PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Bomber Command/8th Air Force tour of operations
Old 13th May 2014, 18:51
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rolling20
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
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The French ops were 1/3 of a trip, so you can imagine if you had done 20+ ops with the end in sight, you were now faced with the possibility of up to 30 ops more. After Mailly le Camp on May 3rd 1944 a loss ratio of 11.3% saw that scrapped. One has to remember that there were plenty of aircrew who did complete two and in some cases three tours. There were often spare bods on a station who would fly as and when they were needed and thus amassed more ops than the standard tour. Experienced men, whatever their aircrew trade were always welcomed by inexperienced crews. For most crews however , just getting to 30 ops was a miracle. Again different times of the war could affect survival rates. Mid 43-until spring 44 was a particularly brutal time.
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