DECEMBER 1944 By the numbers

I spent part of my Christmas holiday sifting through the Army Air Forces Statistical Digest 1940-1946, the U.S. Army in World War II “Green Book” series, the Field Artillery school history, and various other resources to compile some statistics about liaison pilots and aircraft as of December 31, 1944. By that date, 324 Stinson L-1, 1,940 Taylorcraft L-2, 1,439 Aeronca L-3, 4,792 Piper L-4, 2,487 Stinson L-5, and 259 L-6 aircraft had been delivered. Aside from less than two dozen Aeronca L-3’s, only the L-1, L-4 and L-5 served overseas.

Comparatively, 2,608 Field Artillery and 1,124 Army Air Forces liaison pilots had completed their training while 728 (22%) and 608 (35%), respectively, had failed to complete their courses. December was the first month since March 1943 in which no new AAF liaison pilots were in training and classes did not resume until February 1945, an oversight in planning that led to a shortage of replacements.

At the end of 1944 there were 888 AAF liaison pilots on foreign soil, including 327 in Europe, 384 in the China-Burma-India theater, and 153 in the Southwest Pacific and Philippines. Surprisingly, only 24 were in Italy since 54 had transferred to the ETO for the invasion of Southern France. I was unable to determine exactly how many FA pilots had been sent overseas, but based on the number of Armies, Corps and Divisions spread across the globe it was at least 900. In addition, about 72 Marine Corps “grasshopper” pilots had deployed for combat.

With nearly 8 million Americans in uniform in December 1944, and 152,757 being AAF pilots, it is difficult to comprehend the disproportionately large contribution made to the war effort by that small group of unarmed “puddle-jumper” pilots who, by war’s end, were considered “indispensable”.