"Average" WWII Fighter Pilot

[Speedy]

So watching the WWII in HD got me to thinking last night. Of all the American fighter pilots during WWII...how many just did their job, flew their required number of missions for their tour, and came home without ever having a confirmed enemy kill?

Or would it be fair to ask how many actually DID shoot something down? Percentage? Thoughts?

[Ztex]

Hmmm...
I find one article that tells of 15,800 +/- aerial victory credits, in the Army Air Corps, in WWII, with @ 690 aces. This does not count bomber crew shoot downs.

http://www.afhra.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=11418

There is a count of @ 8600 Naval aerial victories with 371 Navy and 124 Marine aces....


Can't seem to find the total number of pilots...much less number of fighter pilots....in a quick on line search.

But there is this sobering statement on Wiki....

The United States Army Air Forces incurred 12% of the Army's 936,000 battle casualties in World War II. Over 90,000 airmen died in service (52,173 killed in action and 37,856 non-battle deaths, including 13,093 in aircraft accidents).

63,209 members of the USAAF were wounded in action and over 21,000 became prisoners-of-war. Its casualties were 5.1% of its strength, compared to 10% for the rest of the Army

And this list of USN losses...
http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/aviation_fatal.htm

12,133 USN Aviation personnel fatalities...

[tom d. friedman]

the list of non aces w/ under 5 victories is endless.... i can't even begin to grasp the untold stories in that category!! as a writer i can state that this topic is a lot more for anyone to choose!!

[oscardeuce]

Many untold or little known stories out there.

One of the "Our Gang" or "Little Rascals" kids:

Wheezer -- Robert Hutchins was killed in an airplane accident at age 19
According to findagravecom, he was killed during the last thirty minutes of his basic training at the Merced Army Air Corps field in California when his plane crashed on landing.

[T33driver]

Another sobering stat is the number of pilots killed in training or due to factors other then hostile fire such as weather, mid-air collisions, navgation errors, mechanicals, controlled flight into terrain.

[k5083]

The answer likely is that the number who fought and survived without having a confirmed kill is very large, probably the vast majority.

Also, remember that the confirmed kill totals were overstated, probably by a factor of 2x to 3x. That applies both for overall and individual tallies. Thus, most who were credited with 5 or 6 kills probably got 2 or 3, and most credited with 1 or 2 probably got none, or perhaps a share or two.

There have been a few good memoirs by these undistinguished fighter pilots. My personal favorite probably is "Sea Flight" by Hugh Popham, a Sea Hurricane pilot. It turns out that the less acclaimed pilots are often the better writers.

August

[Holedigger]

Like my uncle, a Hellcat pilot for a bit under a year in the South Pacific. He said he NEVER saw a Japanese plane flying while he was flying and never got a chance to shoot one down, but did get to shoot them up on the ground. Don't know the number of combat sorties he did, need to try to lure info from those distant relatives who may have the remnants of "his stuff".

[sdennison]

Pretty much the same with my Dad. He said he never saw a Japanese plane in the air, only junk on the ground. He flew 110 sorties in CBI from the beginning of 44 through the end of the war. Got his fair share of trains, ox carts, and other land based goodies.

[Ztex]

My uncle flying from Italy in 1944 and 1945 only saw one German fighter...a jet that seemed to be tracking the bomber formation from afar...
He saw lots of flak...and the worst of his memories come from helping to clean up a B-24 that crashed on take off at the home field.

Non-combat losses were unacceptable by today's standards...
Even the amount of losses to aircrews en route to the theater is scary...


I found gobs of USAAF stats here...got an extra month...you can look at most of it..

http://www.usaaf.net/digest/index.htm

[tom d. friedman]

tom, interesting reply re: the little rascals /wheezer.... jackie coogan / uncle fester in the addams family tv series of the early 60's was a highly decorated glider pilot in the cbi. minus the light bulb i hope!!

[Jim MacDonald]

Holedigger,

What was your uncle's name & do you know what squadron he was with?

Mac

[the330thbg]

I would imagine it was similar to most policemen's tales today. Not many of them are ever involved in a shoot out.., yet on TV.., that is ALL they do!

[ww2John]

I use these three sources for various statistics...and these are literally just the tip of the proverbial iceberg:

Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in WWII by Geoffrey Perret (Random House)

Beyond the Wild Blue: A History of the US Air Force by Walter J. Boyne (St. Martin's Griffin)

USAF Handbook 1939-1945 by Martin W. Bowman (Stackpole Books)

...enjoy...

[John Dupre]

I would have to dig it out but Gene Gurney wrote a book called Five Down and Glory that examined American aces and their contribution to the war efforts in WW1, WW2 and Korea. Don't quote me on percentages but basically less than a third of pilots ever shot down an aircraft and in most units if there were aces they were generally responsible for anywhere from 15% to 45% of all victories. In some cases the top ace alone was responsible for 25% to 40% of victories. So the majority of pilots didn't get a victory and victories in any unit tended to cluster with a relative handful of pilots.

BTW my favorite non ace fighter pilot book is Nanette by Edwards Park. A wonderful book about flying P-39s in New Guinea.

[Fearless Tower]

Many untold or little known stories out there.

One of the "Our Gang" or "Little Rascals" kids:

Wheezer -- Robert Hutchins was killed in an airplane accident at age 19
According to findagravecom, he was killed during the last thirty minutes of his basic training at the Merced Army Air Corps field in California when his plane crashed on landing.

Apologize for resurrecting this thread, but I stumbled across it searching for info on Merced AAF.

My grandfather actually knew this guy and was a bunkmate of his at Merced. His death in a T-6 really shook my grandpa up. He escorted the body home to the family and had to take some time off. According to my grandfather, when he was ready to go back to flying, they asked him if he would rather go to bombers instead of fighters as he was originally slated for. He took them up on the offer and was transferred to Douglas AAF for B-25s. Met my grandmother there and the rest is history...

Interesting thing about Wheezer is that my grandfather had no clue he was one of the Little Rascals until he went home with the body to meet the family.

Small world.