odds of survival 2

an attachment from Leslie for the forums ~

Hi Leslie

I checked with my 101 Squadron friend regarding your post and he is going to contact another 101 Squadron person to see what they can turn up.

On the loss figures they are avail able from several sources and are fairly consistent for the most part.

NOTE Best viewed with screen realization 1024 x 768,
http://www.operations.mod.uk/onthisday/newsItem_id=1492.htm.
Some Aspects of Night Bombing over Europe - South African Military History Society - Journal
Some Aspects of Night Bombing Over Europe Part II - South African Military History Society - Journal
They are also covered in a number of books I have as well

The life expectancy of 14 ops came from a DVD “The Boys of Kelvin High” a War Amps production here is the script http://www.waramps.ca/military/video/wwii/pdf/bokh.pdf. I have read very similar numbers in other places.

The Pathfinder information I have yet to find the reference, I have so many documents and books it is hard to remember exactly where it is but I will keep checking. I believe they would have had a substantially higher life expectancy in terms of operations than the average of 14 and that their mortality was the result of the high numbers of ops they committed to and flew rather than a higher chop rate. Most joined the Pathfinders on their second tour and the more they flew the slimmer their chances were. I would think your father’s situation is quite typical, someone with lots of operational experience committing to another 45 ops with the Pathfinders, reducing his chances substantially by doing so. The other stat I have somewhere and I will try to find is that only 25% of crews survived to 50 ops.
I remember trying to track this all down some time ago and there is enough out there to boggle the mind but they all tend to be fairly similar and I have not come across too much that was inconsistent. One that I have always had my doubts about is the one that says “out of 100 airmen” then they deduct all the killed and injured on ops and in training and they end up with 27 men coming out unharmed but I have no idea how they calculate these things. The other interesting figure is the 125,000 aircrew, Sir Arthur Harris came up with that number (and he should know) but it seems everyone has used it without question since day one and there doesn’t seem to be any way of verifying it.
Have fun with the numbers and the reading – I will look for the other references
Dave

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