Originally Posted by
Richard Woods
The Halifax issue was the stalling of the fin and rudder, caused if it rudder was applied excessively. Test found that with any trim applied the rudder overbalanced at speeds below 150mph, and became completely unrecoverable if one or more engines was lost. Losing an engine wasn't the cause, but it didn't help.
My point about Schräge Musik was that the aircraft often didn't suffer a structural failure and break up - they were set on fire and blew up when the bombload went up (as happened to two friends of mine on different crews) or the fuel level was such that the fuel tank exploded. Taking figures for losses of this nature as a 'mid air break up' doesn't really prove the strength of one airframe against another as the loss is caused by damage and enemy action rather than an inherent weakness.
As for the survival rates, I'd be interested to see the survival rates if similar numbers of Halifaxes and Lancasters were counted, as opposed to a large number of Lancasters against a small number of Halifax as was the case during the Bomber offensive. To illustrate the point and how it can be easily swayed - what were the Lancaster survivability against Halifax on Coastal Command missions? Does that mean it was a better aircraft for Coastal missions? No..
Statistics are just numbers on a page. You can make them do as you please.
But Wakelam isn't 'making statistics do as [he] please[s]'. He's quoting and analysing the ORS stats and the way in which Harris and Bomber Command dealt with/handled them. And - most critically, and I can only assume you missed this when reading the book - it talks on a number of occasions about the superiority of the Lancaster, and goes so far as to say that the stats produced by the ORS 'could not but have helped to convince the leaders of the futility of maintaining the Halifax as a front line bomber'.
With respect, you appear to be taking snippets of Wakelam's quoting from the ORS about issues with the Lancaster and viewing them as some sort of agenda against the Lancaster by the author, when that's simply not the case.
The problems with the Halifax are mentioned more than once; the loss rate, particularly in 6 Group and 434 Sqn in particular are covered - his commentary is on the ORS's difficulty in working out whether there were statistical trends or statistical anomalies at play. He 'skims over' this (although I would dispute that loaded description) simply because the ORS didn't come up with a satisfactory answer to the question and uses it to highlight the difficulties the ORS could have in reaching conclusions which they were certain were supported by the evidence and the analysis thereof.
The ORS - not Wakelam - said that the crew survival rates in the Lancaster were lower than those in the Halifax, and they did so using a credible methodology.
Since Wakelam served nearly 35 years in the CAF/RCAF as a pilot and expresses his view that when flying he thought OR was of little real use (p.4) and gives a clear statement of what he was trying to do in the thesis (and then the book) in his introduction, I'm not sure that he can be said to have some sort of revisionist agenda. Indeed, unless 'revisionism' is explaining how Bomber Command made good use of OR , or refuting the idea that Harris was a bloodthirsty war criminal (p7) or deprecating the idea that the offensive was a failure (p.6) then he's not a revisionist.
What's more, I can't help thinking that much of Wakelam's book and thesis in fact
agree with the points you're making about the Lancaster...
I can't help worrying that you may be shooting the messenger (Wakelam) here; he is reporting what the ORS thought and advised through their stats, not coming up with his own calculations in some bid to make some sort of revisionist statement.