Part 10.3
Extract from ch.10 of To the stars the hard way: a history of 50 Wing RAF by Bertram Owen
The very last operation of the Wing in the East came on May 6th - an abortive dusk mission against reported Japanese ships near Bangka, which turned out to be a wild goose chase. Tragedy struck on the return to Palembang in the darkness in which two Blenheims collided, killing all aboard both aircraft, including Squadron Leader Finch. The next day news came of his DSO.
The Wing withdrew to Burma and handed over its remaining aircraft to the RIAF; the personnel would receive extended leave. When 50 Wing re-formed in the Med many months later, it would be unrecognisable. ‘All the old faces are gone,’ wrote Squadron Leader Maxwell. ‘Not only the old faces, but most of the new ones too.’ The Wing left Sumatra with less than twenty aircraft operational; they had possessed fifty at the outbreak of the war in the East, and had received as many again as replacements. It is therefore reasonable to say that they had suffered over 80% casualties.
The Wing was perhaps the greatest sufferer out of all the RAF and RAAF units employed in this campaign. Historians have struggled to compute overall air casualties, as many records are fragmentary, especially for the French and Japanese. Furthermore there are many different methods of counting which have produced varying estimates. We can say with some certainty that the French lost almost all of the 300 planes which they had in Indochina at the outset. The RAF lost nearly a hundred there, as many more in Borneo, and at least as many in the fighting over Singapore, Java and Sumatra. All told RAF losses cannot have been less than 400, though probably not as high as the 600 given by some historians. The Dutch air force in the DEI was wiped out, as were most of the US aircraft which escaped the Philippines. The RAAF and RNZAF suffered about a hundred losses, and the FAA nearly as many. All told, therefore, an estimate of some 900-1000 Allied aircraft written off in Indochina and the DEI seems reasonable. Many of these - at least one-third - were lost on the ground, either destroyed outright, or damaged and abandoned.
Japanese losses were certainly lighter, partly because, being on the offensive, they did not lose damaged aircraft when airfields were abandoned. Accidents, often arising from bad weather, contributed much to the casualties - though probably not as major as in Imamura’s estimation that they made up a majority of IJAAF losses. Japanese aircraft often found themselves damaged and returning to austere airbases in poor weather; it’s not clear how many of the resulting crashes are counted as accidents, as opposed to enemy action. The figures are complicated by other uncertainties, for example about whether aircraft damaged and left behind in Borneo, Bali and elsewhere were ever repaired. Most writers agree on a figure between 600 and 700 losses for IJA and IJN combined.
In any case, there was no doubt of the result; vast conquests by the Japanese, though falling short of their most ambitious goals, and a lull of exhaustion in the region, broken only by air raids and the small-scale but vicious fighting of coastal forces among the waters and islands between Singapore and Sumatra on the one side, and Borneo and Java on the other. The situation persisted for many months, as did the apparent stalemate in the South Pacific theatre. At the time the Allied governments expressed some dissatisfaction with the absence of movement. In retrospect it is clear that the air battles of these months, and the large attrition suffered simply in transferring aircraft from Japan to the fronts, saw the decisive attrition of Japan’s most experienced air units.
The very last operation of the Wing in the East came on May 6th - an abortive dusk mission against reported Japanese ships near Bangka, which turned out to be a wild goose chase. Tragedy struck on the return to Palembang in the darkness in which two Blenheims collided, killing all aboard both aircraft, including Squadron Leader Finch. The next day news came of his DSO.
The Wing withdrew to Burma and handed over its remaining aircraft to the RIAF; the personnel would receive extended leave. When 50 Wing re-formed in the Med many months later, it would be unrecognisable. ‘All the old faces are gone,’ wrote Squadron Leader Maxwell. ‘Not only the old faces, but most of the new ones too.’ The Wing left Sumatra with less than twenty aircraft operational; they had possessed fifty at the outbreak of the war in the East, and had received as many again as replacements. It is therefore reasonable to say that they had suffered over 80% casualties.
The Wing was perhaps the greatest sufferer out of all the RAF and RAAF units employed in this campaign. Historians have struggled to compute overall air casualties, as many records are fragmentary, especially for the French and Japanese. Furthermore there are many different methods of counting which have produced varying estimates. We can say with some certainty that the French lost almost all of the 300 planes which they had in Indochina at the outset. The RAF lost nearly a hundred there, as many more in Borneo, and at least as many in the fighting over Singapore, Java and Sumatra. All told RAF losses cannot have been less than 400, though probably not as high as the 600 given by some historians. The Dutch air force in the DEI was wiped out, as were most of the US aircraft which escaped the Philippines. The RAAF and RNZAF suffered about a hundred losses, and the FAA nearly as many. All told, therefore, an estimate of some 900-1000 Allied aircraft written off in Indochina and the DEI seems reasonable. Many of these - at least one-third - were lost on the ground, either destroyed outright, or damaged and abandoned.
Japanese losses were certainly lighter, partly because, being on the offensive, they did not lose damaged aircraft when airfields were abandoned. Accidents, often arising from bad weather, contributed much to the casualties - though probably not as major as in Imamura’s estimation that they made up a majority of IJAAF losses. Japanese aircraft often found themselves damaged and returning to austere airbases in poor weather; it’s not clear how many of the resulting crashes are counted as accidents, as opposed to enemy action. The figures are complicated by other uncertainties, for example about whether aircraft damaged and left behind in Borneo, Bali and elsewhere were ever repaired. Most writers agree on a figure between 600 and 700 losses for IJA and IJN combined.
In any case, there was no doubt of the result; vast conquests by the Japanese, though falling short of their most ambitious goals, and a lull of exhaustion in the region, broken only by air raids and the small-scale but vicious fighting of coastal forces among the waters and islands between Singapore and Sumatra on the one side, and Borneo and Java on the other. The situation persisted for many months, as did the apparent stalemate in the South Pacific theatre. At the time the Allied governments expressed some dissatisfaction with the absence of movement. In retrospect it is clear that the air battles of these months, and the large attrition suffered simply in transferring aircraft from Japan to the fronts, saw the decisive attrition of Japan’s most experienced air units.
