I went up to the museum of army flying in Hampshire recently to see their new memorial. As I walked around to the entrance of the memorial I was quite taken aback by how many RFC personal died during WW1. Although I knew it was a lot it was very humbling to see their names laid out in a 360 forma like that.
A quick google - 1 in 5 of the 22,000! pilots who completed training died.A survey of 283 Sopwith Camel pilots who entered combat in early 1918 revealed that 46 were killed in action, 65 were wounded in action, 89 went missing in action, 60 were sent home for further training and only 23 remained at the front. Of the missing, statistically at least 30 would have died with the rest being captured, bringing total deaths out of 283 to 75–80, or over a quarter.
German fighter pilots had the most dangerous life of all, since they didn’t fly tours the way British pilots did, but, being outnumbered, pretty much had to stay at the front until they were killed, wounded or had a mental breakdown.
Of 2,894 pilots who flew in the jastas, 1,241 became combat casualties: 618 killed in action, 52 died of wounds, 140 taken prisoner, and 431 wounded. Losses from accidents are less certain, but a ballpark figure is 74 killed and 32 injured in air accidents. So that makes 744 deaths out of 2,894, or just over a quarter, which happens to be a similar proportion to the sample of Camel pilots.
Bear in mind that most pilots at any time were not serving in combat but were on home defence and training duties, so that most aircrew deaths occurred outside the combat zone, in accidents.
Also bear in mind that survival rates depended on when pilots entered service. When you look at Richthoven’s contemporaries, or, say, Ball’s on the other side, a frightening proportion did not survive the war, but these guys were in action in 1916, which meant they had a lot of flying to get through. Air force strengths increased dramatically in 1918, so most of those who flew in the war served only in the last 10 months, and their survival rate was high because they had less exposure to combat.
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