World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF THE SKIES: The Basic Ratio

U.S. Army airmen destroyed 11,042 enemy aircraft on the world's battlefronts during 1943, while 2,885 U.S. planes were lost—a basic ratio of 3.8-to-1.

The War Department, which used "extreme caution" in compiling these official figures, counted an additional 6,942 enemy planes as probably destroyed or damaged.

The ratio in various theaters (U.S. Navy figures are not included):

¶In Asia and the Southwest Pacific—6.5-to-1.

¶ In Alaska and the South and Central Pacific—2.8-to-1.

¶ In Western Europe—4.3-to-1.

¶In the Mediterranean—2.7-to-1.

The real meaning of these satisfactory figures was not always clear from the figures alone.

The differences between the ratios in different theaters show variations in the combat...