Yep. Wildly inflated. For the Germans that million figure is probably overstated by a factor of twenty. The RAF had about 8,000 pilots of all types.
Thanks.
It shows really poor research. While the Luftwaffe had about 2.2 million in its ranks in 1941, certainly half of them were not pilots.
The British number was wildly off too, which you addressed.
The German Air Force had a bit over 1,000,000 total personnel in 1940. I’m guessing the author used a shortcut by saying “pilots” when he meant total personnel, although the USAAF had about 100,000 at that time.