war establishment tables

[hildaren]

Hi

Has anyone got war establishment tables for Fighter and bomber squadron’s pre mid 1943 or Servicing Units and squadrons after?

regards hildaren 

[davidd]

hildaren
Would that be aircraft establishments or personnel establishments? Or both?
David D

[hildaren]

Hi David

Both, but mainly ground crew, I have come across the 488 squadron one maybe from you on another forum? That got me interested in this. As my hobby is nz army tables

regards Hildaren

[davidd]

Hidaren,

Aircraft establishment was 12 + 6 (18).

Pilot estab was initially 21 (5 sections of four, plus one reserve), but this was amended in January 1944 to 27 (six sections of 4 plus 3 reserves). This was not hugely different from an RAF single seat, single engine fighter squadron, although their usual establishment was 16 aircraft.

Support staff not so clear, and did change quite frequently in detail for various reasons. Off the top of my head, it seemed to be in vicinity of 180 - 200 bodies in early days in NZ and rear bases in South Pacific, but possibly up to 240 or so in the most forward air bases, this probably gave a good working reserve in case of minor sickness, etc, which was a much greater factor to be taken account of under forward area operational conditions. Unfortunately do not have a trade and rank breakdown for the fighter Servicing Units, but would probably be roughly proportionate to the 488 Squadron (Buffalo) establishment you already have.
David D

[hildaren]

Hi David

Just on the aircraft .so 2 flights of 6 IE +3 IR per flight?

Hildaren

[davidd]

Hildaren,

[davidd]

Hildaren,
Yes, pretty much that, but normally listed simply as 12 + 6 (18) aircraft, but can be expressed in flights or sections as I have done above. At some locations, additional reserve aircraft were held (usually on station strength, or at Base Depot), sometimes known as War Reserve (WR). A minimum number of such aircraft for each location would be specified, and should this reserve fall below this number, then additional aircraft would be called for from New Zealand, expected to arrive within a few days of being requested.
David D

[hildaren]

Thank you David for your answers interesting about the war revere aircraft .the SU is a big unit at 240 men. .I see on a forum that bomber sq (4 engine) were up to 30 aircraft (10 (8 IE +2 IR?) each flight) and 150-200 aircrew plus 500+ ground crew. So bomber squadrons in UK are quite big at 700 odd men and woman .am thinking of 75 NZ squadron

Hildaren

[davidd]

Your estimate of the aircrew strength of 75(NZ) Sqdn is a bit on the low side - by about March 1945 it was stocked up with 60 (repeat SIXTY) full crews, each of 7 men, totalling some 420 aircrew, appears to have been double crewed (two crew provided per aircraft). Also 75 Sqdn did not have its own technical staff from about November 1943 onwards - they were formed into Servicing Echelons, then later (from 1 August 1944) all ground personnel, apart from Adjutant, were posted to No. 33 Base. However have no idea as to the personnel strengths of these units (possibly a formation in case of the Base organisation, which controlled three Bomber stations under the one HQ, perhaps comprising Squadrons and Flights). The reason for having two crews for each established aircraft (note that the actual number of aircraft on strength during 1945 could be as high as 33 or 34, in excess of the official established strength),is not known for certain, but was possibly a result of having an excessive number of trained crews available as operational losses were by now very much reduced, and to have trained crews held in non-flying holding units would have led to poor morale and much frustration among such crews, seemingly surplus to requirements (in fact they WERE surplus to requirements!). Posting such crews to operational squadrons so as to theoretically double operational capacity could have the following possible consequences (but not all at the same time!) Maintaining crew strength of such (double-stocked) squadrons to enable them to double their operational tempo (although this supposes that the servicing of aircraft could also be maintained at double the tempo, therefore probably highly unlikely); double the time required for each crew to complete their tour of duty, although this could be countered by cutting down the number of operations required to complete a tour. Extending the tour over a longer period could have resulted in a very long and low-intensity period of operations, so may have been considered undesirable for morale; conversely reducing number of operations required for tour might well have had the opposite effect. As it would seem unlikely that additional technical support could be provided at short notice across the entire command, the decisions taken would probably take into account that operational losses of Bomber Command crews were fairly low (and probably reducing) by April 1945, and the end of the war was obviously drawing very near. Under these operating conditions, the employment of double-crew squadrons could be justified at this very late stage, largely to maintain a big operational force in being, even though it could realistically not increase its tempo of operations to a any great degree due to probable shortages of technical capacity (ground crew), and perhaps even a shortage of bombs (although this shortage may have been overcome by this stage). The formation of an RAF (British Commonwealth) bombing force for deployment to the Far East (Okinawa) was probably the top priority at this time, and Bomber Command itself would be drastically reduced in size on the surrender of Germany, along with a huge reduction in available bomber crews. It was envisaged that finding sufficient trained crews for the Far East deployment could be problematic, as the bulk of Bomber Command crews were not really interested in prolonging their RAF careers, and had civvie street on their minds; if they had already completed an operational tour with the Command, the RAF had only a tenuous hold on their future services anyway, and had to rely on mostly fairly inexperienced crews to volunteer to man the new Far East number force (better known as Tiger Force). This force, of course, included 75(NZ) Squadron, and for the first time the entire flying squadron would be manned by New Zealanders, but this did not extend to the ground crew, which would have to be supplied by the RAF as a whole.

As an afterthought, note that I have not provided any estimate of the RNZAF's Bomber Reconnaissance Servicing Units. In the latter part of the war, these were up to establishments in the high 200s, approaching 300 by end of the war, probably because complex twin-engined aircraft (PV-1 Venturas) required a lot more servicing and adjustment than the contemporary single-engine fighters, not to mention the loading of large numbers of bombs through this period. Again, we have no proper breakdown of trades and/or ranks, but I imagine that engine and armament personnel were probably carried in greater numbers than was the case in an equivalent fighter servicing unit.

David D

[hildaren]

David

Thank you for that .60 crews is a lot.
Hildaren

[davidd]

Indeed it is - a hell of a lot! Note that only a proportion of Bomber Command's front line squadrons were of the three-Flight variety (including our own 75 Sqdn), the bulk were in fact of the "normal" two-Flight type. And I have no idea how widespread the "double-stocking" of crews in squadrons actually was, but I do not believe that 75 was the only one.
David D