Strength of the R.A.F. 26th April 1945.

[Neil Stirling]

Whilst looking through some of the files on my hd I came across these files. RAF strength April 1945. I thought they might be interesting. Please excuse the quality of 1 or 2 pictures, the originals are in poor shape.

Neil.

 

[Glider]

Excellent Stuff.

 

[fastmongrel]

Interesting to see some of the planes that surely should have been long gone, Gloster Gladiators and HP Harrow/Sparrows. Also noticed 21 Helicopters would these be Cierva Gyros or Sikorsky.

 

[OldSkeptic]

Brilliant, now all we need is some brave soul to enter it into a spreadsheet....

 

[stona]

Brilliant, now all we need is some brave soul to enter it into a spreadsheet....

After you old bean

Great stuff though, thanks very much Neil.

Steve

 

[OldSkeptic]

No after you, I would hate to take the credit from you

Then again if it is possible, we could all share the task between us? Then again, the term 'herding cats' seems like an underestimate of the task.

But being wildly idealistic for a moment, if we had 10 people, split it all up we could all do that very quickly, with Neil's permission of course (naturally he gets the combined master list for publication on the web).

For that I will put my hand up. The term 'crowd sourcing' comes to mind.

 

[Aozora]

Thanks again Neil.

 

[fastmongrel]

Listed amongst the Fighters 36 Fairy Swordfish ?

 

[pattle]

What does balance of card effectives mean, are these damaged aircraft?

 

[mhuxt]

Hell Neil:

"Oh, here's some old files I stumbled across," is in this case akin to 'Oh yes, these are some old friends of mine, Scarlett Johansen and Katy Perry. They come over quite often, sometimes they bring Salma Hayek along."

A spreadsheet? "Do not tempt me, Frodo!"

 

[Neil Stirling]

Cheers guys! your welcome to use the info for a spread sheet.

Balance of card effectives, don't know for sure, maybe aircraft broken down into spares?

Neil.

 

[mhuxt]

As a start, I've banged the Mossie numbers into a spreadsheet, which, as you can tell from the other tab, I started after one of Neil's previous posts about RAF strength.

For the record, I believe this actually underestimates total Mosquito strength in Australia. The Bankstown factory had by then produced 61 airframes, in addition to which about 74 UK-built T.IIIs, PRXVIs and FB.VIs were transferred to Australia, though a very few of these may have been transferred post-April '45. The transfers noted on the document are B.IVs, and are almost certainly the "Highball" bouncing-bomb aircraft of the former 618 Squadron. So there's a gap of around 130 Mossies in Australia, which for obvious reasons weren't under direct RAF command.

It also under-states Canadian Mosquitos. By April '45 Downsview had produced 789 Mosquitos, however the document only accounts for 451. Many of the dH Canada Mossies were retained in-country for the RCAF, or were awaiting transfer. So another 300 or so.

The document also does not account for the Mosquitos on strength with the USAAF - 25th BG, 492nd BG, 416th NFS IIRC.

Bottom line for mossies is, by my reckoning, a good deal more than 3,281 Mosquitos on Allied strength by the end of April '45. Call it 3,700 for argument's sake, though I suspect it's a touch higher. Total production to that point was 5,746 from all factories. To have 2/3 of all produced airframes still somewhere in the Allied Forces is a quite staggering accomplishment after the long years of war.

I confess I'm a touch reluctant to add other types - the numbers are hard to line up, and I was able to do the Mosquito numbers based on their context. I knew which numbers to assign to which row based on my (rather sad) awareness of the Mosquito story. Mossie XIXs in India make sense to me, Mossie XVIIIs do not. I can't say the same about the various marks of Spitfire or Hurricane.

View attachment Strength.zip

 

[Neil Stirling]

Not complete but includes all the interesting stuff.

Thanks Mark that makes the Mossi position clearer.

Neil.

 

[mhuxt]

Cheers Neil, thanks again for the additional scans.

Cod, another spreadsheet...

Beddy-byes first methinks.

 

[herman1rg]

Come on then who's going to do the whole listing to Spreadsheet? ( I'm totally rubbish at them BTW)

 

[RCAFson]

Interesting, over 2000 Hurricanes on strength in April 1945.

 

[drgondog]

Neil - can you steer me to RAF statistic on Mustang kills for the RAF - all models?

Regards,

Bill

 

[pattle]

Interesting, over 2000 Hurricanes on strength in April 1945.

And one lonely Airacobra.

 

[Wildcat]

Thanks for posting Neil, very interesting. The column for Australia is sadly lacking though.

 

[Neil Stirling]

Neil - can you steer me to RAF statistic on Mustang kills for the RAF - all models?

Regards,

Bill

Hi Bill

I am afraid there is no quick fix. Probably your best bet would be " Fighter Command war diaries parts 4 and 5 by John Forman" These books list the daily claims and loses and you can, with perseverance build a total. The only thing being that the books are Fighter Command and 2nd TAF related. Nothing about the RAF in Italy for example. You could try RAF squadron and Wing records available online from the PRO, Mike could help you with this.

Neil