LOSSES AND CASUALTIES IN AERIAL WARFARE—DISCREPANCIES IN OFFICIAL REPORTS—"DRIVEN DOWN" AND "DESTROYED"

To tabulate or chronicle accurately the losses and casualties suffered by the various armies in their aerial warfare is absolutely impossible. Not so much because of censorship or secrecy, but because of the fact that when an aeroplane is "driven down" by the French behind the German lines, it cannot be said that this aeroplane is actually destroyed or even damaged, or that its pilot has received a wound. Similarly when German machines attack and force a French or British machine to descend swiftly behind its own lines. The reporting of machines "driven down" among those "destroyed" is the cause of all the discrepancies between the official reports of the contending forces.

The following figures have been gathered with the greatest care from the British "Roll of Honor," covering the killed, missing and wounded members of the Royal British Flying Corps. They are for the month of February, 1916, a month of comparative quiet, and there can be no doubt that proportionately larger casualty lists could be compiled from the more active months of the summer of 1916. The first week of February resulted in nine officers killed, one wounded, and five "missing"; two noncommissioned officers were also reported "missing." The second week six officers were killed, two wounded, while one noncommissioned officer was killed and another wounded. During the third week three flight lieutenants were killed, five wounded, and two captured by the enemy, while eight noncommissioned officers were wounded. In the last week of the month there were three officers killed, five wounded, and six "missing," while three noncommissioned men were listed as killed. The total losses for the month on the short battle line held by the British forces were therefore: twenty-one officers killed, thirteen wounded, and thirteen missing; fifteen noncommissioned officers killed or wounded. The losses among German aviators, taken from the regularly published casualty lists issued by the German Government, were twenty-four killed, and eleven wounded, during the month of January.

The casualty lists become a deep mystery when compared with the losses of machines admitted by the respective war departments. During the month of February, for instance, the British announced the loss of six aeroplanes—yet the casualty lists showed a loss of sixty-two officers and men! During the same month the French lost six machines, the Germans eight, the Russians three, Austria one, and Italy one.

Statistics for the four months from April to July, 1916, gathered from the periodical press of Great Britain and Germany, and probably far more accurate than the occasional "estimates" made by the war departments themselves, show the following losses in officers killed in aerial combats:

April—British 18, French 15, Russian 7, Italian 3; German 16, Austrian 3, Turkish 1, Bulgarian 0.

May—British 16, French 11, Russian 5, Italian 4; German 10, Austrian 5, Turkish 0, Bulgarian 0. June—British 19, French 10, Russian 11, Italian 3; German 8, Austrian 6, Turkish 1, Bulgarian 0.

July—British 15, French 15, Russian 13, Italian 5; German 16, Austrian 8, Turkish 0, Bulgarian 1.

Total losses in aviation officers: Allies, 170; Central Powers, 75.

A cursory examination of the records of aerial combats on the western battle front shows an average of eighteen combats daily; on some days there were as many as forty distinct aerial battles, while on others, in blinding snow and rainstorms no machines were aloft. In the 3,000-odd duels in the air, the Franco-American Flying Corps began to take a prominent part early in the spring of 1916, shortly after the various American volunteer aviators had been gathered into a single unit and been placed at the point of the greatest danger—the Verdun sector of the front.

The formation of the Franco-American Flying Corps was formed by Frazier Curtis and Norman Prince, after many unsuccessful attempts since December, 1914. At the time of gathering the scattered Americans into a single corps there were about thirty experienced aviators in the group, but the number has been greatly augmented since then, and in the latter part of July nearly a hundred are reported to have been gathered in the aviation corps near Verdun.

The first American aviator to fly over the Verdun battle field since the beginning of the great battle still raging in that sector, was Carroll Winslow, of New York, who piloted one of the Maurice Farman speed planes. Previous to the beginning of that battle, Lieutenant William Thaw of Pittsburgh and Elliott Cowdin of New York had crossed the battle field repeatedly.[Back to Contents]