It was on the Fifties British War Films : Days of Glory shown on BBC4
It's noted as he goes to the Bomber Command Memorial whilst discussing the success and how people could relate to the Dambuster film he states and i quote..
"Bomber Command had a death rate of 44.4%, you had more chance of returning from the trenches in the Great War than you did of surviving as Bomber Crew"
Stunned me when he said that, but when you look at the losses it makes sense sadly.
From Wikipedia
Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes.[clarification needed][24] A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I.[24] By comparison, the US Eighth Air Force, which flew daylight raids over Europe had 350,000 aircrew during the war and suffered 26,000 killed and 23,000 POWs.[24] Of the RAF Bomber Command personnel killed during the war, 72% were British, 18% were Canadian, 7% were Australian and 3% were New Zealanders. [25]
Taking an example of 100 airmen:[26]
55 killed on operations or died as result of wounds
three injured (in varying levels of severity) on operations or active service
12 taken prisoner of war (some injured)
two shot down and evaded capture
27 survived a tour of operations
Frightning.
RAF Bomber Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia