NOTES TO TABLE 9

This table is of primary interest as a source of overall carrier aircraft loss rates in combat operations for the last 20 months of the war – the months of full-scale, regular carrier operations. Included are all flights, action sorties and losses for each carrier, for the whole of each month that the carrier reported any air action against the enemy.

Many interesting comparisons between loss rates are invited by the table:

(a) Operational loss rates, both on action sorties and on other flights, are highest on CVs, lowest on CVEs. This is true for all types of planes combined and also for the F6F and TBF separately; the F6F and TBF were used on all three types of carrier. When these two types alone are considered, the margin of the CVL over the CV is very slight and the superiority of the CVE more pronounced.

(b) Operational loss rates are almost invariably lower for sorties involving action against the enemy than for other flights. This may reflect only the erroneous attribution to enemy action of mission planes actually lost for operational causes; this factor is more likely to apply to fast carriers than to CVEs.

(c) The SBD was the safest plane, operationally, followed in order by the F6F and TBF. F6F operational loss rates were far lower than those for the FM and F4U. The SB2C ranked a poor last operationally.

(d) No particular pattern is discernible in loss rates for non-airborne aircraft aboard ship, other than that CVLs had the highest losses, and CVEs the lowest. These are influenced heavily by the accidents of kamikaze attack (which affected the CVEs least) and typhoons.

(e) In total losses to all causes, including enemy action, CVEs again fared best, partly because of their lower rate of losses to enemy action, and their lower proportion of action sorties to total flights. The relatively low operational loss rates of the F6F and TBF help them to maintain their superiority over the F4U and SB2C in total losses. SBD and FM total losses remain the lowest, however.

From the table it will be seen that the average carrier aircraft in combat operations made about 15 flights per month, about 5 or 6 of which resulted in action against the enemy. For CVEs and CVLs these figures would read 18 and 5, for CVs 14 and 6. These averages, however, include months of very light operations; figures for peak months are given in Tables 12 and 13. In general, fighters made more flights and had less action sorties per month than the overall average, while bombers had more action in a smaller number of flights. The highest average of action sorties per plane per month, however, was reported for CVE F6Fs (7.1) which also had the highest average flights per month, showing the heavy reliance placed upon the SANGAMON class carriers during amphibious operations; SB2Cs were next with 6.7.