World War II was a period of unprecedented industrial productivity in the U.S., especially in the aerospace industry. Operating factories 24 hours per day and six or seven days per week, the U.S. produced more than 300,000 military aircraft between 1940 and 1945.
A popular claim on social media falsely claims the number of airplanes on Earth today is only a fraction of those destroyed during the war.
"No. of Planes Destroyed in WWII - 76,875," reads text in a Dec. 14 Instagram post from the page Books of Fact. "No. of Planes on Earth today - 23,600."
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The post, which doesn't cite a source for the two figures, accrued more than 2,000 likes within a week. But the claim is wrong.
USA TODAY reached out to social media users who shared the claim for comment.
While it's unclear exactly how many planes were lost during World War II, records from the now-defunct U.S. Army Air Forces indicate at least 100,000 planes were destroyed.
According to a log of equipment and personnel data compiled shortly after World War II in the Army Air Forces Statistical Digest, the U.S. lost 65,164 airplanes in combat, training accidents and other incidents between December 1941 and August 1945. The records also show the Army Air Forces destroyed 40,259 enemy aircraft during the war.
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