h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

... but the number of enemy fighters shot down was probably somewhat less than eight, rather than more.

Throughout Eighth Air Force operations in Europe, the number of "confirmed" kills claimed by American aircrews added up to about 50 times more than the Luftwaffe actually lost (as determined by quartermaster's returns: German units had to account for the fate of an aircraft before they could be issued with a replacement.)

Toward the end of the war, the USAAF were occasionally claiming to have shot down more German aircraft in a day than the Luftwaffe possessed.

Only the very cynical would insist that this overclaiming was entirely the result of awarding the Air Medal to every man who shot down an enemy fighter: in fact this exaggeration is endemic to all air forces, particularly when operating over enemy territory. (Over your own territory, kills can be confirmed by counting wrecks; but this was almost never done.) There are good reasons why claims are unreliable: every plane shot down will have been seen and fired at by several gunners, each of whom could put a good case for claiming the kill. Cross-checking was fairly minimal: intelligence officers had better things to do, and high scores were good for morale in any case. Aircraft didn't necessarily have to be shot down or even hit, to be claimed either: any German pilot deciding that discretion was the better part of valour (whether by injury, damage to his plane, lack of ammunition or even a reduced ardour to defend the Reich) and dived away, was liable to be claimed by men who were under great stress and had every reason to see what they wanted to.

well, yeah, at one point one cynic in the army remarked that if the allies had really shot down as many enemy aircraft as they had claimed, then the luftwaffe would have gone out of business i believe that was why they imposed the 'confirmed kill' rule - that each kill had to be confirmed by (1) a crewman on board the same plane, and (2) a crewman from a different plane. because there was always a great deal of action in the air during a raid, it was pretty hard for the gunners to get people on board other planes to confirm their kills (not to mention everybody wanted to stake their claim on the kills, as you said!)and therefore the men were sometimes credited for less kills.

bob morgan mentioned in his memoir (an excellent book, by the way) that this rule was imposed by the time the crew of the belle went into battle, so it *is* quite possible that his crew did shoot down more than eight fighters... although we will never really know.


far.

As you say, we'll never know for certain, but still over the whole course of the war the Eighth Air Force's list of "confirmed" kills considerably exceeded Lufwaffe losses (by a factor of 50 according to some sources).

Claim accuracy for single seat fighters was greatly improved by the introduction of gun cameras, but these were never standard equipment for bombers, who after all were supposed to be concentrating on dropping bombs.

I suspect that the situation with fighter squadrons would be repeated in the bomber groups: that nearly all the German fighters actually destroyed could be credited to a handful of extremely skilled gunners; after all, hitting a target moving at 400+mph in three dimensions is not what human eyesight, co-ordination and reflexes evolved for. The situation for waist gunners was particularly bad: they had an extremely limited field of fire, and since the Jagdwaffe tended to attack from head-on because of the B-17's relatively weak forward armament, any targets they had would be crossing at a relative speed approaching mach 1; it would be frankly astonishing if they ever hit anything.

Still: rather them than me

makes you wonder how many bombers the german gunners reported they'd shot down LOL

and while we're on the subject of fighter planes, here's a ww2 pilot ditty you may or may not have heard:

"come and join the air force, and get your flying pay
you never have to work at all, just fly around all day
while others toil and study hard, and soon grow old and blind
we'll take to the air without a care, and you will never mind!

"you're flying over the ocean, you hear the engine spit
you see the prop come to a halt, the g*dd*mn engine's quit
the ship won't float, you cannot swim, the shore is miles behind
oh what a dish for the crabs and fish, but you will never mind!"



i read that in a simulator manual years ago, and it kind of stuck to my head. but then, you know, the bomber casualties *were* incredibly high back then (i think the reported number was about 80%)...

Along the same lines as WW1's

"Take the piston rings out of my kidneys,
The connecting rods out of my brain.
From the small of my back take the crankshaft,
And assemble the engine again."

I can't remember his name, but there was a scots comedian who advised that in the event of war, draftees should ensure they got into the Air Force: "'cause in the Air Force, they send the OFFICERS up to do the fighting: the other ranks stay safe on the ground!"

I'm not sure about overall casualty rates, but 80% is plausible: individual mission rates averaged out at a fraction over 3%, with some in the 5-10% range. Four percent would mean that no-one could expect to survive a 25-mission tour, although that ignores the fact that most crews shot down were newbies: they couldn't fly or shoot as well as the more experienced, and they were assigned the most vulnerable spots in formation.

At least they were in daylight: getting out of a Lancaster was horribly difficult at the best of times, never mind at night. And pity the poor rear gunner: there was no room in the turret for him to wear his parachute.

As I said, in theory the German defences could have measured their success by counting wrecks, but there's no evidence that they did. We certainly didn't during the Battle of Britain. I've no figures to hand, but I'd expect Flak claims to be grossly inflated: gunners painted rings on their barrels to denote successes, giving a definite incentive for exaggeration. Again, the Expert/Pareto effect would apply.

The general success of flak can be judged by the fact that in WW1, British AAA could have saved lives by not shooting at the Zeppelins: more civilians were killed by falling shell fragments than by bombs.

OF course the worst overall casualty rate was that of the U-boat crews at 90+%. Even the kamikaze had a better chance than that....

it didn't help, i suppose, that the 8th air force sent bombers to the u-boat pens almost every other day! look at the belle's list of missions, and count em

i suppose that the tail gunner and the ball turret gunner would be vying for the number one worst station prize! i don't imagine it being much fun being locked in a tiny compartment, dangling off the main body of the ship while flak explodes around you...

(incidentally, there was this one guy - i can't remember if it was a navigator or bombardier - whose station was blown up by flak. he fell through the hole - but his chute strap got snagged in the fuselage, and his fellow crewmen managed to drag him back into the bomber. they issued the WEAR YOUR CHUTES! rule after that...)

oh... and a joke from bob morgan's memoir: after the war, he went into a number of business, one of which was selling cars for ford. some of his business trips took him to war-ravaged germany. so there was this one time he was on a business trip there, and this bunch of ford business people were cruising down the rhine. one of the passengers, who knew what part he played in the war, went and told the boat's captain, who was german. the guy came up to morgan, but to morgan's surprise, did not hit him. instead the guy pointed out a building and said, 'when you were bombing germany, you took out all these buildings except for this particular one. why not this one?'

bob morgan stared at the building, stared at the captain, and said, 'because it's a ford plant!'

they became friends after that.

I'm sure the 8th did their part

With some justification: the U-boats were what mainly threatened to take the Western Allies out of the European War. Unfortunately, it wasn't until Barnes Wallis invented the 'Tallboy' and 'Grand Slam' bombs that air raids did the pens any real damage.

Ball turret was probably the worst on a B17: not only were you horribly exposed, but your legs were bent in the most awkward and uncomfortable position.

The Lancaster didn't have any guns in that position: mostly they carried an H2S radar. The Luftwaffe ruthlessly exploited this vulnerability with their 'Schrage Musik' upward firing cannon installation...

A couple of Lancaster rear gunners actually survived escaping from their aircraft sans parachute: landing in a snowy forest seemed to be the key, although you couldn't be too attached to the idea of an intact skeleton....

i believe william wyler actually rode in the ball turret a couple of times to film the landings. brave fellow, all things considered.

Very, particularly as SOP was for the ball turret to be unoccupied during take-off and landing to avoid the occupant being crushed if the landing gear collapsed.