Casualties of the WW1 airforces ...

[Volker_Nemsch]

Hello!

I found the following statistics concerning the dead and wounded (in brackets) of the different nations during WW1.

Has someone the detailed data of the losses of the involved airforces (dead / wounded / flying accidents / etc.) ?

Russia : 1,700,000 ( 4,950,000 )
France : 1,357,800 ( 4,266,000 )
British Empire : 908,400 ( 2,090,000 )
Italy : 650,000 ( 947,000 )
United States : 126,000 ( 234,300 )
Japan : 300 ( 900 )
Romania : 335,700 ( 120,000 )
Serbia : 45,000 ( 133,100 )
Belgium : 13,700 ( 44,700 )
Greece : 5,000 ( 21,000 )
Portugal : 7,200 ( 13,700 )
Montenegro : 50,000 ( 10,000 )
Germany : 1,773,700 ( 4,216,000 )
Austria-Hungary : 1,200,000 ( 3,620,000 )
Turkey : 325,000 ( 400,000 )
Bulgaria : 87,500 ( 152,400 )

[Immo_Frese]

Hi Volker,

the book "Die deutschen Luftstreitkräfte im Weltkrieg" by Georg Paul Neumann gives detailed numbers for the Luftstreitkräfte. According to Neumann there was a total of 15.562 casualties during WW1. I'm not sure, how accurate these numbers are!

6840 were KIA ( 4878 at the front, 1962 during training in the homeland )
7350 were WIA ( 5123 at the front, 2227 during training in the homeland )
ca. 1372 were MIA at the front...

Immo

[mossie]

Source: The World War I Databook by John Ellis nad Michael Cox

UK:
Aircraft lost - 35,970
Combat loss - 4,000 (Est)
Aircrew lost in combat - 6,170 (16,620 total killed, wounded, missing and pow)

France:
Aircraft lost - 52,640
Combat loss - 3,000 (Est)
Aircrew lost - 2,870 (7250 total as above)

Russia:
Aircraft lost - ?
Combat loss - 358 (Est based on German claims)
Aircrew lost - ?

Italy:
Aircraft lost - c.900
Combat loss - c.300
Aircrew lost - ?

USA:
Aircraft lost - ?
Combat loss - 289
Aircrew lost - 235 (513 total as above)

Germany:
Aircraft lost - 27,640
Combat loss - 3,130
Aircrew lost - 5,950 (16,050 total as above)

Austro-Hungary and Turkey - Unknown

[Soderbaum]

Hello Volker

Regarding the German Army Air Force, the best and complete list of personal losses (broken down in several categories) you have in the book "Casualties of the German Air Service" page 8...!

It is actually taken from Statistische Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich 1924-25 and is even better then the list from Neumann... :D

But beware that the German meaning front DOES NOT mean actually front line units. It includes a lot of flying schools, AFPs etc situated outside German home-land, like in rear-front areas...

Has anyone seen similar statistic for the German Marine Air Force...?



:rolleyes:
Gunnar

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
If you take the total aircraft built by each participant and subtract the listed losses,i.e. France; aircraft built, 52.146, losses, 52640, they lost more than they built???? Germany, built, 47931, losses, 27640?????? Divide that by five and you have 5528 aces for Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia and the United States. I have no idea how John Ellis and Michael Cox arrived at these figures. They are totally incorrect.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[CodyPaul]

Have you taken into account the fact that they also flew aircraft of other countries? France used Sopwith 1 and a half strutters built in England, some Albatros aircraft were built in Austria, etc... How many aircraft were supplied by other countries?


Gentlemen:
If you take the total aircraft built by each participant and subtract the listed losses,i.e. France; aircraft built, 52.146, losses, 52640, they lost more than they built???? Germany, built, 47931, losses, 27640?????? Divide that by five and you have 5528 aces for Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia and the United States. I have no idea how John Ellis and Michael Cox arrived at these figures. They are totally incorrect.
Blue skies,
Dan-San

[EricGoedkoop]

Gentlemen:
If you take the total aircraft built by each participant and subtract the listed losses,i.e. France; aircraft built, 52.146, losses, 52640, they lost more than they built????

Dan-San,

The loss figures posted above for Germany, France and England agree with those posted on this site from The Rand McNally Encyclopedia of Military Aircraft by Enzo Angelucci. I have no idea if they are accurate or not; perhaps Angelucci took his numbers from Ellis and Cox?

As CodyPaul points out, France used aircraft produced in Britain. However, they also produced aircraft that were sent to many of the other Allied countries. It certainly doesn't seem likely their losses would be higher than their production, considering they supplied aircraft to Italy, Belgium, America, and even back to England.

Germany, built, 47931, losses, 27640?????? Divide that by five and you have 5528 aces for Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Russia and the United States.

That's not quite valid. Five is the minimum numbers of victories an ace could have had, but of course many of them had a whole lot more, and there was some number of pilots who had fewer than five victories. I'm not sure your argument here holds water.

This will be a very sticky problem to sort out. I'd be surprised if someone hasn't made a more detailed study, but then again I wonder how reliable the records are.

Regards,

Eric

[Romani]

Gentlemen,

Obviously the header of the first column is incorrect, it should said Aircraft *built* not lost.

And combat losses should be those lost by hostile action, shot down, destroyed in the ground, or shot down by antiaircraft artillery. Though maybe the numbers listed are given for air combats only.

And we have to consider too that aircraft of the time had a short life, once obsolete, except for a few kept as trainers and the like they were scrapped.
France built 50,000 aircraft but only 1/10 th of that number was in the frontlines in 1918, there cannot be that many aircraft in reserve, training facilites and for liaison duties. So yes, France could have "consumed" more aircraft than they built.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Gentlemen:
The only aircraft that I can think of that France used that was of foreign design, was the Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, that for the most part was built in France. The French Air Force at War's end had 3222 aircraft on the Western Front. According John Ellis,Michael Cox/Enzo Angelucci, France built 52146 and lost 52640. I find these astounding, France had in Escadrilles on the Western Front 3222, about 130 in Escadrilles in Italy, Greece and Serbia. In addition there were around 1500 in various training schools with an approximate total of 4852 aircraft, plus what ever there was in reserve at the Army Air Depots, about 750, 2 per Escadrille, In addition to this must be added the aircraft of the Aviation Maritime, probably around 1000 aircraft in all the bases on the Channel Coast and in the Mediterranean Sea.
To follow the author's reasoning, France built 52146 aircraft.
France lost 52640 "
-494
In Escadrilles at the front -4852
In reserve -750
In Training schools -1500
In Naval air stations -1000
Total -8596 aircraft that are not accounted for.
Aircraft that were withdrawn from the front that had been replaced with newer designs, were sent to the training schools, or sent to lesser fronts where the demand is not as high, the others were scrapped and all useable equipment was recovered, wheels engines, instruments, etc.
At War's end, Germany had around 17000 aircraft in it's inventory. I would think that this would be true for all the major participants.
Blue skies,
Dan-San
Total

[Romani]

One question that has been bugging me for some time, rather than starting a new thread I will post it here.

One thing I noticed from looking at the squadrons and Jastas in the Aerodrome is the relatively low number of casualties they suffered. Even a 2nd-rate Jasta unit usually gave as much as they got. Surely for every high scoring unit like the 56th Squadron or Jasta 5 there must have been a bunch of poor bastards in the opposite side that got creamed.

So does anybody have an approximate idea of how the casualties in air combat where split among aircraft types? From the cursory examination of the fighter units records it seems as it most losses were suffered by the anonymous 2-seater units.

So in a nutshell.. of the say, 4000 German losses or British, how many were fighters and how many were other types? At least an approximate ratio.

[Soderbaum]

Romani and others

This thread has really lost its original focus which was regarding personal losses from different countries... :D

Losses of a/c has been discussed frequently during the Years on this Forum and with some "hunting" it has been answered(see Forum archive) for most of the question mentioned... ;)

However you are correct that the German Army Air Force lost approximate 4000 a/c(*included walk away crashes) due all sorts** of combats on all fronts during the War.
The German loss of a/c mentioned below (3130) is wrong as it dont contain walk away crashes...

Also remember that the German lost more a/c against the French Air Service then again the British....

Approximate 78 % of the German a/c losses were two-seaters and "more-seaters".

*Nearly 15 % of the German losses in combat were due enemy Flak, ground force fire, engine problems etc..

**Walk away crashes is estimated to 800 on all fronts, which is about 20 % of all a/c losses in combat. This number also includes flyers which were lightly WIA and not are mentioned among the "normal" amount of wounded...

:rolleyes:
Gunnar