ORIGINAL: pompack
EDIT: But I still would have a strong reaction to only 59 SBD losses [;)]
That's because you're buying into the myth of massive op losses, probably started back in the 70's by some designers notes in some board game. The link that Walloc posted are the actual tallies of losses from front line units during the war.
The department responsible for tracking and recording losses during the war published that document, so there is no better source data available on the matter other than the raw data figures the department used to compile those tables from.
But since they used their own raw data sources to compile that report, it's pretty safe to assume the numbers are very close to 100% accurate.
Op losses were a significant percentage of the war losses, but nowhere near the huge percentages of operational airframe losses some like to declare occurred. I think one person even posted 10% or more of airframes were lost every single month. A ridiculous figure given the actual numbers shown in that document.
Out of 284, 073 sorties flown, there were 4,390 operational losses from all causes. That's less than 2% op losses. Japanese planes were less durable than US planes, so their op losses were probably a little higher. But I doubt it would go above 5% if there were any reliable documentation left, but most Japanese records were destroyed.
Jim
Edit: Actually I goofed. The sorties listed were only the action sorties flown (there is no figure for the number of non-action sorties flown), so only action sortie op losses should count, and there were only 1,345 of those. So the figure is less than 1/2 of 1% op losses for the entire war.
