For much of the war both Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force ran a casualty rate in excess of 50 percent of crew force. In the Eighth Air Force, the pioneers of 1942–43 paid the heaviest cost. Only one in five of these fliers completed their tours of duty. Of the 110,000 aircrew in Bomber Command, 56,000 were killed, a loss rate of 51 percent, the highest casualty rate of any of the Commonwealth’s armed forces in the war.
