AP 118 · No. 10 Section IV · Numbers The Almanac · 02
The Almanac · No. 021939–1945

The Almanac

The Second World War

The air war in figures, 1939–1945

Eight hundred thousand aircraft, six years, and a war decided as much on factory floors as in the sky. The numbers behind the Battle of Britain, the bomber offensive and the industrial contest that underwrote both.

Two Spitfire Mk Is coded DW of No. 610 Squadron fly in close formation above broken cloud, with more Spitfires in the distance
Spitfire Is of No. 610 Squadron from Biggin Hill, 24 July 1940: a fortnight into the Battle of Britain and still flying the tight pre-war vics.
324,750

aircraft built in the United States, 1939–1945: half as many again as Germany, Japan and Italy put together

~840,000
military aircraft built by the seven nations charted here
2,937
airmen awarded the Battle of Britain clasp for flying with Fighter Command
55,573
Bomber Command aircrew killed
36,183
Il-2 Shturmoviks built, the most of any single type
~26,000
Eighth Air Force airmen killed

The air war of 1939–1945 was the first in which aircraft were made like motor cars. Britain built nearly 8,000 military aircraft in 1939; the United States built more than 96,000 in 1944 alone. Between those two figures lies most of the story: a contest that the Axis powers, for all their early tactical brilliance, could not win on the factory floor.

This page is the numbers companion to The Six-Year Sky, our narrative history of the war in the air. Here the story is told in production runs, sorties, tonnages and casualty rolls. Wartime statistics are messy: nations counted differently, claims ran far ahead of real losses, and post-war historians still disagree by a few per cent. Where they do, we give the most-cited figure and say so.

The factory war

Air power was built before it was flown, and the Allies built far more of it.

Fig. 1

Military aircraft built, 1939–1945

aircraft

= 10,000 aircraft

  1. United States
    324,750
  2. Soviet UnionOther compilations give 157,261
    158,218
  3. United Kingdom
    131,549
  4. GermanyTotals of 111,000–120,000 appear, depending on what is counted
    119,292
  5. Japan
    76,320
  6. Canada
    16,418
  7. ItalyTo the armistice of September 1943
    11,122

One icon = 10,000 aircraft. National series count differently (accepted vs completed; with or without trainers and gliders), so treat differences of a few per cent as noise.

Source Overy, The Air War 1939–1945 (1980); Ellis, World War II: The Encyclopedia of Facts and Figures (1993); Canada: Auger, University of Ottawa (2006)

One icon is ten thousand aeroplanes. The United States out-built Germany, Japan and Italy combined by roughly 1.6 to 1, and the four main Allied producers together built about three aircraft for every one built by the Axis. Britain, often pictured as the plucky underdog, out-produced Germany in every year from 1940 to 1943; only Albert Speer’s fighter programme of 1944 briefly reversed that, and by then the Luftwaffe was short of fuel and trained pilots rather than aircraft.

Fig. 2

Aircraft production by year

aircraft
  • United States
  • Soviet Union
  • United Kingdom
  • Germany
  • Japan
  • Italy
Aircraft production by year
YearUnited StatesSoviet UnionUnited KingdomGermanyJapanItaly
19395856103827940829544671692
19401280410565150491024747682142
19412627715735200941240150883503
19424783625436236721540988612818
19438589834900262632480716693967
19449631840300264614059328180
194549761209001207075408263

US 1939–40 figures include civil aircraft; 1945 figures are part-years. Soviet 1943–45 figures are rounded in the source.

Source Overy, The Air War 1939–1945; Ellis, World War II Databook; Craven & Cate, The Army Air Forces in World War II vol. VI

Colour photograph of two women in overalls riveting the rear fuselage section of a B-24 Liberator, a third woman in a red headscarf working inside
Riveters on a Liberator fuselage section at Consolidated’s Fort Worth plant, Texas, October 1942. More Liberators were built than any other American military aircraft.Howard R. Hollem, Office of War Information / Library of Congress (LCCN 2017878289), Public domain (US federal work) · source
Winston Churchill, in a pinstripe suit, watches a young woman in overalls riveting on a Spitfire assembly jig in a large factory hall
Churchill watches a riveter at work on a Spitfire at Castle Bromwich, 28 September 1941. The Birmingham shadow factory built more than half of all Spitfires.© IWM H 14259, photo: Capt. W. G. Horton, War Office official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
Fig. 3

Big numbers: twenty-four types and how many were built
Ilyushin Il-2USSRGround attack36,1831939
Messerschmitt Bf 109GermanyFighter33,9841935
Supermarine Spitfire / SeafireUKFighter22,6851936
Focke-Wulf Fw 190GermanyFighter20,0511939
Consolidated B-24 LiberatorUSAHeavy bomber18,4821939
Yakovlev Yak-9USSRFighter16,7691942
Republic P-47 ThunderboltUSAFighter-bomber15,6601941
North American P-51 MustangUSAFighter15,5861940
Junkers Ju 88GermanyBomber15,1831936
Hawker HurricaneUKFighter14,4871935
Curtiss P-40USAFighter13,7381938
Boeing B-17 Flying FortressUSAHeavy bomber12,7311935
Vought F4U CorsairUSANaval fighter12,5711940
Grumman F6F HellcatUSANaval fighter12,2751942
Vickers WellingtonUKMedium bomber11,4621936
Petlyakov Pe-2USSRDive bomber11,4271939
Avro AnsonUKTrainer / patrol11,0201935
Mitsubishi A6M ZeroJapanNaval fighter10,9391939
Lockheed P-38 LightningUSAFighter10,0371939
North American B-25 MitchellUSAMedium bomber9,9841940
Lavochkin La-5USSRFighter9,9201942
de Havilland MosquitoUKMulti-role7,7811940
Avro LancasterUKHeavy bomber7,3771941
Heinkel He 111GermanyBomber7,3001935
A selection of combat types and the Anson, not a strict top 24: the T-6 Texan/Harvard trainer (15,495), the C-47 and its DC-3 family (16,079 including licence builds) and the Yak-1 (8,734) also out-built several types listed. Totals include pre-war and, for some types (Spitfire, Corsair, Anson, Mosquito), post-war production. Bf 109: 33,984 built in Germany, 1936–45; about 34,850 with licence and post-war builds in Czechoslovakia and Spain.

Source National production records via Wikipedia, List of most-produced aircraft; Bf 109 after Vajda & Dancey

A Douglas A-20 attack bomber on the assembly line at Long Beach, men and a woman worker on ladders and steps around its glazed nose and two radial engines
An A-20 Havoc on the Douglas line at Long Beach, California, October 1942. Women made up a large share of the American aircraft workforce by 1943.
  1. Glazed bombardier’s nose, fitted on the line
  2. Wright R-2600 Twin Cyclone radial, propeller already on
  3. A woman fitter at the nose: by 1943 some 300,000 women worked in American aircraft plants
  4. Nosewheel leg: the aircraft stands on its own gear, ready to move down the line
Alfred T. Palmer, Office of War Information / US National Archives (NARA 196397), Public domain (US federal work) · source

The Battle of Britain

10 July – 31 October 1940. Sixteen weeks, two air forces, one decision.

Fig. 4

Phases of the battle

  1. Kanalkampf: attacks on Channel convoys and ports open the battle (official start date).

  2. Adlertag, “Eagle Day”: the Luftwaffe turns on Fighter Command’s airfields and radar.

  3. Luftflotte 5 attacks the North East from Norway and is mauled; the Luftwaffe’s heaviest day of losses.

  4. “The Hardest Day”: the most aircraft lost by both sides combined on any day of the battle.

  5. The critical fortnight begins: sustained attacks on 11 Group’s sector airfields.

  6. The Luftwaffe switches to London. The Blitz begins; the airfields get their reprieve.

  7. Battle of Britain Day: two massed raids on London broken up.

  8. Hitler postpones Operation Sea Lion indefinitely.

  9. High-altitude fighter-bomber sweeps by day; the bombers go over to night.

  10. Official end of the battle.

Source Air Ministry dates; Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy (2000)

Fig. 5

Aircraft destroyed, 10 July – 31 October 1940

aircraft

= 50 aircraft

  1. RAF Fighter Command
    1,023
  2. RAF Bomber and Coastal CommandsBomber 376, Coastal 148: lost attacking invasion ports, airfields and shipping
    524
  3. Luftwaffe Bf 109s
    650
  4. Luftwaffe Bf 110s
    223
  5. Luftwaffe bombers, dive-bombers and othersDerived: the 1,887 total less the fighters
    1,014

One icon = 50 aircraft. RAF 1,547, Luftwaffe 1,887. Counts that include non-combat losses give RAF 1,744 and Luftwaffe 1,977. These are post-war, records-based figures, not the far higher claims made at the time.

Source Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy (2000), as summarised by Correll, Air & Space Forces Magazine (2008)

Both sides overclaimed, honestly and wildly, in the confusion of a crowded sky. On 15 September, now kept as Battle of Britain Day, the RAF claimed 185 German aircraft; German records show about 56 to 61 were lost. Fighter Command lost 28 or 29 fighters that day. The Luftwaffe’s intelligence was worse: it believed Fighter Command was being destroyed at roughly three times the real rate, and in mid-September its crews met a force they had been told no longer existed.

Fighter Command lost 544 aircrew killed in the battle. Bomber and Coastal Commands, attacking the barges massing in the Channel ports, lost 718 and 280 more: losses that the story of “the Few” tends to leave out.

Churchill’s “so few” were not all British. The Battle of Britain Monument in London names 2,937 airmen awarded the clasp, and sixteen nations were represented in Fighter Command’s squadrons. Roughly one in five came from overseas, and the Polish contingent, the largest, was also among the most effective: No. 303 Squadron claimed more victories than any other Hurricane squadron in the battle.

Fig. 6

The duel: Spitfire Mk I vs Bf 109 E

Supermarine Spitfire Mk I

Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3

  • 1,030Engine power (hp)1,085
  • 2,624Loaded weight (kg)2,610
  • 11Wingspan (m)9.9
  • 9.1Length (m)8.6
  • 637Range (km)660
  • 8Machine guns2
  • 020 mm cannon2
  • 22,685Built, all marks33,984

Verdict Closer than legend allows. The Spitfire was a little faster at medium heights and turned tighter; the 109E was better above about 20,000 ft, climbed and dived better, carried cannon, and its fuel-injected Daimler-Benz did not cut out under negative g. Height, numbers and who saw whom first decided far more combats than the spec sheet.

Spitfire I: 583 km/h (362 mph) at 5,640 m (18,500 ft) with the Merlin II/III of 1,030 hp; range 637 km (395 miles). Bf 109 E-3: DB 601A of 1,100 PS (1,085 hp) for take-off; published top speeds run from about 545 to 575 km/h, at heights given variously from about 3,750 to 5,000 m; range 660 km on internal fuel. Weights are maximum loaded figures (Spitfire 5,784 lb).

Source Spitfire: Price, The Spitfire Story (2002); Supermarine Spitfire (early Merlin-powered variants), Wikipedia; Warbirds Resource Group. Bf 109 E-3: Museum of Flight; Messerschmitt Bf 109 variants, Wikipedia; Revell technical notes

WAAF plotters in uniform stand round a large map table holding long-handled rakes, with officers watching from a glazed gallery above
WAAF plotters at the No. 11 Group operations table, Uxbridge (photographed 1942). The table turned radar and Observer Corps reports into a picture a controller could fight from.
  1. The plotting table: a map of south-east England gridded for raid markers
  2. A plotter’s rake, used to push raid counters across the table
  3. An RAF sergeant supervising the table
  4. The controllers’ gallery, where squadrons were ordered up
© IWM CH 7698, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
Fig. 7

The Few: British and overseas aircrew

aircrew
  • 80% United Kingdom 2,352
  • 10% Commonwealth and Dominions 288
  • 9% European Allies (Poland, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, France, Austria) 276
  • 0.7% Other (Ireland, USA) 21

Overseas aircrew as counted by the RAF Museum; the UK figure is derived from the Monument’s 2,937 names (the RAF roll used in many histories counts 2,936). 544 were killed in the battle and about 795 more died before the war’s end.

Source RAF Museum, Battle of Britain Beacon, “Battle of the Nations”; Battle of Britain London Monument

Fig. 8

The overseas Few, by nation

aircrew
  1. Poland
    145
  2. New Zealand
    126
  3. Canada
    98
  4. Czechoslovakia
    88
  5. Australia
    33
  6. Belgium
    29
  7. South Africa
    25
  8. France
    13
  9. United States
    11
  10. Ireland
    10
  11. Southern Rhodesia
    3
  12. Jamaica
    1
  13. Barbados
    1
  14. Newfoundland
    1
  15. Austria
    1

Other counts differ slightly: the RAF roll used by many histories gives 127 New Zealanders, 112 Canadians, 32 Australians, 28 Belgians and 9 Americans; some lists add one airman from Mandatory Palestine.

Source RAF Museum, Battle of Britain Beacon, “Battle of the Nations”

Nine pilots in Mae West life jackets and flying boots walk towards the camera, smiling, in front of a parked Hawker Hurricane
Pilots of No. 303 (Polish) Squadron walk in from a Hurricane, October 1940. Second from left is their Canadian flight commander, John Kent. 303 was the highest-claiming Hurricane squadron of the battle.
  1. Flt Lt John Kent, the Canadian commander of A Flight, among his Polish pilots
  2. Hawker Hurricane Mk I of No. 303 Squadron
  3. Fg Off Jan Zumbach, helmet and goggles still on
  4. Mae West life jacket, standard kit for flying over the Channel
© IWM CH 1535, photo: S. A. Devon, Air Ministry official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source

Bomber Command

Six years of night. The longest campaign of the war, and the costliest for the men who flew it.

364,514operational sorties flownRAF Historical Society, Bracknell Paper No. 4. The official history’s monthly tables add up to 373,514.
8,325aircraft lost in actionThe official history’s monthly tables, on a wider count of losses, give 10,123
955,044tons of bombs dropped
~125,000aircrew who served
55,573aircrew killedRoughly 72% British, 18% Canadian, 7% Australian, 3% New Zealanders, with Poles, Free French, Norwegians and others among them
44.4%death rate among aircrew, the highest of any major British command

Source RAF Historical Society, Bracknell Paper No. 4 (1993); Roberts (2007); Robertson (1984) for nationality; Webster & Frankland vol. IV

Fig. 9

Bomber Command: bomb tonnage dropped by year

tons
Bomber Command: bomb tonnage dropped by year
YearTons dropped
193931
194013033
194131704
194245561
1943157457
1944525518
1945181740

Nearly three-quarters of the command’s total tonnage fell in the last 16 months of the war.

Source Webster & Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany vol. IV (1961), via the Oxford Companion to World War II as tabulated by 429 Sqn Association

Fig. 10

Bomber Command: sorties and aircraft lost, by year

aircraft lost
  1. 1939 (333 sorties)12.3% of sorties
    41
  2. 1940 (20,809 sorties)3.1%
    652
  3. 1941 (30,608 sorties)4.2%
    1,272
  4. 1942 (35,050 sorties)4.9%
    1,716
  5. 1943 (64,528 sorties)4.1%
    2,671
  6. 1944 (157,448 sorties)1.9%
    2,932
  7. 1945 (64,738 sorties)1.3%
    838

The official series counts 373,514 sorties and 10,122 aircraft lost (10,123 as printed), so differs from the in-action totals above. After the disastrous unescorted daylight raids of 1939, the loss rate per sortie was worst in 1942; the worst single campaign was the Battle of Berlin, November 1943 – March 1944.

Source Webster & Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany vol. IV, via the Oxford Companion to World War II; monthly tables summed by year (429 Sqn Association)

Fig. 11

What became of Bomber Command’s aircrew

aircrew

= 2,000 aircrew

  1. Killed
    55,573
  2. Prisoners of war
    9,838
  3. Wounded
    8,403
  4. Came through unhurt and free (approx.)Derived: 125,000 less the three figures above
    51,186

One icon = 2,000 men. About 125,000 aircrew served with the command.

Source RAF Historical Society, Reaping the Whirlwind (Bracknell Paper No. 4, 1993); IBCC. The IBCC Losses Database records 57,861 deaths including ground and training causes.

A row of newly built Lancaster bombers parked on a concrete apron under an overcast sky
New Lancaster B IIIs on the apron at Avro’s Woodford factory, Cheshire, early 1944. NE124 (centre) was shot down over France on 24/25 June 1944; LM578 (second right) was lost off the Dutch coast three nights earlier.Michael Christie, Ministry of Aircraft Production official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
Gutted shells of residential blocks in Hamburg, seen from the air
Hamburg’s firestorm district, photographed from low level after the war. Some 37,000–43,000 people died in the raids of late July 1943.© IWM CL 3400, photo: Fg Off J. Dowd, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source

A Bomber Command tour was thirty operations. For much of 1942–1944 the odds of finishing one were worse than even. The average loss rate across the war was a little over 2 per cent of sorties, but it was far higher over Berlin in the winter of 1943–44, and a crew needed luck on every one of those thirty nights. The command’s 44 per cent death rate was the highest of any major branch of the British forces.

The Mighty Eighth

Daylight, from East Anglia. An American air force the size of a city, on British soil.

332,904bomber sortiesFreeman, The US Strategic Bomber (1975), via the Oxford Companion to World War II. Fighter sorties take the total past 600,000 (Mighty Eighth museum).
~622,000tons of bombs droppedFreeman’s printed total is 621,877, though his monthly figures add up to 623,438; the Mighty Eighth museum gives over 670,000
4,361heavy bombers lostEighth Air Force historian Lane Callaway; other compilations give 4,145–5,548 depending on what is counted
1,931fighters lost
~26,000airmen killedKilled in action (Mighty Eighth museum; Callaway)
~28,000airmen taken prisoner
350,000+Americans who served with the Eighth in BritainMighty Eighth museum; Stars and Stripes gives about 250,000
2,046heavy bombers dispatched on 24 December 1944, the largest single raid

Source Freeman (1975), via the Oxford Companion; National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force; Lane Callaway, Eighth Air Force historian, in Stars and Stripes

B-17F Flying Fortresses in formation at high altitude, white contrails curving across a dark sky
B-17Fs of the Eighth Air Force trailing contrails at altitude, 1943.USAAF, Sgt Stanley M. Smith, Public domain (US federal work) · source
Four P-51 Mustangs of the 361st Fighter Group in echelon formation
P-51 Mustangs of the 375th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, July 1944: the long-range escort that made deep daylight raids survivable.USAAF, Public domain (US federal work) · source

The Eighth arrived in 1942 committed to precision bombing by day, defended by the bombers’ own guns. The doctrine broke at Schweinfurt and Regensburg in August and October 1943, when 60 B-17s were lost on each of two days. It was rescued by the long-range escort: P-51s with drop tanks could reach Berlin by March 1944, and the fighters, not the bombers, destroyed the Luftwaffe’s day-fighter force. By the war’s end, as Donald Miller notes in Masters of the Air, the Eighth had suffered more fatal casualties, some 26,000, than the entire US Marine Corps.

Fig. 12

Who dropped the bombs: Allied tonnage on Europe

% of ~2.7 million tons
  • 54% US Army Air Forces 54
  • 46% RAF (Bomber Command and others) 46

Some 2.7 million tons of bombs in all, from more than 1.44 million bomber sorties. More than 18,000 American and 22,000 British aircraft were lost or damaged beyond repair.

Source US Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (European War), 1945; USAAF share 54.2% per Air & Space Forces Magazine

Fig. 13

The balance of the bombing

tons
  1. Luftwaffe on Britain, the Blitz (Sep 1940 – May 1941)Around 40,000 long tons (Postan; Hooton). Major raids of 100 tons or more account for about 30,000
    40,000
  2. Bomber Command, 1943
    157,457
  3. Bomber Command, 1944
    525,518
  4. Eighth Air Force, whole war
    621,877
  5. Bomber Command, whole war
    955,044

Bomber Command dropped more than twelve times the Blitz tonnage in 1944 alone. The Blitz killed some 40,000–43,000 British civilians; over the whole war bombs and V-weapons killed 60,595 people in the UK (Home Office). Allied bombing killed at least 305,000 German civilians (USSBS minimum), most modern estimates running from 350,000 to 500,000.

Source Blitz: Postan (1952) and Hooton (2010), via The Blitz (Wikipedia); IWM. Bomber Command: official history tables. Eighth Air Force: Freeman

The aces

Top scorers by nation, and why the numbers are so far apart.

Fig. 14

Highest-scoring fighter pilots of fourteen nations
Erich HartmannGermanyLuftwaffe352All on the Eastern Front: 345 Soviet aircraft and seven American
Ilmari JuutilainenFinlandFinnish Air Force94Highest-scoring non-German; never hit by an enemy fighter
Hiroyoshi NishizawaJapanImperial Japanese Navy87His own claim (“86 or 87”); the navy kept no official individual scores
Ivan KozhedubUSSRSoviet Air Forces64Some sources give 62; top Allied ace
Marmaduke “Pat” PattleSouth AfricaRAF50Provisional, about 50 + 2 shared; at least 40 documented, records lost in Greece
Richard BongUSAUSAAF40All in the Pacific, flying the P-38
J. E. “Johnnie” JohnsonUnited KingdomRAF34Plus 7 shared; highest RAF score against the Luftwaffe in the West
Pierre ClostermannFranceRAF (Free French)33His own published total; Shores & Williams credit about 11 confirmed
George BeurlingCanadaRAF / RCAF31Plus 1 shared; 27 over Malta in 1942
Clive CaldwellAustraliaRAAF29North Africa and the defence of Darwin
Colin GrayNew ZealandRAF27Plus 2 shared
Teresio MartinoliItalyRegia Aeronautica22Plus 14 shared; the official Italian list gives 21
Stanisław SkalskiPolandPolish Air Force / RAF1918 11⁄12 on Bajan’s list
Karel KuttelwascherCzechoslovakiaRAF18All in RAF service, 15 as a night intruder in 1942
Other Axis air forces had high scorers too, among them Romania’s Constantin Cantacuzino and Hungary’s Dezső Szentgyörgyi. Victories are officially credited claims, not confirmed enemy losses; shared victories counted as fractions where the source does so. German Eastern Front scores reflect a target-rich front and years of continuous combat; Allied pilots were rotated home after a tour.

Source Shores & Williams, Aces High (1994); national lists (Bajan for Poland; Massimello & Apostolo for Italy)

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 20 August 1940

At one scale

The gazetteer’s own models of the war’s aircraft, side by side, and where to see the real ones.

Fig. 15

The aircraft of the war, at one true scale

drawn to one scale
  1. Messerschmitt Bf 109 E, side view Messerschmitt Bf 109 E 8.6 m
  2. Supermarine Spitfire Mk I, side view Supermarine Spitfire Mk I 9.5 m
  3. Hawker Typhoon Mk IB, side view Hawker Typhoon Mk IB 10.5 m
  4. Hawker Hurricane Mk I, side view Hawker Hurricane Mk I 9.6 m
  5. Avro Anson Mk I, side view Avro Anson Mk I 12.9 m
  6. Bristol Blenheim Mk IV, side view Bristol Blenheim Mk IV 13.0 m
  7. de Havilland Mosquito B.IV, side view de Havilland Mosquito B.IV 12.3 m
  8. Douglas C-47 Dakota, side view Douglas C-47 Dakota 19.7 m
  9. Avro Lancaster B.I, side view Avro Lancaster B.I 21.1 m
  10. Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress, side view Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress 22.7 m
  11. Gloster Gladiator, side view Gloster Gladiator 8.4 m
  12. Fairey Swordfish, side view Fairey Swordfish 10.9 m
  13. Westland Lysander, side view Westland Lysander 9.3 m
  14. Messerschmitt Bf 110, side view Messerschmitt Bf 110 12.1 m
  15. Bristol Beaufighter, side view Bristol Beaufighter 12.7 m
  16. P-51 Mustang, side view P-51 Mustang 9.8 m
  17. P-47 Thunderbolt, side view P-47 Thunderbolt 11.0 m
  18. Grumman Martlet, side view Grumman Martlet 8.8 m
  19. Fairey Firefly, side view Fairey Firefly 11.5 m
  20. Me 163 Komet, side view Me 163 Komet 5.7 m
  21. Heinkel He 162, side view Heinkel He 162 9.1 m
  22. Fieseler Fi 103 (V-1), side view Fieseler Fi 103 (V-1) 7.7 m
  23. Yokosuka Ohka, side view Yokosuka Ohka 6.1 m
  24. Vickers Wellington, side view Vickers Wellington 19.7 m
  25. Handley Page Hampden, side view Handley Page Hampden 16.3 m
  26. Heinkel He 111, side view Heinkel He 111 16.4 m
  27. B-25 Mitchell, side view B-25 Mitchell 16.1 m
  28. Handley Page Halifax, side view Handley Page Halifax 21.8 m
  29. B-24 Liberator, side view B-24 Liberator 20.6 m
  30. Short Sunderland, side view Short Sunderland 26.0 m
  31. Avro York, side view Avro York 23.9 m
  32. Waco Hadrian glider, side view Waco Hadrian glider 14.8 m
  33. Airspeed Oxford, side view Airspeed Oxford 10.5 m

A Bf 109’s entire wingspan is shorter than one Lancaster wing.

Fig. 16

On the apron: Allied and Axis, parked together

live 3D, true scale
  • Avro Lancaster 21.1 m long, 31.1 m span
  • Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress 22.7 m long, 31.6 m span
  • Douglas C-47 Dakota 19.7 m long, 29.0 m span
  • de Havilland Mosquito 12.3 m long, 16.5 m span
  • Bristol Blenheim 13.0 m long, 17.2 m span
  • Avro Anson 12.9 m long, 17.5 m span
  • Hawker Typhoon 10.5 m long, 12.5 m span
  • Hawker Hurricane 9.6 m long, 12.2 m span
  • Supermarine Spitfire 9.5 m long, 11.2 m span
  • Messerschmitt Bf 109 8.6 m long, 9.9 m span
  • Bf 110 12.1 m long, 16.3 m span
  • P-51 Mustang 9.8 m long, 11.3 m span
  • P-47 11.0 m long, 12.4 m span
  • Beaufighter 12.7 m long, 17.6 m span
  • Halifax 21.8 m long, 31.8 m span
  • B-24 20.6 m long, 33.5 m span
  • Wellington 19.7 m long, 26.3 m span
  • He 111 16.4 m long, 22.6 m span
Fig. 17

Where to see them in Britain

in British museums

Sources

  1. Richard Overy, The Air War 1939–1945 (1980; Potomac Books edition 2005)
  2. John Ellis, World War II: The Encyclopedia of Facts and Figures / The World War II Databook (1993)
  3. W. F. Craven & J. L. Cate (eds), The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. VI: Men and Planes (1955)
  4. Martin Auger, Canadian aircraft production in the Second World War (PhD thesis, University of Ottawa, 2006)
  5. Canadian War Museum, Democracy at War: aircraft production
  6. Wikipedia, List of most-produced aircraft (production totals, checked 11 October 2026)
  7. RAF Museum, Battle of Britain Beacon: Battle of the Nations
  8. Battle of Britain London Monument, The Airmen
  9. Stephen Bungay, The Most Dangerous Enemy: A History of the Battle of Britain (2000)
  10. RAF Museum, Battle of Britain Day and 15 September 1940
  11. Sir Charles Webster & Noble Frankland, The Strategic Air Offensive against Germany 1939–1945, vol. IV (HMSO, 1961), statistical appendices as tabulated by 429 Squadron Association
  12. I. C. B. Dear & M. R. D. Foot (eds), The Oxford Companion to World War II, Bomber Command and USAAF tables (from Webster & Frankland and Freeman, The US Strategic Bomber)
  13. RAF Historical Society, Reaping the Whirlwind (Bracknell Paper No. 4, 1993); RAF Bomber Command summary
  14. International Bomber Command Centre, Losses Database
  15. Roger A. Freeman, The US Strategic Bomber (1975)
  16. Donald L. Miller, Masters of the Air (2006)
  17. The Blitz (Wikipedia, citing Postan 1952, Hooton 2010 and Dear & Foot 2005)
  18. National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, Brief history of the Eighth Air Force
  19. Stars and Stripes, The 8th Air Force in World War II
  20. US Strategic Bombing Survey, Summary Report (European War), 1945
  21. Imperial War Museums, The Blitz around Britain
  22. Christopher Shores & Clive Williams, Aces High (1994)
  23. John T. Correll, How the Luftwaffe Lost the Battle of Britain, Air & Space Forces Magazine (August 2008)
  24. Alfred Price, The Spitfire Story (2002)
  25. Warbirds Resource Group, Supermarine Spitfire specifications
  26. The Museum of Flight, Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-3

Photographs

  • Spitfire Is of No. 610 Squadron from Biggin Hill, 24 July 1940: a fortnight into — © IWM CH 740, photo: F/O B. J. Daventry, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • Riveters on a Liberator fuselage section at Consolidated’s Fort Worth plant, Tex — Howard R. Hollem, Office of War Information / Library of Congress (LCCN 2017878289), Public domain (US federal work) · source
  • Churchill watches a riveter at work on a Spitfire at Castle Bromwich, 28 Septemb — © IWM H 14259, photo: Capt. W. G. Horton, War Office official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • An A-20 Havoc on the Douglas line at Long Beach, California, October 1942. Women — Alfred T. Palmer, Office of War Information / US National Archives (NARA 196397), Public domain (US federal work) · source
  • WAAF plotters at the No. 11 Group operations table, Uxbridge (photographed 1942) — © IWM CH 7698, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • Pilots of No. 303 (Polish) Squadron walk in from a Hurricane, October 1940. Seco — © IWM CH 1535, photo: S. A. Devon, Air Ministry official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • New Lancaster B IIIs on the apron at Avro’s Woodford factory, Cheshire, early 19 — Michael Christie, Ministry of Aircraft Production official photographer, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • Hamburg’s firestorm district, photographed from low level after the war. Some 37 — © IWM CL 3400, photo: Fg Off J. Dowd, Public domain (expired Crown Copyright) · source
  • B-17Fs of the Eighth Air Force trailing contrails at altitude, 1943. — USAAF, Sgt Stanley M. Smith, Public domain (US federal work) · source
  • P-51 Mustangs of the 375th Fighter Squadron, 361st Fighter Group, July 1944: the — USAAF, Public domain (US federal work) · source

Figures are drawn from the sources above; where they disagree the most widely cited figure is used and the range is given in the notes. Side profiles and 3D models are the gazetteer’s own procedural models, drawn to scale from published dimensions. Spotted an error? Tell us.