RFC training casualties

Maybe the British upper classes were a little disdainful of the ordinary people in the armed forces and weren't overly concerned about the deaths of so many 'working class' men.

The British class system of course was fully present within the armed forces, but I don't agree that it led to this sort of callousness during the Great War. The principal self-perceived virtues of the British 'upper class' were duty and leadership, which as retread points out, meant leading from the front, and resulted in massive casualties. An infantry subaltern had a much shorter life expectancy at the front than an Other Ranks. In fact I was educated at one of the leading British public schools, which churned out young men considered 'fit to lead', and the war memorial there is really something to behold. About as many names (c.700) as there are at the school at any one time.

Slightly off the point. More to the point, as has been mentioned, cadet pilots were expected to have the qualities of an officer, which meant that by default they were mostly from the upper or middle classes, apart from a few notable exceptions like McCudden and Mannock. It seems also that Other Ranks who volunteered for the RFC were often regarded with suspicion, as though they were looking for a cushy number (!), whereas officers would have more success since they had direct access to the C.O.

Likewise Empire pilots trained in the U.S.- how many of these were lost?

Surely there was no training in the US whilst they were neutral, and after which they would mostly have been concerned with training their own pilots? There was training in Canada though, which was a much less perilous affair than in the UK according to the numbers.

Can we conclude that "on average, one trainee pilot died each day in the UK before Gosport" is erroneous?

[rammjaeger]

Can we conclude that "on average, one trainee pilot died each day in the UK before Gosport" is erroneous?

Yes, I think so

but IMHO that creates another question:

How many died before Gosport and how many died after Gosport?

[Barrett]

Heavy/horrendous noncombat losses continued in WW II. From 1942-45, some 13,000 USAAF personnel were killed in the continental United States. If I had to guess I'd hazard that most were lost in operational training.

[mustang]

Barrett et al.

You are right about operational training casualties. I don't have the complete figures for the RAAF but I can quote the precise figures for my operational training course July-August 1945. 28 pilots started No. 44 Fighter Course. 4 got the chop. That is 1/7, or 14.28%. The figures were, I believe, similar at other operational training units.

The score: Kittyhawks (P40s) 3. Mustangs (P51s) 1.

Best regards

Mustang

[Vin]

Originally Posted by Grovetown

Not quite Vin. Total losses for the 1st of July were 60,000 - killed, wounded, captured and missing. Most recent reckonings put the number killed at around 19,000. (Still pretty horrendous admittedly).

Best wishes,

Grovetown.

Sloppy. Me, that is, Grovetown. In the context of recent skirmishes where UK-Aust-US casualties have been virtually non existent, monstrous is a fair adjective to use for 8,000 casualties over 4 years. In the context of WW 1, though, scarcely noticeable.

[rammjaeger]

Reportedly the Britons had only a total of 32 000 men flying personnel over the whole time of WWI - and 8 000 auf these men (= 25%) died on the "home front" mostly in training accidents!

This fact is monstrous - despite of the low absolut number. In the appropriate context of WWI aviation you can not call that "scarcely noticeable". Imagine you would be one of the participants in a training course. You would notice the fact very well.
As well pilots and observers were never so easy to replace like common infantry soldiers.

I doubt that any other air service had a comparable fatality rate in training in WWI.

A detailed research of the causes would deserve a lot of interest but I am not aware of any in depth-research in British aviation literature.

[DEM]

In ' Billy Bishop: Canadian Hero' the author writes:

"German training deaths, it is interesting to note, were only a fraction of active Jagdstaffel losses on the Western Front."

In 'The First of the Few,' the author is more specific, saying:

"German training deaths were only about one quarter of those on active service."

Does anyone know what French training losses were compared to their combat deaths?

[Jim]

Originally Posted by Skip

Surely there was no training in the US whilst they were neutral, and after which they would mostly have been concerned with training their own pilots? There was training in Canada though, which was a much less perilous affair than in the UK according to the numbers.

Unfortunately, the world is not quite so pure a place.

A country that is publicly neutral is rarely so in reality. It is just that a neutral country dresses up their lack of neutrality in pretty clothes and words. For example, Canada was sending its Royal Navy and RFC pilots to the U.S. for training as early as 1915.

[Vin]

In the Yanks who flew for the Commonwealth thread, oneillm refers to Sloane's figures of US pilots who flew for Empire air corps as being 746 and 56 killed in training. That's either 56/746 or 56/802. 7.5 % or 6.9 %. On the higher of the two, that would mean that the Empire air corps trained 106,600 airmen. Were that many trained in the Empire corps ?

[ONEALM]

Vin -

Thanks for pointing out this thread - interesting reading.

Sloan's figures were derived from a list of pilots he has put together so the figures do not exist simply on their own. He's managed to compile a listing of name/units/assignment dates which gives the list some validity, but as I pointed out in the other thread, the list itself has some holes, misnamed pilots, missing pilots, etc.

Are his figures correct ? Only as correct as his listing is. I am quite certain he's missed a few names - other than the handful I pointed out.

To add to what has already been pointed out here, I can tell you that 3 hours is too little time to turn a pilot solo unless he's an flying savant ! I soloed with about 11 hours (which felt like 100 hours at age 17) and even then the minimum required was 8 hours. My instructor, a WW II Corsair pilot, said he liked to get you turned out solo to get it over with so he could then teach you to fly without the thought of that first solo constantly in the back of your mind. He'd solo you, hope you didn't break anything, then make you fly another 10 or 15 hours before allowing you to go out on your own again. I'm sure he saw his share of low-time crashes during the war and brought that bit of wisdom to his civilian training.

FWIW,
Mike