I've never heard that about WWII, but, in any case, it's not true. A couple things
*were* true about the WWII situation until about 1944; 1) pilots destroyed more
aircraft during training than during combat....

How do you know that? I find that hard to believe.

and 2) most of the pilots in a given class would not survive the war.

I can't believe that either, George. That means that fatalities
among pilots exeeded 50 percent.

Just finished a book about LeRoy Grover, who enlisted in the RAF in 1941. Flew Spits
before transfering to the USAAF and finishing the war in P-47s. His preliminary
instruction was done in California.

I don't understand that. Do you mean he was trained by, or for, the
RAF in California in 1941? I've never heard of such an operation.

Slightly over half of his class survived the war....

I can believe that losses were quite high among pilots who fought
through the entire war. OTOH, they were much lower among those who
got into combat only a month or two before VE or VJ day.

There were several crashes every day, and fatalities ran about 1 every 3
days. Of his class there of 42 pilots who graduated, 3 survived the war intact, 3
survived but were injured so badly they never flew again, and the rest were killed.

Ensign Gay, of Torpedo 8, could write that he was the only survivor of
his entire squadron; all the others were killed in just a few minutes,
in June 1942. You know that wasn't typical of U.S. Naval Aviators.

And as you may know, something like 98 percent of the residents of
Bedford, Virginia, who served in the army during WW II, were killed
in action on one day in June, 1944.

These cases demonstrate that you can't generalize from a small sample.

vince norris