RAF Losses 1952

In one of our local churches in Longstanton in Cambridgeshire there are aout 6 graves of airman who died in 1952.
They died on different days so they werent part of a crew if you look at this page http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Cambridgeshire/Longstanton.html and scroll to the bottom it shows the list of names in the “Post WW2 section”

I wondered if anyone had any information regarding their histories,i enclose a photo of the graves i took earlier this year,many thanks 🙂

Try some of these RAF losses, they certainly don’t come like this these days nor the quantity, thank goodness……….

http://splashdown2.tripod.com/id16.html

Remember that although these figures are clearly bad there are probably mitigating circumstances in some. In 1952 Halifii and Wellingtons were old and would not need much of an accident to make them Category E just for convenience.

Totally agree with that……but, I was adding the 😮 😮 in surprise that the RAF still had that many Wellingtons in-service to have that attrition rate at all, let alone any having any Halibag’s left…. 😮

By 1952 I thought that the Vickers one???(now in RAFM???) was pretty much a lone example.
And wasn’t it a fact that when the Dambusters was made around the same time, airworthy Lancs were supposedly pretty scarce, with the four examples used taken from store….?

I’m not surprised at the Mossie’s as PR34’s were very much in use at Seletar until ’55/56 at least, as well as many other use’s of the Mosquito home and abroad.

The early 50’s generally were years of high accident rates, also in other Air Forces. For example the Swiss AF lost many aircraft during 1950 – 1953 – and I can only second Melvyn’s statement – some aircraft were obsolete WW2 types with high time airframes and engines, and at the same new types with new propulsion systems were introduced (first generation jets…)- moreover, the Korean war and generally the fear of attacks from the East led to an increased flying activity and therefore also to more accidents.

This also is valid for the French, the Italian, the Swedish and similar Air Forces.

Martin

The statistic that really stands out for me is that they were losing Meteors at the rate of THREE A WEEK!!!!!

& a total of just under 10 a week for all types…

Remember that although these figures are clearly bad there are probably mitigating circumstances in some. In 1952 Halifii and Wellingtons were old and would not need much of an accident to make them Category E just for convenience. Same goes for some of the other types, especially Mosquitos, they might just have had bent wingtips but if they were going out of service anyhow . . .

That does not alter, for one second, the horrifying number of casualties but might help to bring the overall number into better focus.

As for the Meteor . . .

Weren’t RAF Meteors involved in Korea at that time…? Adding an operational theathre to the equation makes the numbers a bit more understandable…

Would that perhaps also account for the number of Austers lost – nearly 2 a month?

http://www.korean-war.com/AirWar/AircraftType-LossList.html

Only one RAF loss throughout the Korean War? Plenty of FAA though.

Firebird, not to mention 32 Mosquitos, 6 Lancasters and 7 Spitfires.

JC

Weren’t RAF Meteors involved in Korea at that time…?

No, it was the RAAF operated Meatboxes in Korea.

The thing that struck me about this list is looking down to find 1 x Halifax 😮 and 15 x Wellingtons 😮 😮

Weren’t RAF Meteors involved in Korea at that time…? Adding an operational theathre to the equation makes the numbers a bit more understandable…

Shocking! 😮 🙁

Imagine the the baying of today’s “news hounds”….