US Air Service losses

19 December 2000, 06:00 PM

Evidently there's no agreement on the number of US Air Service casualties in WW I. Numbers seem to range around 700 but it's hard to tell if that's total losses (KIA, MIA, POW, wounded, etc) or KIA and killed in training. Maybe the flu epidemic skews numbers as well. Any thoughts or references?
Over 50,000 USAAF pilots and crew were KIA in WW 2.

20 December 2000, 02:55 AM

Can't speak for the entire USAS, but after 23 years of compiling bios on pilots/gunner/observers and cadets from NJ who served with all Allied Air Services, I find 53 (out of over 630) died in service which includes, KIA's, accidents, Flu, etc. about 8%. A small sample, but probably representative.
-Mike

Graeme · 20 December 2000, 08:15 AM

You could try Trevor Henshaw's "The Sky Their Battlefied", that'll give you a rough breakdown of KIA:WIA:MIA:POW. Training casualties, accidents and deaths through influenza etc are excluded from his listing.

VBR Graeme

Vin · 20 December 2000, 08:53 AM

Bombardier

Have a look at these two sites. I found the statistics and conclusions contradictory, particularly in the first.

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin....pl?docnum=511

http://carlisle-www.army.mil/cgi-bin....pl?docnum=456

I hope you are patient.

Vin

Soderbaum · 20 December 2000, 09:34 AM

Hi

Trevor Henshaw has in his book "They Sky their Battlefield"

TSTB about 20 pages with lots of combat losses from US.
Unfortunate seldom with S/N (serial numbers) of a/c.

VBR
Gunnar