Asia/Pacific ww2 air war: how many Japanese A/C were destroyed by Allies?

[tomo pauk]

Hello, people,
Is there a good source re. confirmed Japanese A/C losses in ww2? How well stack the claims (mostly the ones attributed to F6F and F4F) to the true kills?

 

[davebender]

Most of the IJA was on the Asian mainland. I suspect that's where most IJA aircraft losses happened.

 

[parsifal]

good call tomo.....this should be interesting

 

[tomo pauk]

The USN report, written in 1946. The claims seem not to be corroborated with Japanese sources, at least I didn't see any whily skimming through the report. To bad JoeB is not here, bet he would have to say plenty about the topic.

 

[parsifal]

It is based on claims (it says it in the report). It also very clearly says that the losses are based on the reports submitted by the various operational commands during the war. Ellis in his statistical digest gives figures of a total of 38000 aircraft lost, of which, in total 9000 were lost in air combat, 17000 on the ground, and the remainder (12000) were lost to non-operational causes. I dont think Ellis includes write offs scrappings or training accidents. Claims for airborne kills by the USN exceed by a small amount the total admitted losses by the Japanese. If the USN figures are taken at face value, the remaining participants in the war, the USAAC, the RAAF, RAF, RNFAA, RNZAF Chinese AF, VVS and RNeAF did not shoot down any aircraft at all.

Some sources do, however give rough figures of 50000 aircraft lost, but I think this may be including those "own goal" losses like training accidents.

As Foreman says in his various books on RAF operations, claims should be taken as just that, claims. They are good as a basis for working out the levels of air activity, not suitable for relying on as an accurate tally of actual losses

 

[RCAFson]

This study gives some useful info, but I can't read the detailed breakdown of IJN losses, and it seems that IJN losses are not separated into aerial and ground combat losses:
USSBS Report 62, Japanese Air Power, OCR

 

[Wildcat]

This site contains lists of RAAF and RNZAF CLAIMS
Pacific Victory Roll - Home

 

[meatloaf109]

If the USN figures are taken at face value, the remaining participants in the war, the USAAC, the RAAF, RAF, RNFAA, RNZAF Chinese AF, VVS and RNeAF did not shoot down any aircraft at all.

It's possible.

Seriously, I have always wondered how "claims" added up against actual losses.
I have resigned myself to the idea that the truth may never be actually known.

 

[parsifal]

Thankyou for the link Wildcat. From the USN report,, Wildcats post, Ellis, and my book on the BPF operations in the Pacific in 1945, we can begin to construct some figures on claims

USN report
9235 claimed aerial victories

Ground Attack
2807 a/c

AA (from another USN summary)
2048

RAAF
Aerial
206 (from Wildcats links)

RNZAF
123 (source as above)

BPF (from my book)
42 in the air
about 50 on the ground


RAF and NeAF
Unknown

USAAC
Aerial claims?????

USAAC Flak
Claims ?????

Other AA claims
????

Known Japanese actual losses, of which 9000 were admitted as losses in air combat, and 17000 to nonoperational causes. About 12000 were lost on the ground or to flak


So far we have 9600 claim air victories, with the USAAC the RAF, VVS Chinese AF and the NeAF to go. Already we have about 600 in overclaiming

 

[VBF-13]

How well stack the claims (mostly the ones attributed to F6F and F4F) to the true kills?

How exactly are you differentiating "claims" from "true kills?" I'm not being smart, so please don't start with me. I really want to know. For example, if a "claim" is, "I shot down X," what's a "true kill," "I truly shot down X?" "I shot down X, I mean it, I mean it, I mean it, I mean it?" Really. What, exactly, are you looking for, from an evidentiary standpoint? Just clarify that, if you think you can.

 

[VBF-13]

good call tomo.....this should be interesting

So far it's not exactly...

 

[tomo pauk]

How exactly are you differentiating "claims" from "true kills?" I'm not being smart, so please don't start with me. I really want to know. For example, if a "claim" is, "I shot down X," what's a "true kill," "I truly shot down X?" "I shot down X, I mean it, I mean it, I mean it, I mean it?" Really. What, exactly, are you looking for, from an evidentiary standpoint? Just clarify that, if you think you can.

Kill is a claim that is corroborated by concrete evidence. For example, a LW geschwader makes claim of 15 aircraft downed above certain area, on certain time. The after-war researcher wades through RAF combat losses of that time and area, squadron after squadron, and the bottom line is that RAF lost 9 aircraft then and there. So LW fighter unit over-claimed 6 planes - 15 claims, but only 9 kills.
Every side over claimed during the war. LW claims in BoB were so great that Goering was expecting that any time soon RAF would cease to existst as a fighting force. RAF was overclaiming, mostly during 1941 and 42 (due to 'big wing'? plenty of planes shooting the sparse number of adversaries) . Most of the overclaiming was being done by bomber gunners of the USAF, plenty of guns firing at the same time at same fighter being the root cause. LW in N. Africa was claiming one day a destruction of 25-30 of P40s, while the combat losses for that day were in single digits.
You can check out the 'Destroyers' thread in the WW2 General sub forum here, there is a list of AAA claims and real kills.The ratio was quite a big one.

Problem was that all sides were certain 100% they lost a plane, but the enemy's losses were counted mostly via claims. I believe most of the claims were honest, that does not mean they were 100% true.

 

[VBF-13]

I see. You're looking for corroboration from the record losses. Some of the "claims" may even be duplicative. At any rate, they have to correlate with the actual numbers lost. Yes, let's see what we can turn up on that. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Vincenzo]

USAAf claimed 10,343 planes destroyed in theaters vs Japan (table 166 of statistical digest...)
USAAF claimed 3,960 planes destroyed in theaters vs Japan in the air from fighters (tables 169, 170, 171, 172)

 

[parsifal]

I forgot to mention, we also need to include Japanese aircraft destroyed on the ground by non-US sources, just to get the total numbers claimed destroyed. My plan is then to work backwards to try and estimate actual numbers killed.

As far as Im aware, this has never been attempted before. Atleast not here...


So far, additing the figures provided by Vincenzo we have the following losses made against the Japanese

USAAC
Air 3960

Ground
6830

USArmy Flak

???

USN report
9235 claimed aerial victories

Ground Attack
2807 a/c

AA (from another USN summary)
2048

RAAF
Aerial
206 (from Wildcats links)

Ground

AA


RNZAF
123 (source as above)

Air

Ground

AA


BPF (from my book)
Air 42 in the air

Ground
about 50 on the ground

AA


RAF and NeAF
Air

Gnd

AA Unknown

Japanese non-operational
17000


That puts us in the hole by 4300 overclaims compared to the known actual losses of the Japanese. And we still have some estimates from other sources to go. Anyone have figures for the RAF, and the VVS?

 

[tomo pauk]

Many thanks for the effort

 

[parsifal]

for what its worth wiki has the following recorded loses for the japanese

"Estimates vary from 35,000 to 50,000 total losses, with about 20,000 lost operationally"

Interpreting that data , it should actually say the operational losses as a range. possibly from 15-28000.

With estimated operational losses of 20000, our claims figures are already 25301. And as i said, there are sill some unknown claims to be provided. At 25000 losses we are already 5000 over the median losses for the Japanese

 

[Jenisch]

What was the size of the air contingent of the Kwantung Army?

 

[parsifal]

substantial. ill look up the air compponent at the beginning of the war and in 1945 later tonite

 

[Vincenzo]

the japanese aircraft claimed destroyed on the ground from the statistical digest are 2750, an other 2147 were claimend on the air from bombers, the sum don't is right because this not include the 1225 enemy planes claimed from 12th Air Force (is not available subdivision on air and on ground for this) and a few hundreds of claims are not assigned specifically at fighters or bombers