Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger View Post
It seems the Japanese must have had an extremely small cadre of very well trained pilots. From what I've been reading, Guadalcanal took most of them.

I know that the Germans had a controversial system that kept their aces in the air, instead of rotating them back for training purposes like the Allies(and war bond sales ). I can only assume the Japanese had the same setup. Even in '45, though, the Germans were still able to field a powerful and effective air corps. (Baseplate)

What is really interesting to me is how fast the Japanese deteriorated. It seems like almost within a year to a year and a half they completely expended all of their best forces. They had excellent naval, air, and ground forces - yet, seemingly, no effort was made to replace them. Resources, resources...
I'd say Bodenplatte showed Luftwaffe for what it was in early '45: an empty shell of what it had been earlier in the war.

Midway and the horrible attrition of Guadalcanal took out lots of Japanese veterans so within around 15 months from Pearl Harbor the Japanese airforce had deteriorated fast. But the Luftwaffe experience was very similar actually. Sure it had been fighting for much longer and had taken losses but it was nothing compared to what it experienced in 1943 when it finally faced increasing allied superiority on all 3 fronts, especially from the summer 1943 where Luftwaffe ended up quitting most of its Mediterranean and Eastern Front fighter activity and focused on protecting Germany.

So already by the end of 1943 Luftwaffe was in a pretty desperate state, with average monthly losses of around 10+ % of ready fighter pilots, and during the first half of 1944 pilot losses quickly rose to 20+ % a month.

So both the German and Japanese airforce was wrecked in a year or so when USA entered the two theaters of war. Neither of them were prepared for such attrition and they could not replace the losses.

Although I don't have actual numbers, I could imagine that the Luftwaffe had a slight advantage as fighters shot down near a frontline or over Germany had a higher chance of not being lost whereas the Japanese fight over Guadalcanal meant a near 100% pilot loss for every plane shot down.


CBR