RAF 14: The W R Chorley War Records (revised book review)
Royal Air Force
RAF Bomber Command Losses 1939-1945
The W R Chorley 9 Volume Set
PB402 LQ-M
The PAYNE CREW, the Skipper ~ Flight Lieutenant Leslie Payne RCAF on the left in late 1944. My uncle, FS Harry Alfred Marshall RAF, a flight engineer (centre). All served with 405 (City of Vancouver) Path Finder Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force. These are some of the Payne Crew of Avro Lancaster PB 402 LQ-M flying from RAF Gransden Lodge, Cambridgeshire, which was brought down over Germany on 16-17 January 1945 following a violent mid-air collision with Avro Lancaster KB850 WL-O, the KIEHL BAUCH CREW, operating from RAF Croft, North Yorkshire, and in which all fourteen crew were lost. Mid-air collisions were an all-too-frequent occurrence.
The W R Chorley Nine Volume Set
This volume covers the final year of the War ~ 1945.
However, the Royal Air Force operated in all theatres of war through all Commands, both the Near East and the Far East, and also in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans.
I
THE CHORLEY SERIES on Bomber Command Losses covers the entire Second World War, is superbly compiled and widens the perspectives of the enquiring reader and researcher. It also, for example, enables me to obtain a little of the impact - I use that adjective advisedly - upon those who were on the ‘receiving end’.
Despite two uncles being KIA over Germany in 1943 and 1945 respectively, this did not 'colour' the attitude of their siblings, my parents, who made sure that I and my siblings visited Austria with school trips in the 1960s, and with my own continuing journeys to Germany both with the RAF VR but also privately, because I enjoy being in Germany.
Since writing this paper my DNA result shows something else, too. If I put it like this, it’s best. There’s a lot of Norwegian, Scottish, English and Germanic ancestral history. And you know what? I’m darned well proud of all of that. It gives me a wider perspective. It helps me to always look at everything from, well, six angles … Norwegian, Scots, English, British, Scandinavian (a family branch thrives in Denmark too) and German.
My parents’ loss had given each of them the reason for finding 'someone to talk to' and which in turn led to 63 years of very happy marriage. That in turn has given the family a very solid foundation.
This, in turn, led to my own very close and deep association with the German People.
II
We are the generation that came immediately post-war, and in the 21st Century it is difficult to comprehend the influence that six years of war had on the post-war generation, akin to the pebble in a pool, so that we were still affected by that war 20, 30 and 50 years on.
For me, the Chorley Volumes are now more important than ever; especially when film directors will have us all believe that the most horrendous outcomes can literally be like a scratch, a shake of dust, from which one then gets up and carries on. Real war is not like that as we now see all too clearly from the War in Ukraine.
III
The Chorley Set must be protected and always made available. The Second World War is now fast fading into long-distant history. That is inevitable.
However, the records live on. We must learn from them. Yet, we only have to look at Aleppo in Syria to see that we are not learning.
I recommend Chorley to any person who is undergoing a serious study of the Strategic Air Offensive and also of air war generally.
If visiting RAF Cranwell, I would not be silent if I discovered that the complete Chorley set is not available to students. But it also enables me to think about the impact of the air war on all sides, whether it be the aircrews and, even more importantly, their ground crews, but also the civilian populations that, through no choice or voice, are brought into the front line. Moreover, in countless historical biographies and battlefield re-enactments, it is as if the writer sees only through the eyes of the chess player. Set pieces on a board. Cities and towns apparently emptied, and cleared, so the protagonists can slog it out. As we know from Russia and Assad in Syria, the cities Houla and Aleppo, and now Russia in the War in Ukraine, the port city of Mariupol, Kharkiv, Bakhmut and Kherson, the people are in situ.
The Chorley series also includes a volume recording the losses within the Heavy Conversion Units. The entries make for sober reading.
IV
For most of my life, the losses in RAF Bomber Command were invariably fixed at 55,573 aircrew personnel killed. In 2021, this is rightly revised, and I quote a Wikipedia source:
(a) 57,205 killed (a 46 per cent death rate), plus
(b) 8,403 wounded, plus
(c) 9,838 thereby becoming prisoners of war (POWs).
This totals 75,446 aircrew personnel (60 per cent of operational airmen of all ranks) either killed, wounded or taken prisoner.
This is just one Command of the Royal Air Force and the Commonwealth Air Forces, all of which were grouped into a single Bomber Command for the period 1936-1968.
This does not include those killed, wounded or captured in any of the other RAF Commands. Nor does it include the commands within the United States Army Air Force.
A cautionary note, however, is required regarding the Wikipedia source.
Wikipedia is open to all.
I, therefore, incline towards the official figure of 55,573, although readers might be interested to investigate the probable higher figure of 57,205 as reported by Wikipedia contributors.
The Full 9-Volume Set comprises
Royal Air Force
BOMBER COMMAND
LOSSES
of the Second World War
Volume 1 ~ 1939 - 1940
Volume 2 ~ 1941
Volume 3 ~ 1942
Volume 4 ~ 1943
Volume 5 ~ 1944
Volume 6 ~ 1945
Volume 7 ~ Operational Training Units 1940 -1947
Volume 8 ~ Heavy Conversion Units and Miscellaneous Units 1939 - 1947
Volume 9 ~ Roll of Honour 1939 -1947
David Gunby and Pelham Temple have compiled a separate Set following the Chorley Precedent.
Royal Air Force
BOMBER LOSSES
IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND
MEDITERRANEAN
Volume 1 1939 - 1942
1 March 2024
All Rights Reserved
LIVERPOOL
© 2024 Eyes to the Skies
First published on 15 July 2021
Glossary
KIA killed in action
The Publisher’s advisory note beautifully sums up this amazing work by W R Chorley, David Gumby and Pelham Temple respectively.
‘It is not a book for bedtime reading. It is a book that should be found on the shelves of every researcher, author and air warfare historian … and relatives and friends of former members of Bomber Command in the Second World War.’ - Best of British Magazine
Back Cover to Volume 6. Each volume follows the same layout, but attuned to the volume content.