The Bombers and the Bombed: Allied Air War Over Europe 1940-1945

by Richard Overy

Success only gradually became evident in May and June when Allied bomber losses suddenly fell sharply from the peak in April. By the summer the percentage of attacking bombers actually hit by enemy fighters fell from 3.7 percent in March and April to only 0.4 percent in July and August.60 The reason can be found in the corresponding German statistics. Between January and June, German aircraft losses on all fronts equaled 137 percent of established strength, 6,259 lost in combat, 3,608 due to accidents, predominantly due to poor weather or pilot error. Despite fighting much of the time over German territory, the German Air Force also lost 2,262 pilots. Most of the losses occurred in Germany or on the Western Front in France and the Low Countries. In June 1944 losses totaled 3,534, only slightly less than the 3,626 aircraft of all types produced that month.61 This was an insupportable attrition cycle of both German matériel and manpower: even with the increases in fighter output that peaked later in the year, new production was sucked into a whirlpool of rapid destruction.