United States Army Air Forces Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ===USAAF statistical summary=== The United States Army Air Forces incurred 12% of the Army's 936,000 battle casualties in World War II. 88,119 airmen died in service. 52,173 were battle casualty deaths: 45,520 [[killed in action]], 1,140 died of wounds, 3,603 were [[missing in action]] and declared dead, and 1,910 were non-hostile battle deaths. Of the United States military and naval services, only the Army Ground Forces suffered more battle deaths. 35,946 non-battle deaths included 25,844 in aircraft accidents, more than half of which occurred within the Continental United States.<ref name="cas53">"Battle casualties" ''Army Battle Casualties Final Report'', pp. 76β77</ref> 63,209 members of the USAAF were other battle casualties. 18,364 were [[wounded in action]] and required medical evacuation, and 41,057 became [[Prisoner of war|prisoners-of-war]].<ref name="cas53"/><ref name="aafsd34">''AAF Statistical Digest'', Table 34 β Battle Casualties in All Overseas Theaters, By Type of Casualty and Type of Personnel</ref> Its casualties were 5.1% of its strength, compared to 10% for the rest of the Army.<ref name="WatsonWinged">Nalty (1997), p. 268.</ref><ref group=n>However, the 115,000 battle casualties suffered by the AAF represented 19% of the 603,000 aircrew trained during the war.</ref> Total aircraft losses for the AAF from December 1941 to August 1945 were 65,164, with 43,581 lost overseas and 21,583 within the Continental United States.<ref name="aafsd99">''AAF Statistical Digest'', Table 99 β Airplane Losses in Continental US and Overseas, By Type of Airplane</ref> Combat losses of aircraft totaled 22,948 worldwide, with 18,418 lost in theaters fighting Germany and 4,530 lost in combat in the Pacific.<ref>Correll, "The US Army Air Forces at War", p. 34.</ref> The AAF credited its own forces with destroying a total of 40,259 aircraft of opposing nations by all means, 29,916 against Germany and its allies and 10,343 in the Pacific.<ref>Correll, "The US Army Air Forces at war", p. 33.</ref> The cost of the war to the AAF was approximately $50 billion,<ref group=n>Approximately $671 billion in 2016 dollars, calculated from 1945. [http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ US Inflation Calculator]</ref> or about 30% of the cost to the War Department,<ref name="WatsonWinged" /> with cash expenditures from direct appropriations between July 1942 and August 1945 amounting to $35,185,548,000.<ref>''AAF Statistical Digest'', Table 203 β Expenditures by Direct Appropriations, By Major Project</ref> Total [[sortie]]s flown by the AAF during World War II were 2,352,800, with 1,693,565 flown in Europe-related areas and 669,235 flown in the Pacific and Far East.<ref>Correll, "The US Army Air Forces at War", p. 32.</ref> 36 members of the Army Air Forces received the [[Medal of Honor]] for actions performed during air missions, 22 of them posthumously. Two additional awards were made, one posthumously, to AAF officers attached to the Western Task Force during [[Operation Torch]]. Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page