Combat - When Was it the Toughest?

Andy Anzanos

The 390th Bomb Group was operational at Framlingham with the Group’s first mission to Bonn, Germany, on 12 August 1943 and the 301st mission, to Orienburg, Germany, on the 20th of April 1945.

During the operational period, it was then and later argued, as to the relative risks of flying combat with time considering the advent of the P-51, the reduction of enemy fighter attacks and the increasingly  superior Allied forces.

The attempt hereby is to present the actual experience of the 390th. First is a graph of the “Killed in Action” experience.  This KIA graph does not include non mission related deaths.

The big surprise to the normally accepted rationale, of heavier losses in the early days, is that the most deaths of any one month occurred  near the end of the operations. Derben, Germany a target on the 14th of January, with losses of 45 men out of the 62 total for the month, made it the worst month of the war and this was only 3 months prior to succession of hostilities.

What does the graph look like with the addition of the Prisoners of War (POW)?  This logically  should follow the same shape but in this case it doesn’t.  The worst month occurred in October 1943 with the Munster mission of 10 October bringing the most casualties of the month.

The question of chance of survival, as experienced for the 390th fliers, requires the introduction of the number of man missions flown in the month . This is presented in  the next graph.

Dividing the casualties, KIA and POW, by the man missions for the month then results in the casualties per man mission which then becomes the true indication of the loss experience.  This is depicted in the following graph and is adjusted for the number of missions required for the period.  That is: the early mission requirements were 25 and then 30 in March 1944 and then 35 in June 1944 until the end of hostilities. This multiplier was introduced to indicate that if all of the mission requirements were flown in any one month what would be the chances of casualty occurring. Since all required missions were not actually  flown in any one month for any one individual an average over  the actual months flown would have to be taken in account.

The graph clearly shows that October 1943 is by far the worst period of operations.  During this month 138 casualties occurred with 45 KIAs and 93 POWs while flying only 1413 man missions for the month resulting in an individual, statistically, being a casualty 2.44 times if he flew all of his required 25 missions during the month.

The next worst month was January 1945 where 113 casualties occurred with 62 KIAs and 51 POWs while flying 3456 man missions for the month.  An individual in this case would be a casualty 1.14 times if he flew all of his then required 35 missions during the month.

There is one major difference in the casualty mix for these two high months.  The KIA to POW ratio for the month of October 1943 is slightly less than half, which is below the norm, but in January 1945  the KIAs exceeded the POWs, probably due to the last desperate catastrophic nature of the enemy attackers.

On the average, for the 390th Bomb Group, for every one Killed in Action there was almost 1.2  men taken  Prisoner  of  War.

All in all, the additional mission requirements with time tended to even out the probability of casualty and at no time was it ever a “cake walk”.  There were 6 months of over 50% loss prior to “D” day and 4 months after “D” day. The 8th Air Force suffered the most casualties of any other major military force during WWII and the 390th Bomb Group was not an exception. When was it the toughest? It was all tough. 

About the Data

This analysis would not be possible without the “Drain Data”.  We can not show enough acknowledgment and appreciation for the effort that Richard Drain expended in collecting the data. This required thousands of hours of meticulously visually  scanning hard to read micro-fiche records requiring a magnifying glass in most cases. This generated over 86,000 files with 8 fields of data in each file that initially was typed into an early computer program.  Each file had to be cross checked with other relationships.  This did not include personal files or detail aircraft data that later followed. This initial effort from Richard required devoted attention of effort over several years and at times at the rate of six days a week at six hours per day. Richard said: “with an ill wife, this effort kept me out of the bars”.

Along came Frank Drain, Richard’s son, and with his superior computer experience re-programmed  the data into a more modern, presentable, easier to use, data base program.   In addition to the improvements Frank made, he also designed the presentations for our research department and installation in our web site which he continues to support to this day.

We all owe the Richard and Frank Drain, father/son  team, the utmost gratitude.  Having experienced the tedious effort required to read micro-fiche data and being somewhat literate with a computer, I well appreciate their effort and the end result.  I’d venture to say that the “Drain Data” is one the most valuable assets the Museum has.