[Milsurplus] "Lancaster"

[Mike Morrow]

Ken wrote:

> I remember reading somewhere that the loss rate for U.S. bomber crews
> was well above the loss rate for any other service.

The "honor" of highest US service losses by PERCENTAGE goes to the US Submarine Service, as summarized at:

 https://maritime.org/pamphist/subslost.htm

It states:
"The decisive role played by the Silent Service during WW II is often overlooked, or the significance of their contribution is not fully understood. The Submarine Service represented only 1.6% of all Navy personnel during the war but they accounted for over 55% of all Japanese ships sunk, including one-third of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Submariners paid a high price for this accomplishment, however, with the highest percentage causality rate of any branch of the service, almost 23%."

Statistics indicate the ETO/MTO US bomber force personal losses were just shy by 0.1 or 0.2 percent of submarine force losses, but the bomber forces were about nine times larger, so *numerically* their 30,000 killed dwarfs the 3,500 of the submarine force.  It is interesting to note that losses (personel killed) in bomber force training STATESIDE was almost fifty percent of the losses in the ETO/MTO.

Anyone who served in combat under fire anywhere past, present, and future deserves the highest respect due anyone in our society, regardless of where or what type of unit they served in.

Mike / KK5F