-manua...
Between the B-17 and B-24 we built about 30,000 strategic bombers in WWII. They don’t all have to be in the air regularly to maintain constant 1000+ bomber formations.
If you can find any account of how crews sharing aircraft regularly I’d love to see it because I have never heard anything like that.
You can get a more detailed breakdown on Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#mili...
I don't find a total size of the US Army Air Corps' European flight crew operations, but I do find a casualty count of 70,000 (<https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/black-thursda...>). If that constitutes 75% of the total force size, then we come up with a total force size of 93,333. Let's call that 100,000.
For the merchant marine:
During World War II, nearly 250,000 civilian merchant mariners served as part of the U.S. military and delivered supplies and armed forces personnel by ship to foreign countries engulfed in the war. Between 1939 and 1945, 9,521 merchant mariners lost their lives — a higher proportion than those killed than in any military branch, according to the National World War II Museum.
<https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/30...>
The US Army Air Corps trained 435,000 pilots during WWII, with more trained by the US Navy and Marines.
"WWII’s Tragic Aviation Accidents", Warfare History Network (2018)
<https://archive.is/718ZJ#selection-671.287-671.295>
The US Navy reports 5,563,507 officers and 6,570 enlisted (totals are regular and reserve), presumably aviation, with 12,133 total fatalities, of which just under 30% were combat deaths. (The remainder were largely non-combat crashes.)
<https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading...>
(The total officers count seems suspiciously high, and I suspect is for the total Navy corps, rather than just flight operations.)
And about 15,000 pilots died during training.
<https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2019/02/12/stagger...>
This still doesn't break out bomber crews relative to the overall US air operations, but at least for ballpark estimates, it seems that air crews and merchant sailor contingents were at the very least comparable in size, if not more air crews. That makes some sense as ships would be larger, fewer in number, and with a more efficient use of personnel (in terms of crew to net operations and tonnage delivered).
Another triangulation: the US produced about 300k combat aircraft, and about 35,000 bombers, during WWII:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_aircraft_product...>
(The story of industrial production and scale at which the US poured out materiel, whether ships, tanks, fighters, bombers, or what have you, during WWII, is worth its own discussion.)