[wideawake]

But it's not the same as losing a hundred B-17s in one raid, each one with 10 guys on it. That was happening day in, day out.

Not quite accurate.

The USAAF lost 46,000 men KIA in WWII.

That does not tally with a 1,000 men killed per bombing run.

[SatinDoll]

When I attended college in the early 1970s, one of my classmates was in her 60s.

Her first husband had been a bomber pilot in Europe, and survived the war only to die a few months later when his aircraft, flying over southern California, exploded in midair.

She heard the news over the radio. From that day forward her hair turned white.

[Jim from C-Town]

It was very normal that a 10% loss in aircraft happened often in many of the 1,000+ plane raids. The fact that 100 planes where lost in a raid is by no means a correlation of 1,000 deaths, many of those shot down lived and where able to parachute to if not safety, a long uncomfortable stay in an Axis prison camp.

[X-spurt]

Don’t think he said or meant “every” raid.....

[Jim from C-Town]

Prior to the introduction of the P-51 fighter escort, the losses where astronomical in the bombing raids. They averaged over 10% regularly.

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

That does not tally with a 1,000 men killed per bombing run.

Things were pretty bad until we came up with fighters that could make the round trip with the bombers. Things got a lot better as the war ground along, the Luftwaffe was able to introduce jet and rocket propelled planes with limited success because they had lost most of their experienced pilots. If the "wonder weapons" had been introduced earlier in the war things would have been a lot bloodier but we still would have won because we could build planes faster then Hitler's Germany. We won because we had the Atlantic Ocean for a moat.

Regards,
GtG

[hinckley buzzard]

You are right. The worst loss that I am aware of was the second raid over Schweinfurt, when the Eighth AirForce lost sixty bombers. It is true that thousands of B-17s and B-24s were lost through the duration. There is no record of any one mission in which 100 planes were lost.

[Ditto]

The USAAF lost 46,000 men KIA in WWII.

Not correct. That figure is just for the 8th Air Force that flew out of England during the war. There were many others.

The United States Army Air Forces incurred 12% of the Army's 936,000 battle casualties in World War II. 88,119 airmen died in service. 52,173 were battle casualty deaths: 45,520 killed in action, 1,140 died of wounds, 3,603 were missing in action and declared dead, and 1,910 were nonhostile battle deaths. Of the United States military and naval services, only the Army Ground Forces suffered more battle deaths.

35,946 non-battle deaths included 25,844 in aircraft accidents, more than half of which occurred within the Continental United States.[72] 63,209 members of the USAAF were other battle casualties. 18,364 were wounded in action and required medical evacuation, and 41,057 became prisoners-of-war.[72]
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Air_Forces

By comparison, the US Navy and Marine Corps combined had less than 60,000 KIA for the entire war.
Source: http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq11-1.htm#anchor2118718

Being in the USAAF during WWII was a damn dangerous place to be. Just getting into those aircraft back then was dangerous even if no one was shooting at you. But it did have its perks like really cool jackets. ;~))

[Gaffer]

No, it doesn’t. It is more like a per/month figure.

Regardless, the number is huge. It is nearly double the entire Marine Corps deaths during WWII (24,500+).