Worldwide Training Casualties 1939-1945

CASPIR records 2,401 Canadians (Canadian citizens, members of the RCAF and graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan) killed in flying accidents while serving in training units between 1939 and 1945. The map opens on the United Kingdom, where 1,905 of them died, most of them in Operational Training Units (OTUs) where crews learned to fly the aircraft they would take to war, and the rest in heavy conversion units, advanced flying units, flying schools and other training units; the Country choice also shows the whole world, where the rest died: Canada, Bahamas, Egypt, Israel, India and Cyprus. Untick the Canadians only box to see everyone: 2,668 airmen of every nationality, 2,154 of them in the United Kingdom. The schools of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan in Canada have a map of their own and are not repeated here. Each station shows its losses month by month, by the aircraft they died in: each silhouette grows with the number of people killed in that type at that station, and the number on it is that number. Press Play to watch the losses build from September 1939 to August 1945, and click a station for the names.

Everyone shown has the war status KIFA (killed in a flying accident) in CASPIR's personnel records, from September 1939 to December 1945 (the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan schools in Canada are on their own map), and each served in a training unit (a flying accident in an operational squadron or on a ferry flight is not a training accident, so it is not shown); Canadians form the largest group but not the only one, and each man's own air force (RCAF, RAF, RAFVR, RAAF, RNZAF ...) is shown after his name. Each is placed at the station of his unit on the day he died, taken from the unit's history; crash sites are not recorded, so a death away from the station is shown at the station. A star (*) means no station is recorded on the man's own record, so the station is entirely his unit's. Silhouette area is the number of deaths, and the number on each silhouette is that number of men killed. A disc is a death with no aircraft recorded; it is drawn only where no aircraft death is shown, and the click-through list always names everyone. The Canadians only box (ticked to begin with; untick it to see everyone) keeps Canadians (nationality Canada), members of the RCAF whatever their nationality, and the graduates of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan from the RAF, RAAF and RNZAF; Newfoundlanders who served in other air forces are not included, because Newfoundland was a separate Dominion and did not join Canada until 31 March 1949. Click the map, then scroll, to zoom. Map © OpenStreetMap contributors.

The records on this page are CASPIR's own data, licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: you may share and adapt them with credit to CASPIR, Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, but not for commercial use.