Post
by Allan M » 14 Mar 2010 01:10
"Okay great what means the 525+1033 split?"
Those two numbers come from two messages in the takoradi air route thread of 11 Aug 2004 at times 16:31 and 16:44. It just means that 1558 Hurricanes came up from Takoradi from Jan41 to Sep42.
"Did you already made the sum of those that came in aircraft carriers?"
Yes, 323 Hurricanes and 376 Spitfires arrived at Malta from aircraft carriers. The Hurricane numbers I got from Dannreuthers' Force H and the Spitfire numbers from a website. The latter is accurate, other more solid sources echo a similar number.
"Btw maybe losses would let us know how many were spent in Mediterranean theatre: The total losses plus filling all squadrons will show how many were employed."
I have gathered little information about losses yet, but a cursory reading shows that the British lost 575 aircraft between mid-November 1941 and mid-March 1942. Again, there is no breakdown as to what kinds of aircraft. (These facts are from Royal Air Force 1939-1945 by Denis Richards).
However, here is a complicating issue: were some of the supposedly lost aircraft subsequently repaired? 810 aircraft were delivered back repaired to the battle area from mid-November 1941 to mid-March 1942. I think the only hard evidence that planes are irrevocably lost is if the pilot was killed. It is known that 174 Allied fighter pilots died over Malta.
"Then we can get an approaching number of those that went far east."
Nearly 550 aircraft went east of Suez between end of December 1941 and mid-March 1942. (I want to know how many went east because then I will know how many aircraft were in the Mediterranean) But included in that number are all sorts of aircraft. I'm really only interested in the Spitfires and Hurricanes.
Still, what I want most of all is to know how many, when, and where aircraft moved within the Mediterranean area. And so far all I know of that is that one squadron of Spitfires went from Malta to Egypt, half a squadron of Hurricanes from Cyrenaica to Malta, and that another squadron of Hurricane pilots that arrived from an aircraft carrier in November 1941 went from Malta to the Far East sometime after having been retained to defend the island for a period of time, but maybe went without their aircraft.
They are very informative and I've gotten much use from them. Maybe I'll find what I want in those volumes by Playfair. Off to the library!