Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hi

Are there any decent books about the French Air Force from Sep 39 until the surrender?

I know that they were largely ineffective, but for such a large fleet of aircraft they must ahve done something, and what happened to all of them?

Thanks
Alex

The_Catman

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

LOL ineffective !!!???? For sure French Air Force didnt manage to change the battlefield outcom but to have a more strategic view, do you know how many german planes were shot down and not avalaible for the battle of britain ? French Air Force was certainly badly employed due to strategical misconception from the HQ, their planes where mostly outdated but they fought valliantly and finally shot around 730 german planes.

They are many good books in French about that subject - For english one I cant advise you.

Laurent

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Amen to that Laurent - well said. The French Air Forces in 1939/40 were generally well-equipped but badly utilised by a high command paralysed by indecision - particularly when it mattered most. Despite this the vast majority of its pilots and aircrews fought magnificently even when the outcome was no longer in question. Regretably most British authors continue to cling to the outrageous belief that the French were merely a load of 'cheese-eating surrender-monkeys' - an insult as pathetic as it is misguided. As a consequence most available English-language accounts follow the same despicable line in perpetuating this grotesquely distorted view of history.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Bravo Laurent, bravo Peter. Peter's views, I think, are even more accurate and close to reality. Congratulations. May I add that not only France but also the Netherlands and Belgium, both being small countries but modern, well-equipped and well-armed, and having brave armies, and also the cream of the British Army were beaten too, or even worse than the French. Even if France had possessed an air force which would have been PERFECT (for the time, 1940) in every respect including numbers, Germany would have won because of its particular, very clever but very risky strategy (Ardennes, Sedan, race to the coast etc.) and because of the incredibly incompetent, stupid and slow-reacting top Allied commanders (French AND British). 1940 no country was in a position to win a big war thanks to its air force alone and it is doubtful even of 1944-45 - the western Allies and the USSR all engaged great quantities of tanks, artillery and... infantry. They certainly had good reasons to do so instead of relying on their huge air forces alone.

As for books there are many - in French, in English and in German. This question was discussed here some months ago : you should be able to find it - and the titles of many books - using a few well-chosen key-words : French Air Force, 1940 + books, French Campaign, 1940 air war etc., both here at TOCH and on the general Internet (Google, Yahoo).

In my eyes - this is only my opinion! - the best allround-book on this is :
"Air War over France 1939-40", by Robert Jackson, published 1974 by Ian Allan Ltd, Shepperton, Surrey, England. ISBN 0 7110 0510 9
It should be possible to find it, for ex. on the Internet. It has only 154 pages of normal size (about 1/2 A4) and deals with virtually everything : bombers, recce, fighters etc., Allied night bomber operations, all countries involved in the fighting including the Netherlands and Belgium, and even the French local fighter units at Bourges, Châteauroux, Lyon etc. and the French naval aviation! This really is quite an achievement! Statistics, general results, description of the main aircraft etc. Of course you can't expect a detailed account of ALL operations and of every single air battle with the complete list of losses and victories, but this work is excellent indeed. There are a few errors, but they don't matter much : for ex., "Orléans in Southern France" (this city is in Central France, on the river Loire) or famous ace Werner Mölders shot down on 14 May (top of page 112) instead of 5 June.
A highly recommended book!

There are only two French allround-books I know of. They are much bigger and both were researched and written mainly by Paul Martin : "Invisibles vainqueurs" (1991, normal book size) (title invented by his publisher Yves Michelet, who added more "optimistic" pages and photos, totalling 50 % of the contents, to Martin's dire hundreds of French aircraft shot down and dead aircrew [almost nothing on the German losses except tables of French fighter victories (with AC types shot down and French units) in the annexes and their number for every day, in the main text, in a few short words]) and "Ils étaient là..." (2001), an enormous book in large format, mainly a 2nd edition of the preceding book, Y. Michelet's comments and views being replaced by new publisher C-J Ehrengardt's (Aéro Editions publishing company, Fleurance, France) and author P. Martin having added numerous French aircraft losses (and probably human losses too), for ex. 11.43 % for Morane 406s and 56.25 % for Dewoitine D.520s. The photos are mostly not the same ones as in the 1st edition. Martin's books are a precious source of data mainly on French aircrew and aircraft losses of all types (bombers etc.) (which are described in detail whenever possible) and also on French fighter victories but readers who are not well-informed before reading this get a very sad, pessimistic impression of permanent, heavy French losses which does not correspond reality for both sides suffered heavy losses fighting each other, the German losses being higher, in particular in bombers.

There are many more specialised French books (monographs etc.), many of them still available at least as second-hand copies : D.520, Curtiss H.75, French bombers ("LeO 45, Amiot 350 et autres B4"), and others, in the "Collection Docavia" of Editions Larivière (look in the magazine "Le Fana de l'Aviation for their publicity) and also excellent books published by Lela-Presse (magazine "avions") : MS 406, Bloch 152, Potez 174, Les Curtiss (français ; published 2008). Don't forget the excellent review "Icare" with 19 big issues devoted to the 1940 French Campaign 1970-2007 : Chasse, Bombardement, Reconnaissance, Bombardement d'assaut etc. The mentioned books all report war operations and individual air battles with units, losses and victories.

The best allround FRENCH book is probably a Docavia : L'aviation de chasse française 1918-1940, published 1972 (but still excellent) by the remarkable experts Jean Cuny and Raymond Danel. It deals mainly with the fighters but gives a good general idea of the whole story and precious tables and statistics (like : 912 modern French fighters in first-line (combat) units on 10 May 1940 - did you know that? - plus about 50 in local flights and 35 with the Naval aviation, the grand total being about 1,000 French fighters in combat units, but only 2/3 were supposed to fly, 1/3 being reserve aircraft which proved very useful, leaving approx. 670 "active" fighters on the front and also all over France for the factories and cities had to be protected against bombers). This book is out of print (épuisé) but you can find it, on the Internet too.

Most books can be found in libraries (French : bibliothèques !) and they exchange books if some of them can't be found otherwise.

Good luck!

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Did they have much in the way of early warning and command/control, i.e. the infrastructure of a modern air-defence system?

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hi

Thanks for the answers so far, but any more ideas still welcome.

I am getting "Twelve Days in May" by B.Cull and B.Lander but as it is coming from Canada by surface mail I won't have it for a while.

Sorry, but only books in English are of any use to me.

Maybe "ineffective" wasn't the perfect word, but as is said above most WW2 histories dismiss the efforts of the French AF (along with Belgian and Dutch forces), and my interest was in seeing if a less simplistic history exists.

For instance, I have no idea of what damage was inflicted upon the Luftwaffe.

In response to a couple of other points raised here, whilst I do not doubt the skill and bravery of some of the men involved, to blame everything on a paralysed high command is surely too simplistic, in the same way as for instance Haig is misrepresented in the Great War as being a poor leader and as uncaring as to the fate of his men, when the opposite was the case.

It is surely not unreasonable to ask why the French armed forces as a whole, and the AF as an integral part, did not have more success in stemming the German advance, compared for instance (and I recognise a whole host of other factors are involved) to the success of the Finnish Air Force against the Soviet hordes.....

There again Finland isn't known for it's cheese...........

Alex

The_Catman

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hello Catman
not a perfect book but one which might intrest You:
the Fighters over France and the Low Countries. Mushroom Model Magazine Special No 5104. Sandomierz 2002. In it there is an article by Bartlomiej Belcarz on L'Armée de l'Air (pp. 49 - 67 plus 6 pure photopages) The book seems to be good and the articles cover the fighter operations of all the combatants (Belgians, Dutch, French, RAF, Polish, Czechs and LW). And of course the Poles and the Czechs fought under overall French command. I think that book is well worth of its price. I paid for it 17€ in 2002 here in Helsinki. There is 152 pages, the last 27 pages are purely photo and colour profile pages and there are at least 150 other photos among the text on those 126 first pages .

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Yes they did, but nothing comparable to RAF Fighter Command's advanced system for home defence based upon RDF. So, along with most other air forces of that period, they relied on forward observation posts, radio intercepts, AA target marking, standing patrols, and ground-control by radio etc. It was a thoroughly workable system for the time but other better-informed members of this forum will be able to advise you further I'm sure.

Alex, for a 'less simplistic' account and details of all losses suffered by each air force involved you will, I believe, find answers to most of your questions in my own The Battle of France Then & Now published by After The Battle earlier this year. Grozibou's first paragraph above encapsulates nicely the main reasons behind the appalling collapse of the Allied armies in France in 1940. When the German offensive opened on May 10, 1940, they were simply unable to counter or contain German Blitzkrieg methods of rapid mobile warfare backed as it was by an audacious, decisive, and staggeringly effective strategy.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hi

Thanks Juha, but the book is probably not easy to find.

Reter, your book looks exactly the sort of thing I am looking for, but unfortunatley my interest won't quite reach to the price. I am sure it is excellent value for money to someone with a serious interest in the events and period, but as i have amore casual interest I will have to have a look for it in a couple of years time.

Regards
Alex

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Alex,

Understood. Try your local Reference Library - it may hold a copy.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hello Yves...

Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Hello Hawkeye ...

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

To respond to the first question, i think that Peter Cranwell's book is now the best reference in English, because he used the best french references for his work : Paul Martin's books for the losses and Arnaud Gillet's ones for the claims.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Merci, Petitpoucet

Alex

Eye-eye!
 

I'll call ya "Eagle's Eye"!

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

I wanted to write Peter CORNWELL.
Sorry !

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

.. great to see the board back.. thanks guys ..

I must admit to being a little perplexed at some of the statements here - namely that the French Air Force was modern and well-equipped in 39-40. When exactly was it modern and well-equipped - with the entry into service of the first D.520s (mid-May 1940 with GC I/3, see Avions Hors série 14, GC I/3 "Les rois du D.520..") or Amiot 354s ? Pilot accounts from this period stress the teething problems - as it was Groupe de Chasse I/3 managed only 75 victories during the campaign May-June 1940, a long way off the top score. ("..C'est la barbe, ces avions inexpérimentés..")

" En Septembre 1939 presque tout son matériel était périmé (OUT-DATED), y compris ses chasseurs les plus récents, les Ms 406 .." ( Bénichou, La Bataille de France, Le Fana No. 228 )

Look at the French bomber force; it comprised -among others - some 300 Amiot 143 and Bloch 200/210s - these types were some 220 km/h slower than the equivalent Luftwaffe bombers... (some 1,600 in service). Chief of Air Staff Vuillemin in September 39 ;
" the poor performance of our bombers will necessitate very prudent operations during the first months of the war.." He went further; of the-then 399 bombers in service only five - LeO 451s - could be counted as 'modern' ....

Cuny and Danel quote 1,310 'front-line' French a/c, 416 RAF ('peu modernes'), 117 Belgian & 124 Dutch aircraft opposing some 5,000 front line Luftwaffe a/c on 10 May 1940. Given the primacy of the French Army in the service hierarchy, the continued subordination of the Air Force to the Army pre-1939 the majority of French combat units (Groupes) were comprised of observation and recce types.. some 41 such Groupes as opposed to 15 fighter groupes and 33 bomber groupes....during the campaign more modern types were coming into service (the "Glen Martins" were criticised for being too new) but some Amiot 354 units didn't receive ANY orders to fly combat sorties until the 23rd or 24th May - the crew tasked with drawing up the type's operating instructions had already crashed and died.(Avions 147 - 'Bombardier dans la tourmente' ).

The French were expecting another static war and French aircraft factories - after the chaos of the mid-30s nationalisations -were managing to produce less than 100 a/c per month during late 38/early 39, hence the huge orders for foreign types in an attempt to catch up; the output from all French aircraft factories in total per month during early 1939 amounted to far less than the output from a single German producer. I think we can just about agree with Jackson that " by August 39 France's fighter aviation was just beginning to shake off the shackles of obsolescence..although the process of modernisation was painfully slow.."

As for the '916' or '730' victories during the campaign - German a/c which weren't available for the Battle of Britain as French commentators like to point out - these correspond to, what, about two month's German production, if not less, which is just one reason why the Battle of Britian started in earnest in August 1940 and not in July..

Now I'm not saying that the French didn't perform bravely - but I am saying that most were forced to fight with inadequate equipment and under obviously and hopelessly out-moded doctrine - see some of Facon's articles on the SHD site on FAF command structure for more insight into this. As for organisation & infrastructure see Lionel's super H-75 Hawk book - there are some amazing photos depicting the leading French fighter units deployed to forward airfields during the winter of 1939-40, equipped with absolutely NO infrastructure whatsoever ..and buried under three feet of snow. The 'post-campaign' commission of enquiry (Commission G) arrived at the following conclusions; ..." insuffisance numérique..infériorité technique..absence de matériel moderne...inadequate gunnery instruction, lack of combat training." ..etc etc

Having said all of that you wouldn't necessarily expect a country with a population of 40 million to have anywhere like as capable an air force as its neighbour - primed for war, population 70-80 million (that's double!) and an industrial output far out-stripping that of all its neighbours put together..'cheese-eating surrender monkeys' - no of course not (that's an Americanism Peter - I don't know any British accounts/authors that have used that term..) but not 'modern' nor 'well-equipped' either ( whichever date you chose, September 39 or May 40)

Book on French AF 1939-40? Continued
 

Well, my dear fellow, if you’re looking for books in English only (which you added later) you ought to have said so in your first post! (It would have saved me a lot of time) It seems that in your eyes a “decent book” can be written in English only, which is a little bit restrictive. Believe me, a few decent books were written in other languages : the “Holy Bible” for example, to name but one, and of course most books on the air war from September 1939 through June 1940, which took place mainly over France and the French-speaking part of the Benelux-countries. There are lots of books in German, French and Dutch : a vast majority! So it is not at all obvious that all decent books would be in English…

There are only very few and those I know are mere booklets having something like 150 to 220 pages of normal size (not the large A4 which is so fashionable now). English books deal almost exclusively with the operations of the British army and with the retreat to and from Dunkerque, a few deal with the other British retreat, after Dunkerque. In most British eyes the French Campaign ended on the very minute when the last British soldier left Dkq. and sailed back to his mummy in order to be consoled after those horrible German soldiers had shot at him (very nasty!). In fact there was a lot of French-German fighting (a little British-German also), in the air too, after June 1, 1940.

An interesting contribution can be read on the Internet (see URL below) :



Quote Kirkland : << DURING the Battle of France in May-June 1940, French Army commanders complained that German aircraft attacked their troops without interference by the French Air Force. French generals and statesmen begged the British to send more Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter squadrons to France. Reporters on the scene confirmed the German domination of the skies, and the overwhelming numerical superiority of the Luftwaffe came to be accepted as one of the principal causes of the French collapse.
The air force was a convenient scapegoat for the French Army generals who dominated the Vichy regime that ruled France under the Germans. By attributing the defeat of French forces to weakness in the air, the army officers diverted attention from their own failures. Moreover, the Vichy leaders were able to strengthen their claim to legitimacy by blaming the parliamentary regime they had supplanted for failing to provide a sufficient number of aircraft. The Vichy leaders also reproached the British for holding the bulk of their air force in the British Isles. Concurrently, the Vichy army officers used the defeat of the air force to justify abolishing the air ministry and the air force general staff, incorporating their functions into the war ministry and army general staff and returning the air force to its former status as a branch of the army. With the army controlling the postwar sources of information, for many years there was no voice to challenge the official position that France had lost the war because the prewar politicians had not equipped the air force adequately.

Since the mid-1960s, fragments of information--aviator's memoirs, production reports, aircraft inventories, and Anglo-French correspondence--have come to light. These sources reveal four new facts about the French Air Force.

• The French aviation industry (with modest assistance--about 15 percent-from American and Dutch producers) had produced enough modern combat aircraft (4360) by May 1940 to defeat the Luftwaffe, which fielded a force of 3270.2
• The French planes were comparable in combat capability and performance to the German aircraft. >>
• (Etc.) …………………………

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1985/sep-oct/kirkland.html

Sometimes this author, Kirkland, is all too pro-French, especially about the last days of fighting, which led him to make some wrong statements about the capability of the Armée de l’Air (AA) to prevent defeat :

Kirkland :

<< Could the French Air Force Have
Seized Command of the Air?

(…)

Mastery of the air was there for the seizing, but on 17 June the French air staff began to order its units to fly to North Africa. >>

Of course this last sentence was all too optimistic. The German onslaught could have been be stopped, though, from 10 through 13 May 1940 and also later.

I can only repeat that I recommend an English book very warmly – not for the first time – because it is astoninshingly comprehensive, very informative and very honest ; the few errors are unimportant :

Air War over France 1939-40,
by Robert Jackson
===================================
(see my first reply for details). If you read it entirely – and it is a cheap small book so you need not invest a lot of time or money – you’ll have at least a fundamental, balanced knowledge of this period of air war. It doesn’t include French operations only but all others too : British, Dutch, Belgian and German. It should be fairly easy to find a copy (I purchased a second copy on the Internet for a friend : it was cheap and in excellent condition).

Nonetheless many books dealing with the whole of the French Campaign (10 May-24 June 1940) and often with the “Phoney War” too (3 Sept. 1939-9 May 1940) include airpower and some degree of air operations. If I remember correctly

“To Lose a Battle”, by Alistair Horne, 1969

is quite a decent book and often quoted from, even today. Paperback, approx. Can. $ 10. There are some others, like for example “Blitzkrieg”, by Len Deighton (very cheap in paperback), which certainly includes air operations.

As for “Twelve Days in May”, aka TDIM, published 1995 by Brian Cull (“Brian”) et al, it deals almost exclusively with the fighting performed by the RAF “Hurricanes” based in France before they flew back to mummy too. What you’re looking for is books on the FRENCH Air Force so this once can only disappoint you. In 12 days these RAF Hurricanes claimed 499 victories plus 123 “probables” totalling 622. Not bad (in 12 days only) for a real complement of approx. 100 fighters, taking their losses and replacements into account. This is an average claim of 6.22 victories per existing fighter in 12 days (without the help of radar etc.). At the same rate, during the 83 days of the Battle of Britain from 10 July through 31 September, the fighters of 11 Group – approx. 250 Hurricanes and Spitfires – fighting with the enormous advantages of the radar and radio control system, from airfields which were not threatened by enemy tanks or artillery etc., would have claimed no less than 10,755 victories including the “probables” too (actual German losses were approx. 1,410). In this book the authors lowered the number of actual victories in 12 days over the continent to about 300 “only”. At his rate Fighter Command 12 Group would have won approx. 5,000 (five thousand) actual victories during the same period, July-September.

Chapter IV contains two fairly interesting passages :

[12 May] Page 88 (top of page) ; the Hurricanes attacked very numerous bombers escorted by Me 110s. (…) “To the relief of the fatigued Hurricane pilots, French fighters put in an appearance when Moranes and [Curtiss] Hawks from GC I/5, GC II/2 and GC III/7 supported Hurricanes from 501 Sqn in combating the hordes of German bombers.” Indeed, French fighter pilots were very eager to fight, to win victories for their own personal advantage (glory, promotions, decorations) and, last but not least, to defend their own burning country, which they could clearly see, and their fellow-countrymen against the bombing and machine-gunning hordes. They were quite busy too.

[TDIM too] Page 94 (bottom) : (…) as one historian remarked : “Considering the seriousness of the threat, one does get the impression that the French fighter squadrons, whose pilots were already short of sleep, did not press home their attacks with every ounce of vigour.” [And this after less than 3 days of fighting.]

Strangely this “one historian” does not seem to have a name. Is he too cowardly to sign this particularly disgusting, dirty and above all inaccurate statement? The above statement is typical of the many unjustified insults hurled at 1940 French airmen. How can we be so sure? This is really simple indeed : just look at their losses. Out of approx. 750 fighter pilots serving with the French Air Force 1940, including Poles and Czechs, about 150 were killed in but 5 weeks (the 6th week was almost completely idle). Everybody is in a position to see for himself in the cemeteries all over France (especially North-Eastern France) and Belgium, and even in the NL and Luxembourg. There is no way you can falsify the number of aircrew killed fighting the nazis. The lists of names and grave locations can be found at the historical dept. and in various books including Peter Cornwell’s very recent monster-book (very big, weight not far from 3 kg or 6 lbs, and very useful). These French losses are exactly the same as RAF losses during the Battle of Britain, taking the duration into account, albeit there were approx. twice as many RAF fighter pilots (the many “few”) as with the French Air Force, which means that the latter’s fighter pilots had a loss rate TWICE the British rate in the BoB. Who is chicken? Who is a coward “preferring to drink his vermouth in elegant bars rather than attacking the German bombers which were destroying the city nearby” and “not attacking with every ounce of vigour”? Let us ignore and forget these ludicrous, dirty, never-proved accusations in decent English books and stick to the facts : number of actual victories, losses, French pilots and hundreds of other French aircrew killed fighting the nazi air force etc.

Page 224 of TDIM contains some interesting information :

“The new commander of 60 Wing, Wg Cdr Harry Broadhurst (…) had arrived (…). His first impressions were not good :

“I found that my predecessor had been invalided home with a nervous breakdown and that the three squadrons on the station were without serviceable squadron commanders. To say that chaos reigned would be an understatement (…).”

I never heard such things about French fighter units or wing commanders. No nervous breakdowns, no chaos, just at least one groupe de chasse (corresponding roughly two RAF Sqns) had not one single capitaine (out of at least four) left after the campaign – they all had been killed, or one or two of them possibly wounded, but I think there was no surviving capitaine (flight lieutenant in the RAF).

Page 309 : “few [RAF] squadron commanders led their squadrons in the air.” This is an astounding admission. Chicken? Contrary to this ALL French (and German, and Belgian) sqn commanders (most of the French ones were capitaines, see above) took part in the fighting very actively and flew most missions, so that 30 % of them were killed in 5 weeks ; at this rate none would have been left by September, when the BoB was still in full swing (RAF Sqn Ldrs were not at all exterminated - as far as I know). French commandants (Sqn Leaders) were NOT supposed to fly and fight but to lead mainly on the ground and take care of all the administrative burden and the hated paperwork. In spite of this 30 % of them, too, were killed in combat.

On some other page (which I wasn’t able to find again today) of this same book, “TDIM” (or was it some other book?), we can read that RAF bombers escorted by French fighters were attacked by German fighters “but luckily the French fighters fended off the attack” (or held the 109s at bay). So it seems that they weren’t cowards after all.

Peter Cornwell’s recently published book (released in February I think) “The Battle (sic*) of France Then and Now” obviously is in English and comes close to what you are looking for/needing. It is an enormous monster : 591 large-sized pages, relatively expensive [look at “After the Battle”’s homepage to learn more] but I think it’s worth it. It is essentially a very long list of aircraft and aircrew losses suffered by all waring parties (Italy too, at the hands of the French) with an incredible wealth of detail – day by day from September 2, 1939, through June 24, 1940. Add 2 long alphabetical indexes of person names and locations, a “Roll of Honour” giving the list of all RAF personel killed (no equivalent for other nationalities, which is a pity, but the names and ranks of those killed or wounded are to be found in the main text), the descriptions of half a dozen RAF airfields in France and general information and explanations for every day : 1/2 to 2 pages including some large photographs, two pages for “The Balance Sheet” (loss statistics, in a chart, for every air force, day by day, aircraft DESTROYED (not the damaged ones) and personnel). The book contains very numerous photographs of all kinds (hundreds and hundreds), often very interesting, mainly RAF and LW-AC as victims of the RAF. In spite of a few errors which are not really serious it is a “must-have” if you’re interested in this period. Besides, it’s difficult to separate the French Air Force cleanly from all the others during this period, and conversely. They often were intermingled. For example on many occasions both French and British fighters fought the same German formations, or French fighters escorted British bombers and conversely. French losses were German victories (sometimes British ones) and French victories were German losses (sometimes a few “Battles” or “Blenheims”)…

As for Arnaud Gillet I have the strongest reservations about what he published (in French so this doesn’t mean you). His French is terrible and reveals a very poor education level, which is disquieting for historical work. Numerous photographs show sweet little HIM wearing a ferocious camouflaged jungle-hat which undoubtedly makes a tough commando-warrior out of him. He is very firmly convinced that the firepower of a fighter was the same thing as the number of rounds it carried. If we follow him a 0.25 calibre lady pistol with 6 rounds has twice the firepower of a 360 or 406 heavy navy gun with three rounds. He now insists that a “Hurricane” had a firepower (2,800 machine-gun rounds – acording to HIM!) “over four times higher than a Morane 406”. In fact, according to respected UK-expert Alfred Price’s figures, a Morane’s firepower was 20 % higher than a 1940 Hurricane’s or Spitfire’s and 8 % lower than a Me 109’s, but his criterion (missile weight only) doesn’t take the devastating effect of explosive shells, as compared to simple bullets, into account, nor the French cannon HS 404’s very high muzzle velocity and rate of fire, which were great advantages. (The mediocre German cannon, type MG FF, had both a low muzzle velocity and a low rate of fire, two big flaws in actual air fighting). In his last volume (published 2008, a few months ago) he called “liars” and “Vichy-propagandists” all those who (in the past or also today) dared publish any French victory figures not complying with His Supreme and Definitive Very Low Results. I wonder what gives him (a beginner) the right to call other authors names. Most of them are very experienced and/or included numerous first-hand reports and personal accounts from veterans, some of them took part in the 1940 fighting. This person’s results and conclusions are extremely doubtful – I personally deem them squarely erroneous – and ALL known French experts including Jean-Yves Lorant (and others too of course) expressed strong reservations. In one word, I would not rely on what this guy wrote as best he could in his poor French. He did the right thing when he searched the archives in France, Germany and England but, unfortunately, he obviously has not got the right stuff to publish own ideas which make sense. The photographs and original documents (primary sources) are interesting, though.

I regret I was forced to add this negative opinion – contrary to my original plan - by a very positive post above. Too bad : otherwise I wouldn’t have mentioned it at all.

To sum up: what you want is (one) book(s) IN ENGLISH on the 1939-40 French Air Force. They are FEW and FAR BETWEEN. So few! Here is my advice : 1. Air War over France, by Robert Jackson. 2. The Battle (sic) of France Then and Now (2008), by Peter Cornwell, if you can afford it. You can! You’re lucky it’s a very recent work and a good one. 3. Blitzkrieg, by Len Deighton, and To Lose a Battle, by Alistair Horne (both are cheap paperbacks).

Just my opinion!
====================================
* Actually it deals with the Phoney War (Sept.-May 9) and the French Campaign (May 10-June 24) including the Battle of France (the last phase of the campaign : June 5-24). The Phoney war was, in every respect, an entirely different period of the war. Obviously most of the book is devoted to the FC for aerial activity was much higher : for ex. of 1,814 German aircraft destroyed 1,460 (80 %) were lost during the FC. Many losses suffered by all countries during the Phoney War were accidents caused by bad weather, much less so, in percentage, in May-June 1940.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40? Continued
 

..I wondered whether you'd quote from Kirkland and his 'work' - most sensible French commentators wouldn't of course...and while British authors haven't written extensively on the air battle for France, the events that led to Dunkirk have been thoroughly researched - try Sebag-Montefiore's recent large tome for an account of the (French) mismanagement and indecision that led to their Allies bailing out...let's face it, they had even acquired the German war plans, yet failed to take any counter- action! We agree about Jackson's book, but it is about time that more up-to-date research was exploited in English, including Gillet's - which is where Peter's work comes in..

Kirkland's article on the French AF
 

The only reason why I mentioned Kirkland is that his article is in ENGLISH as demanded by him who started this thread. Contrary to what you seem to think a lot of what Kirkland wrote does make a lot of sense. It is true, for example, that after an incredible defeat ON THE GROUND (a scandalous army defeat) the French Air Force was used, by the army generals who were the main culprits but were appointed by Pétain as top commanders of all French forces (except Gamelin), as a scapegoat to get rid of any responsibility in the defeat. Virtually everything was the Armée de l'Air's fault.

It is interesting to know that from 1933 (when Hitler came to power) through 1940 the French army and navy commanders were incensed at every single centime spent on the Air Force, on these glamorous fancy "acrobats". They fought bitterly to prevent the Armée de l'Air from receiving any money at all, if possible - or only for recce. Only their own recce and close recce aircraft and a few fighters for their protection interested them. Accordingly French bombers were precious few in May 1940 (but this changed rapidly) and there were not enough fighters to face approx. 3,500 aircraft actually engaged by Germany. Together, the Allies could engage about as many fighters as Germany so they were about even BUT Germany deployed 1,120 twin-engined bombers plus 342 "Stukas" which suffered appalling losses at the hands of Allied fighters, mainly French, and Allied AAA, but there were simply too many - not Stukas but twin-engined ones.

I wouldn't simply discard Kirkland and I have been working on this very subject for 30-40 years (which admittedly doesn't make me unfallible). We should read his contribution, and many others, carefully.

A very true remark has been made often by historians : in the 1940 French Campaign (only) the Germans had got a very big, very "unfair" advantage : according to Hitler's and Göring's nazi methods and habits they risked everything at once, no matter the cost, in an effort to force a quick and definitive decision. The Allies never had the stomach to do such a thing, they always wanted reserve forces, thought of a "long war" and husbanded with their air forces, especially the UK. Germany won (this time only) - at a high cost for the Luftwaffe but to them this didn't matter. What did was the result. They all were convinced that after their incredible success the war was over, that they had won ; most people all over the world believed this too.

It should not be forgotten that the key to the 1940 German success was the big breakthrough at Sedan, across a rather big and wide river (the Meuse) mainly with 7 of the 10 German armoured divisions! This operation was incredibly risky : it was simply madness. No reasonable C-i-C would have accepted these terrible hazards but Adolf Hitler was not reasonable, he was a fanatic and a lunatic. Nonetheless he had foreseen that the French would be too slow and not react properly in time. So to speak, the French moved on foot when the Germans attacked with fast vehicles at 30 mph or so. Too bad Hitler was so right. If the French generals, mainly Huntziger and Georges, had reacted simply in a normal way (without needing to be military geniuses) the German forces would have been stopped in their tracks BEFORE crossing the Meuse and they would have suffered appalling losses, their offensive would have been dead by 14 May... This same Huntziger became the French C-i-C after the defeat!

To sum up, this unique German victory was the result of a madman's gambling. It worked fine this time, afterwards it didn't... All discussions about the respective air forces etc. are very interesting but the German victory was won on the ground, mainly with ten armourded divisions deploying about 1,000 real tanks plus 2,000 small, vulnerable tankettes (the French alone had got 3,300 real tanks, all with a good armour and most of them with a good gun). The German air force supported the army and made their victory quicker and easier but it didn't win the French Campaign : the German army did, mainly thanks to a crazy attack plan which worked.

May I repeat once more that even 1944-45, in spite of their fantastic air superiority and - as a whole - good strategy and tactics, the western allies and the USSR still needed millions of men on the ground and tens of thousands of tanks etc. to win the war in Europe. They would not have achieved this with their aircraft alone.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Grozibou ;)

On a side note, have you read The Republic in Danger - General Maurice Gamelin and the politics of French Defence, 1933-1940, by Martin Alexander? Curious about your thoughts if you did. Have a copy, but unfortunately still unread.

The Republic in danger
 

No I haven't but I can try very hard!

PS
 

PS : nice to have you back and TOCH working again! Hundreds of guys were gasping for air and close to fainting.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Thanks for the further info and discussion......

Of course I understand that many excellent books are written in languages other than English, however they are not much relevance to me as I only speak English, maybe a bit of French but not enough to make reading satisfactory.

If I had wanted a book in French, I would have put the request in French on a French aviation forum...........

Merci

Alex

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

GZ : Thanks for your post "HawkOne" (HawkEye?). It shows that contrary to most people who published millions of tons of nonsense in books etc. you are really informed, but only in part, on this question which is VERY COMPLEX, believe me, and it is all too easy to mix up different things and even to follow officially highly-valued "historians" who published absolutely incredible BS, like for example - this is but an example ! - the late French professor Henri Michel, who was "Directeur de recherche au CNRS" (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) and Président du Comité d'histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale! In his book on the whole of WW II, which in France is considered some sort of Bible by numerous people, he wrote i.a. that 1939 the RAF flew "Mosquitoes" and four-engined bombers, that radar was a device detecting the noise produced by aircraft, etc. Many other "historians", both French and others, are of the same quality. They have been influencing most people for 68 years now : no wonder it's not always easy to make the difference between such nonsense and reality. So I am NOT blaming you for some errors, for you really need to be heavily specialised on 1939-40 to avoid all the traps and pitfalls. ”It ain’t easy, believe me!” Even one of the best 1940 French fighter aces (Camille Plubeau, 14 "certain" victories, shared or not) wrote 1985 that the LW engaged "15,500 aircraft" on May 10, 1940. He was a great fighter ace and a brave man all right but not an historian. All books written by the greatest aces including Accart (my hero), Plubeau, Clostermann, Adolf Galland and more, not to mention Peter Townsend, contain nonsense as soon as these authors don’t stick to their own experience, to what they REALLY know. Incredibly Galland published that the 1940 Me 110 was only 460 km/h slow (instead of 560 and it was not a printing error). He also wrote that Japan invaded Midway, etc. Clostermann wrote that on May 14, 1940 at Sedan the German Flak used quadruple 20 mm AA-guns, which is nonsense. To make it short : even the greatest men talk nonsense when they leave the areas they have personal knowledge of.

All this and more doesn't make it easy to have a clear view of these questions which, may I repeat, are very complex. Numerous unserious historians and amateurs have created a terrible mess – not to mention the biased official propaganda we got for several decades from France and from other countries. Just a sample : In France it was virtually impossible to tell the truth – that the 1940 defeat was caused by incredibly stupid and incompetent generals. Want a concrete example? When the French recce aircrew THEY had sent over the Ardennes area to reconnoitre came back and said – in due time - what they had seen (70 % of the German tank and motorised divisions, including about 2,100 tanks, marching towards Sedan THROUGH the Ardennes forest, where there were some… roads all right, with military traffic jams reaching 250 km behind the front) they were laughed at and nobody believed them. One of them was a French tank officer. Nobody believed him when he said that he had seen endless columns of tanks and trucks on all roads. And on and on… French counter-attacks were so slow, even with excellent tanks, that when they were launched at last the situation had changed completely and these counter-attacks didn’t make any sense any more so most of them were cancelled, and the Germans, very weak at the beginning, kept advancing. What army can have so incompetent leaders that such things can happen – not once but all the time!

FE : << When exactly was it modern and well-equipped - with the entry into service of the first D.520s (mid-May 1940 with GC I/3, see Avions Hors série 14, GC I/3 "Les rois du D.520..") or Amiot 354s ? Pilot accounts from this period stress the teething problems - as it was Groupe de Chasse I/3 managed only 75 victories during the campaign May-June 1940, a long way off the top score. ("..C'est la barbe, ces avions inexpérimentés..") >>

GZ : No combat AC was flawless 1940. Not the Me 109, not the Hurricane and not the Spitfire either. Too long to elaborate on this.

“Only 75 victories”? Is this some kind of joke? Here is the list of the most successful French fighter units 1939-40. The victory figures include the period from Sept. 1939 through 9 May 1940 too (and of course the French Campaign, May 10-June 24). They also include all CLAIMED victories : the “certain” ones and the “probable” ones. French fighter claims were very reliable – they could overclaim or also underclaim in vicious, complex fights; contrary to their colleagues with other air forces they almost never overclaimed on purpose (cheating) :

N° 1 - GC I/5 (Curtiss) – 111
N° 2 - GC II/4 (Curtiss) - 77
N° 3 - GC II/5 (Curtiss) - 76
N° 4 - GC I/3 (D.520) - 75
N° 5 - GC II/3 (D.520) - 55
N° 6 - GC II/7 (mainly MS 406, then D.520) - 52 including 30 flying the MS 406
etc.

I think the three GCs having won the ranks N° 2, 3 and 4 can be considered even. In particular, GC I/3 was engaged first on May 13, having lost at least 3 of the most active days of battle. Without this delay there is no doubt that GC I/3 would have clearly won rank N° 2 with about 95 victories behind superlative GC I/5, which enjoyed an unfair advantage : one of its two “chefs d’escadrilles” (flight cdrs) was super-pilot and above all super-leader and teacher Capitaine Jean Accart (he is my hero). The other chef d’escadrille was Lt Dorance, a very good man too and a top ace (French fighter pilot rank N° 2, even with Plubeau). The CO of GC I/5 was a remarkable officer too : commandant (Sqn Ldr or major) Murtin. So it was virtually impossible to beat this unit.

FE : " En Septembre 1939 presque tout son matériel était périmé (OUT-DATED), y compris ses chasseurs les plus récents, les Ms 406 .." ( Bénichou, La Bataille de France, Le Fana No. 228 )

GZ : It never occurred to me that Mr. Bénichou was an historian. I understand he is the editor-in-chief of “Le Fana de l’Aviation”, which really is enough of a burden for one man indeed. In Sept. and October 1939 both the Curtiss and the MS 406 (860 ch engine) fighters had clearly the edge over the Me 109 Ds (700 ch engine) they met. From November on the LW introduced the 109 E (1 000-1 100 ch engine with the bonus advantage of fuel injection), which was clearly better and made French Air HQ very concerned but the French fighters continued to put up a good fight – at a higher cost. Also, the 109 E was introduced only progressively. You can’t always win, as German pilots discovered during the French Campaign.

FE : Look at the French bomber force; it comprised -among others - some 300 Amiot 143 and Bloch 200/210s - these types were some 220 km/h slower than the equivalent Luftwaffe bombers... (some 1,600 in service). Chief of Air Staff Vuillemin in September 39 ; " the poor performance of our bombers will necessitate very prudent operations during the first months of the war.." He went further; of the-then 399 bombers in service only five - LeO 451s - could be counted as 'modern' ....

GZ : I assume all this to be correct (I didn’t check on it) but it is a very bad habit to mix up the situation in Sept. 39 and in May 40. They were very different. The Phoney War and the French Campaign were in every respect two entirely different periods. Many people (not you) do this mixing up to “prove” how hopeless the Armée de l’Air was… in May 1940. Besides, the LW engaged 1,120 twin-engined medium bombers on May 10, 1940, which was bad enough. France had got several squadrons of four-engined heavy bombers already. Who else in Western Europe, hmmm? ALL modern, French-made bombers were armed with one excellent cannon plus machine-guns : 360 LeO 451s, 254 Breguet 693s, 61 Amiot 351-354s. Their numbers were raising very fast. IIRC France had approx. 700 MODERN bombers left (in spite of the losses) when the campaign ended – including the excellent Glenn-Martin 167 Fs and Douglas DB-7s delivered by their US factories. The DB-7, aka “Boston”, was a very successful medium bomber during WW II and its production was strongly boosted by French orders (which were passed on, like the others, to the UK when the end came).

FE : Cuny and Danel quote 1,310 'front-line' French a/c, 416 RAF ('peu modernes'), 117 Belgian & 124 Dutch aircraft opposing some 5,000 front line Luftwaffe a/c on 10 May 1940.

GZ : This is May 1940 now not Sept. any more! You need to be an expert to follow your demonstration. The LW actually engaged approx. 3,500 combat aircraft.

AE : Given the primacy of the French Army in the service hierarchy, the continued subordination of the Air Force to the Army pre-1939 the majority of French combat units (Groupes) were comprised of observation and recce types.. some 41 such Groupes as opposed to 15 fighter groupes

GZ : I think 23 is more accurate, later 24, all this plus 6 “escadrilles” (flights) of 12 Potez 631 twin-engined fighters (too slow but well-armed). Add the local defence flights all over France (“chimney flights”), about 50 modern fighters, which put up a good fight against German intruders, and the 35 fighters deployed by the French naval aviation, the equivalent of the British Fleet Air Arm.

Answering every single remark would quite simply take several days. Sorry, I can’t do that.

FE : The French were expecting another static war and French aircraft factories - after the chaos of the mid-30s nationalisations -were managing to produce less than 100 a/c per month during late 38/early 39, hence the huge orders for foreign types in an attempt to catch up; the output from all French aircraft factories in total per month during early 1939 amounted to far less than the output from a single German producer. I think we can just about agree with Jackson that " by August 39 France's fighter aviation was just beginning to shake off the shackles of obsolescence..although the process of modernisation was painfully slow.."

GZ : This can be perfectly true – I don’t know (yet). It doesn’t matter because the totally obsolete AC types produced before the MS 406 and the Potez 63 series played no part in the fighting (except old bombers at night). Likewise the German fighters He 51 and Ar 68 (or so) didn’t play any part either, nor the many Ju 86 bombers (a few recce sorties perhaps). What matters is the modern AC produced from 1938 on but mainly 1939 and 1940. By May 1940 the French production of excellent fighters was approx. 2.4 times higher than the output of Me 109s and kept growing all the time. Add this to a similar British production : the LW would have been deemed within a few months even over France “if” the ground forces had stayed at least along the river Somme… or in the Dunkerque-pocket…

Remember, too, that the first really good German fighter, the Me 109 E, was deployed only from the spring of 1939 on, but the production was very slow. The 109 D was still widely used at the end of 1939 and at the beginning of 1940. Both France and the UK raised their fighter production frantically and they soon overtook Germany. The French equivalent of the 109 was the D.520 and it came about one year later. There were such alternating phases of new and old aircraft types, of superiority and inferiority, during the whole of WW II : Hurricane vs. Me 109 E, Spitfire II vs. Me 109 F, Spitfire V vs. Fw 190, then Spitfire IX and so on and so on. The French problem was not the Air Force nor their fighters but the ground forces (several million men) which, led by ridiculous generals, weren’t even able to hold the ground and were forced to retreat all the time. Otherwise the French Air Force would have engaged their numerous superlative fighters, which were being produced already, starting in August 1940 : Dewoitine 523, 524 and 551 (ever faster, ever better, eventually much faster than the 109 by November 1940), Arsenal fighters and more. The mass production had started already, masses of metal were bing cut within industry, it was not a nice dream, and at least the Dewoitine fighters were systematically designed to be made with a very low number of man-hours in the factories, so that their production could have been raised even further if necessary. Without the invasion of France including her aircraft factories the Luftwaffe would have been in dire straits indeed by November 1940 at the latest with a then obsolescent fighter (Me 109) and mostly obsolete and feebly-armed bombers (the few survivors!) : Do 17, He 111, not to mention the “Stuka”, “a fighter pilot’s dream”. The Ju 88 was much better but battle experience over France already proved that French and British fighters (“even” MS 406s) shot it down without any difficulty. Against the combined fighter forces and production of both France and the UK the Luftwaffe would have been virtually finished by the end of 1940 and would have lost a large part of her best, irreplaceable, aircrew, killed or disabled. It was bad enough at the end of the BoB even though the French participation had ceased on 25 June.

FE : As for the '916' or '730' victories during the campaign - German a/c which weren't available for the Battle of Britain as French commentators like to point out - these correspond to, what, about two month's German production, if not less, which is just one reason why the Battle of Britian started in earnest in August 1940 and not in July..

GZ : Whatever the exact German losses they were very heavy and obviously this helped the RAF a lot during the BoB. Many German aircrew, too, were killed or disabled. According to Peter Cornwell (page 529) the Luftwaffe lost no less than 3,278 aircrew killed (!) from Sept. ’39 through June 24, 1940, as compared to the RAF’s 1,127 and the Armée de l’Air’s 923. The high number for the LW is explained by the numerous bombers carrying 4 crew members, whereas the Allied aircraft had on average smaller crews. The French still had got relatively few bombers (even though this was changing fast), which explains that they lost “only” 82 % of the number of aircrew lost by the RAF. This was strongly compounded by the very high vulnerability of the “Battle” and “Blenheim”, which were just good enoiugh for German gunnery practice. According to P. Cornwell’s figures in the French Campaign alone the LW lost 1,460 AC, not counting the damaged ones. I am unable to see how such losses can’t have played a part during the BoB and even in its outcome, given the low German AC production except for the Ju 88, which enjoyed a special status as some sort of “miraculous aircraft” (Wunderflugzeug). During the BoB the LW lost 1,408 AC BUT IN TWICE THE TIME, so that the German loss-rate was twice the BoB-rate over France and Benelux.

FE : Now I'm not saying that the French didn't perform bravely - but I am saying that most were forced to fight with inadequate equipment

GZ : this is an exaggeration. The LeO 451, Amiot 351-354, Br 693, MB 174 and D.520 were perfectly adequate, state-of-the-art aircraft, often the best in the world in their category, just a LITTLE BIT too late but remember – Adolf Hitler had had a headstart… Unfair! The Curtiss, Morane and Bloch 152 fighters’ main flaw was their speed, which was lower than the Me 109 E’s. Nevertheless all in all they gave a good account of themselves and shot down scores of German AC, by far the main part, certainly to a large extent thanks to the excellent French fighter pilots, who were almost exclusively seasoned professionals who had been training TOGETHER, as teams, for years, which is an essential factors. Fighter pilots who didn’t know each other, or not well, couldn’t be an effective fighting unit. A German assessment rated the tough French die-hards much higher than the brave, good sportsmen of the RAF. Many German fighter pilots, too, were green to very green, and easy meat for their French counterparts. It is obvious that the Me 109 E was much better than the MS 406 but not in maneuverability and not in armament – and on average not in pilots. On 10 May 1940 the Armée de l’Air had got 912 modern fighters in first-line units stationed in France, of which 412 were MS 406s (45 % of the force) but the Moranes were replaced, as fast as possible, by the masses of MB 152s (two cannon, two MGs…) and D.520s which now were rolling out of the factories. GC III/2’s Moranes were replaced by Curtiss H-75s at the beginning of June. On 24 June only 5 Morane-GCs were left among 24 GCs (about 17 % of the fighter aircraft because the reequipped units mostly received 30-36 new AC instead of 24-28) and without the end of the campaign these, too, would have been reequipped, mainly with D.520s, very soon. Losses were continuously compensated for – sometimes with some inevitable delays.

According to Paul Martin 111 Morane-S. 406s were lost in air combat (and 27 to Flak, against which they could do nothing, or not much) including, I guess, about 30 lost to the deadly German rear-gunners (same remark as for Flak!). This leaves approx. 80 MS 406s lost in fighter vs fighter combat so it can hardly be claimed that the Moranes suffered a wholesale slaughter. Surely a more modern AC equipped with a more powerful engine (in the 1 200 ch-class I guess…) would have suffered even less losses. This was in the pipe too, including at Morane-Saulnier’s (MS 410, MS 450, but the D.520 won this contest).

Nowadays everybody knows, or ought to know, that at the end of this campaign the Armée de l’Air possessed MORE aircraft than on May 10, and better ones. In fact their numerical strength, in aircrew too, was rising all the time in spite of losses.

FE : and under obviously and hopelessly out-moded doctrine - see some of Facon's articles on the SHD site on FAF command structure for more insight into this.

GZ : Beware of P. Facon. He is not quite reliable to say the least. Not every single Frenchman spreading pessimistic or negative views about 1940 is a great historian!

FE : As for organisation & infrastructure see Lionel's super H-75 Hawk book - there are some amazing photos depicting the leading French fighter units deployed to forward airfields during the winter of 1939-40, equipped with absolutely NO infrastructure whatsoever ..and buried under three feet of snow. The 'post-campaign' commission of enquiry (Commission G) arrived at the following conclusions; ..." insuffisance numérique..infériorité technique..absence de matériel moderne...inadequate gunnery instruction, lack of combat training." ..etc etc

GZ : Yes, yes. It is always the same : after a defeat everything was wrong, which explains the defeat, and everybody is arguing with everybody. After a victory everything is wonderful – 1918 French generals were considered the very best in the world, especially in France. They were not, certainly not, but the ALLIES had won. After his literally “in-credible” 1940 victory, won mainly by sheer luck (always very important in any war) and by French generals’ amazing stupidity, Hitler and the other lunatics thought they were unfallible and invincible. You know how it ended. Given time these French nitwits with stars all would have been fired and replaced by people who perhaps were not so good at official parties with politicians but better in battle.

FE : Having said all of that you wouldn't necessarily expect a country with a population of 40 million to have anywhere like as capable an air force as its neighbour - primed for war, population 70-80 million (that's double!) and an industrial output far out-stripping that of all its neighbours put together..

GZ : Oh yes I would. The French leaders had actually decided to boost armament production, in particular aircraft, as strongly as possible and this they did. It worked. The French single-engine fighter production reached about 400 a month by June 1940 and the goal of 650 for the beginning of 1941 no doubt would have been reached. (Even 1941 Messerschmitt still produced about 140-150 Me 109s a month!). The same increase was taking place in all AC categories including four-engined heavy bombers from France (CAO) and from the USA (the B-24 had been ordered as well as the P-38 and P-40 on top of the French national production).

In May 1940 France possessed roughly 3,300 modern, real tanks, Germany had got about 1,000 tanks deserving the name plus 2,000 small tanks or rather tankettes (Panzer I and II), most of which were no match at all for ANY French tank, even the “light” ones. So in this category of industrial production France had clearly the edge over Germany, not to mention naval ships : the German navy of 1940 was simply no match at all for the French one.

Of course Germany, too, could have boosted its armaments production even higher than France but didn’t. This had mainly political reasons. (I leave it to great historians to elaborate on this).

FE : 'cheese-eating surrender monkeys' - no of course not (that's an Americanism Peter - I don't know any British accounts/authors that have used that term..) [/quote]

GZ : What’s the matter with all those people who have a problem with French cheese? It is delicious with hundreds of different brands and versions; all this Anglo-American fuss about French cheese has ONE explanation : envy! Now I have to leave you to eat my daily lb (454 g) of garlic and 2 lbs (0,9 kg) of cheese – mmmmm! I know you’re jealous but don’t try to get it! Eat your boiled meat, your neutral-tasting porridge and your ketchup instead.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Here we go again!

Hi Grozibou - nice name but why are you hiding behind this nickname when you call other 'historians' whose names are not revealed, "cowardly, disgusting, dirty and inaccurate?" You appear to be extremely self opinionated - or is this just my impression? And some of your language is extremely childish and insulting - "flew back to mummy" for example. Implying that because some RAF squadrom commanders did not lead their squadrons into battle meant they were "chicken" comes out of comic books.

Are you a professional historian?

Perhaps you are. I am certainly not, and I doubt whether many of those who have contributed are. But we are all keen amateur historians (I have been fortunate in having some of my work published) - interested in the air war for various reasons - and if we didn't make our contribution, we would have to accept the opinions of others - perhaps even yours!

You mention my TDIM - OK, it's not 100% accurate in the light of more recent research, but it was researched and written in the late 1980s/early 1990s, and did offer an insight to how the RAF Hurricane pilots fared in the fighting during those fatal/vital twelve days. Probably the first English language book to achieve this, but that's all. That's what I set out to do, with the help of my contributors. It was not an account of the Battle of France and wasn't intended to be.

The latest offerings have access to material that was not available to me - that's called prgress. Personal opinons expressed were not mine, but of those who were involved. They were contemporary feelings and sentiments. Why delete them? Political correctness?

I anticipate a broadside from a proud Frenchman (?) but I am always up for a fight, being a proud Englishman!

Cheers
Brian

Nicknames and anonymity
 

Sorry but I really can't give you a full reply now. Perhaps later (?). I hope you'll admit that my contributions to this thread ar fairly long and voluminous already - some people certainly are going to add "awfully long and boring, terrible".

To answer the above question I can tell you :

(1. about myself and my nickname) that virtually everybody here, except perhaps the most recent "members", knew at once that my real name is Yves Michelet. A few short remarks or "smileys" added by some other guys show this fairly clearly. I could have replied that Grozibou, "Big Owl" or even "Fat Owl", is the most dignified and accurate name I could find. A lot of people here use far less transparent nicknames including such monsters as "dr9dong" or some. Why not ABC or XYZ. Nobody ever protested this anonymity. Once more I am unique (I am used to this) insofar as in some people's eyes I am the only person not authorised (at least by you) to use a nickname instead of his own one. "Brian" is not that clear either, Mr. Brian Cull. There are lots of Brians so you could be anybody. I saw one in (I think) the first "Police Academy" film, a young schoolboy who refuses to go to school and a horrible brat : Brian too. Luckily police officer Tuckleberry (?) knew how to deal with him and he went to school all right. You ought to do the same thing : you'd learn a lot of useful stuff.

(2. about << other 'historians' whose names are not revealed, "cowardly, disgusting, dirty and inaccurate?" >> ) Firstly, it was ONE historian not "historians". Let us be exact please. Yes I confirm my opinion entirely. I criticised ONE such filthy fellow, only ONE, whose anonymous statement was printed in your book "Twelve Days in May". He who insults a whole category of soldiers from a certain country - here French fighter pilots - in a hypocritical, cowardly way ("It seems...") - without having the guts to sign his own statement is a coward. He who reproduces this in a "historical", serious-looking book (I don't know who it was, there are 3 names on the dust-jacket) is unserious and dirty himself because it is dirty to wholesale insult other people anonymously. Everybody who is even just a little aware of history knows perfectly well that such wholesale judgements and insults ALWAYS are totally wrong, including "All Germans are Nazis". A few real cases, IF ANY, are not a rule and don't justify such dirty statements, which meant even the 195 or so French fighter pilots (Paul Martin's figure of 186 in his 2nd edition, plus a few others from local "chimney flights" etc.) who lost their lives fighting nazi Germany. With the exception of the Poles they were the very first to do so - but the Poles had been attacked so they fought back (gallantly), whereas the French, who were not involved in the Polish war, declared war on Germany because it had attacked Poland : there is a difference. Almost all of them (about 160) were killed within 5 weeks of fighting during the French Campaign in May-June 1940. At this rate they all would have been dead by September. Had RAF Fighter Command been exterminated by September 1940 yet? I never heard such a terrible thing (thanks God, Dowding and Park!). We already had a similar discussion, here at TOCH, on unclever and inaccurate wholesale insults aimed at a certain category or nationality, like (in the preceding thread) Italian soldiers, who "were the bravest I had under my command", or something of this kind (general Erwin Rommel's opinion).

Besides, the mentioned, dirty, anonymous statement - "... it seems that French fighter pilots did not press home their attacks with every ounce of energy" is particularly stupid and it was a serious error to print it except, of course, if it expressed your own opinion but in this case you ought not to have hidden behind "an historian" (Mr. X). It is stupid because, as I underlined often already, including in this very thread, RAF pilots had exactly the same number of people killed during the BoB, taking the different duration into account. Nevertheless RAF fighter pilots were twice as numerous as their French colleagues and brothers in arms, so that the French KIA-rate was twice as high as the RAF one. So : who was not brave enough? Who was not eager to fight? Certainly not the French! Not the Britishers either : they fought for their country too, they obeyed orders too and they often lost their lives.

I would particularly like to draw your attention on the fact, an INDISPUTABLE fact,

that I often wrote on these questions, including in two books I published on WW II : "Les premiers et les derniers", by Adolf Galland (I translated it and added 100 pages of annexes, explanations and comments), in English "The First and the Last" (a very poor English translation, by the way), and "Invisibles vainqueurs" on the French Air Force 1939-40, by Paul Martin and myself; being the publisher I didn't mention my name as a co-author (50 % of the contents plus obviously the flamboyant title!) too,

BUT I never retaliated in kind - in fact I never even THOUGHT of doing so - after all the criticism and the incredible insults hurled at the French for nearly 70 years by mainly British, or rather English, people, like world-star Peter Townsend, a princess' dream, who had become a real cover-boy in France, where he lived (Paris-Match, Historia and many more popular magazines-covers). So I never even suggested that RAF fighter pilots or other aircrew, or other British soldiers including infantrymen, were chicken, were cowards etc. even though they took to their heels at Dunkerque and elsewhere, all along the French coast down to the Spanish border in the South (and the dumb French helped them as best they could and always were the rearguard making these reembarkments possible in the first place, including at Dunkerque). Never ever. Quite on the contrary I underlined at every opportunity that they were "brave" and "as brave as any" and I am still of this opinion.

This is one of the few things which make the difference between myself and an average English author (some are perfectly all right). According to Peter Townsend in his modest book "Duel of Eagles", published in France (in Paris I think) there were no brave Frenchmen 1940 (only roughly 90,000 were killed in 6 weeks, three times the WW I-rate, as compared to approx. 3,000 British soldiers, 30 times less) . Townsend certainly knew what he was talking about : he never took part in the fighting over "the continent" in May-June 1940 so he obviously was an expert at French fighter pilots (whom he libelled very heavily) in particular! He had been spending these months -as a fighter pilot - at a safe place, far beyond the sea, in England, and never heard or saw any Me 109-cannon fired in anger - and never experienced any Flak-fire - before the BoB so he was the most competent man in the world to write on what happened in and around France in May-June 1940 and hurl wholesale insults at the whole French nation and population. Many French people dislike or even hate the British, yes (there are ALWAYS such problems between neighbours, like Mexico and the USA, Germany and Poland, Italy and France, England and Scotland, Poland and Russia etc.), but I never read or heard one single French statement on the British as insulting as millions of British statements on the French. Clearly the British "race" (!) is vastly superior, which gives its members a special right to insult others.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Well, even though I am a brain-amputated French fool I was aware of this fact, I had noticed. My copy of TDIM, like dozens of other German, English and French books on WW II*, especially on the 1940 French Campaign, is on the shelf close to me and I only need to stretch out my arm to grab it, which I quite often do - a horrifying experience but I, too, am a brave man (it's easy to be when you've got no brain). This explains that I am able to give very exact quotations from it.

* The only way to be well-informed - and not one-sidedly like most British authors - is to read them all if possible (all which have been published), or as many as possible. This means having an excellent command of three languages (4 if we include Dutch) : Fench (after all it was the French Campaign...), German (the most important language for it is hardly disputable that Germany played a major part in this campaign) and English, last and least for the British part in the 1940 French Campaign was a sideshow : they came and they left! (Can you imagine : those naughty German soldiers shot at them! This was outrageous!). This is confirmed by the respective losses in combat (excluding losses aboard ships sailing back to England) suffered by all waring parties. So English in fact really is the least important language (about the BoB it's exactly the reverse) but obviously virtually all British authors are unable, and they wouldn't dream of, reading even one single page of a French book on military operations, which does not prevent them from knowing everything better, being aware of everything and writing great, sweeping, resounding historical statements like "The Luftwaffe swept the French Air Force from the sky at once" (the truth is very exactly the contrary of this nonsense : "The Luftwaffe FAILED to...") and of course the famous "French fighter pilots were not eager to fight... had no guts... ate lunch instead of taking off to fight... drank their vermouth in elegant bars whereas German bombers destroyed the nearby city... didn't press home their attacks*..." and on and on, all this being to be found in highly scientific, historical English books).

Those who allow themselves to publish judgements on 1940 French soldiers without having read at least 20 books in French (not translated) on this subject are quite simply crooks for they commit a fraud. They get paid for a book containing nonsense. All right - some other people do this too.

* Well, at least (quote) "it seems that" they did attack and "even" possibly opened fire at the German aircraft- that was better than nothing.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

ORDER....ORDER

Gentlemen, lets not pursue this debate on a personal level. As I've asked before, and repeated more than once, this debate is too interesting too be spoiled by insult. Passion should not stand in the way of constructive and I'd like to add friendly debate.

:grouph2:

I hope that it is possible for the participants to shake hands and continue in a constructive manner.

All right!
 

Ruy, this is perfectly all right for me. I have no objection.

I hope you noticed that, in spite of my sometimes angry tone, my arguments and QUOTATIONS are accurate and objective. One of the main problems in life quite generally is that many people want to look or sound interesting (!) but are much too lazy, often too stupid too, to inform themselves properly first. This is how some people absolutely wanted to explain for me in detail how I worked in my old profession (no connection with aviation), just in order to look clever, but of course they talked nonsense and I was forced to give them the correct version, which they really didn't like at all : pretentious clots. I fear all physicians (aka doctors) in the world know this problem : many patients insist on explaining medicine for them. Many non-native English speakers, too, feel they have a better command of English than any native speaker. This is why German people insist on saying "bleck, beck, treck" etc. for "black, back, track", and many other horrible things : they know better ("Beserwisser").

With this particular 1940-problem it's quite similar. In fact most people don't really know - with certainty - but they guess, they are under the impression that, they heard that, they feel, they "read somewhere" etc. Example : France (and also the UK, to the very same degree) suffered a terrible defeat 1940 so all the "Schlaumeier" (German phrase for "clever" nitwits) directly infer that the French Air Force (!) was hopeless and that the UK was NOT beaten (that's what they're told at school in the UK, I assume - now I'm guessing too) for the defeat took place... in France so "obviously" it was a FRENCH only defeat, and in the BoB which followed soon the UK was not beaten so "only the French were beaten". But what army was so thoroughly beaten that it fled over the sea in a hurry? Not the French army in any case.

I think I can understand the Brits pretty well - maybe I'm wrong. For all their life since 1940 they have been told and taught, and this is going on still today, that they always were wonderful (at least from 1066 through 2008) and their armed forces never were beaten, which is optimistic to say the least. Now that horrible French frog, or is it an old owl, is telling them that this is not quite accurate and that they ought to stop insulting the French, in particular their aircrew, and that 1940 the UK was not saved by the RAF but by the sea*, which prevented the nazi hordes from overwhelming their country, and perhaps also by the sacrifice of the French land and air forces which, admittedly fighting for their own country, kept the ruthless enemy busy for six weeks (46 days not 42 to be accurate) and inflicted losses on the Luftwaffe which most probably tipped the balance** in the BoB. This is a change and they don't like it.

* Of course this is only pure theory - just reasoning - for if that sea had not existed everything would have been very different in Europe. Perhaps the UK would have been part of Germany, or of France, or of the Netherlands, or conversely in all three cases. In any case Hitler's and Guderian's tanks had a problem crossing that French Channel.

** But what else could French aircrew do ? France was at war with Germany so the Armée de l'Air fought the Wehrmacht. Oh, I forgot : according to noted British historians French aircrew preferred to take shelter in their underground concrete "bunkers" or to eat lunch among exploding bombs (fairly cold-blooded people I have to say) instead of taking off to fight the enemy.

Yves Michelet (Grozibou, alias Big Owl)

"Chicken"?
 

You didn't get it (to be clear for non-English native speakers : you didn't understand). This was IRONY. It was really harmless indeed after all the British insults the French had to endure for over 68 years, including "there were no brave French people 1940" (Peter Townsend in "Duel of Eagles"). It meant : "Were RAF Sqn Ldrs possibly as devoid of courage as the French?" (who had 30 % of their number killed in action in 5 weeks). If they had been 100 % of them would have been dead by October at the latest (this takes the lull 25 June-10 July into account). Were they?

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Small correction, Townsend quotes Sholto Douglas. I've got (and read) his two part autobiography and I can get a full quote of the events if need be. Overal Douglas is very positive about the french. Townsend can only be criticized for quoting without double checking the events.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Wise Owl aka Yves

I give up! Surrender! White flag! I can't keep up with your rhetoric! Perhaps I am too simple, as implied, to understand.

I trust you will excuse me but I must get back to writing my latest effort. I will endeavour to be kind to the French (if you have read any of my books you will note how I have always expanded favourably on those French airmen who did manage to reach British lines (see 'Hurricanes over Tobruk', for example).

Best

Brian (aka Brian Cull)

Re: All right!
 

First point: the English upper classes of the 1930s and '40s also said "bleck, beck, treck" etc. for "black, back, track." This may readily be confirmed from old movies and newsreels and is widely regarded as absurd by the somewhat less deferential British of today. I trust that this adds something to your "understanding" of the British although I infer from the unremitting anger of your posts that you "understand" them (I'm English myself) through the distorting lens of some cherished personal resentment.

I know no one who doesn't believe British forces in France were beaten. But Britain continued as an active belligerent when the French Republic could not and I would suggest that this was to the long term benefit of both nations.

I don't need to assume: I actually went to school in England (from 1957–1969) and no one taught me anything about 1940. I was told a lot about the Romans in Britain (55 BC–410 AD) though. My generation picked up their first knowledge of the war from the adults around them, all of whom had lived through it, and from the bomb damage that was part of our everyday surroundings.

I have learned since that Britain in 1940 had an integrated air defence system that no other country in the world had then come close to matching and that this was a critical factor in frustrating German war aims. That system was designed for the air defence of an island, the inhabitants having noticed, several thousand years before you mentioned it, that they were surrounded by water.

Your wish to see proper recognition for the efforts of the Armée de l' Air is undestandable. Your posts do appear to confirm that France had not managed by May 1940 to equip itself with a really substantial force of its best fighter, nor the integrated command, radar and reporting networks that might have realised their full potential in air defence. An effective force for the tactical support of French armies in the field is of course another matter, albeit one of comparable importance for a nation sharing a land border with a potentially hostile power, I should imagine

P.S. You are more than a little out of touch with what is "going on still today" in the teaching of British history.

Sholto Douglas, Peter Townsend, June 3, 1940
 

- Yes I know, this is correct. Nevertheles when I read the English text (that book was published in France but in both languages - separately - at the same time) I had the strong impression that S. Douglas was just an excuse, convenient to Townsend to publish his own views. In any case he adopted them readily. Did he add that he didn't share these (ludicrous) views? No he didn't so clearly he shared them (otherwise he wouldn't have quoted (?) them anyway). Alledgedly Villacoublay airfield was bombed by the LW on June 3, 1940, precisely when the top commanders of the French and British air forces and navies had a meeting on this very airfield! But both the British and the French were informed of this attack by their respective secret services so I have a few small doubts about this exciting story. (France had even installed a special, powerful radio transmitter on top of the Eiffel Tower to send orders to the fighters on this day, and on the same day all French fighter pilots in the Paris area and eastwards (GC I/5...) were on extreme readiness from dawn on, which proves they were informed, but this is another story). SD/PT :<< At least (or about) FIFTY French fighters were standing on the airfield but the pilots sitting in the mess kept having lunch while German bombs were exploding outside, which didn't seem to interest them in the least. >> ALWAYS THE SAME STORY : enemy bombs exploding and those horrible French pilots not taking off. A bit monotonous. Ain't this a perfect story for an "Indiana Jones" film? Or a Tex Avery cartoon? I say, these "pilots" proved a calmness and a cold-bloodedness of which only very few Britons, in particular RAF marshals, are able. This is even better than "Monty-Pythons". Frankly, who can take such a story seriously? I don't know who was nuts - Townsend or Douglas - and invented this horror story in which four Allied top commanders were involved, but this is a pure invention. Nonetheless it is precisly with such fairy tales that French people are SYSTEMATICALLY libelled in certain countries. Remember the 2nd Iraq-war : "Up yours Chirac!" could be read on almost every newspaper (big headlines) in those same countries. Chirac had DARED disapprove of the new invasion and say so. What a crime! How dared he fail to obey orders from London and Washington! After all he was just a little French president. No : he is a very tall man (and he knows this kind of war : he was a young officer in the Algeria war...).

Oh, just a little detail : French HQ considered this Villacoublay-airfield too close to the city of Paris itself (I am able to confirm this for I know this place) so NO FIGHTER UNIT was based there on this day. You can check on this easily in both editions of Paul Martin's book ("Invisibles vainqueurs" / "Ils étaient là"), which gives the locations of all airfields used by every French unit 1939-40. General Accart, the 1940-44 unique hero, insisted strongly on the part "on this day" when - very upset - I discussed this matter with him. Of course he was right : various fighter units were based at "Villa" at different times, according to circumstances, but NOT on June 3.

Interestingly on most airfields where French fighter units really were stationed - Chantilly, Lognes, Brétigny, Coulommiers, Claye-Souilly - they took off among exploding bombs and under strafing by Me 109s and 110s. This is why many French pilots died on this day : almost all (95 % IIRC) who were shot down were either killed (most of them) or badly wounded, which is exceptional; usually the proportion of survivors is much higher. The alert and take-off in due time had been spoilt by a stupid error made by... the generals (!) as usual. So as you see the REAL story of what ACTUALLY happened proves that French fighter pilots certainly took off among exploding bombs and under attack by enemy fighters already while they were trying to become airborne and also during the climb, when they were sitting ducks. Easy victories for the "Huns".

- Yes, please. You did this already some months, or maybe 1-2 years, ago, which was very kind of you, but repeating this unique piece of literature can only be very instructive.

If Sholto Douglas was fair to the French (but possibly the FREE-FRENCH only… for they were fighting within the RAF!) then Townsend must have invented his whole hair-raising story, in which not one single element CAN be true.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Repeating an earlier quote:

Original text from Years of Command, the second volume next to Years of Combat, the autobiography of Sholto Douglas.

p.65/66

On instructions from the Chief of the Air Staff, I flew to Paris with the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sir Geoffrey Blake, to discuss with Admiral Darlan and General Vuillemin, the Chief of the French air force, what action the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force should take when Italy came into the war, an event which, it was anticipated, would happen within the next few days.

When Geoffrey Blake and I landed at the military aerodrome at Villacoublay, just outside Paris, we rather expected that, in view of the importance of our mission, there would at least be somebody there to welcome us. To our astonishment the only soul in sight was Douglas Colyer, our Air Attaché in Paris. We got out of our aircraft, and just as we did so a little man wearing a tin hat and with a gas-mask bouncing on his backside came dashing out of a dug-out nearby. He shouted at us to take cover because in a minute or two the Germans would be starting their bombing of the airfield.

With the nature of our welcome determined, Colyer and Blake and I rushed off to the nearest air-raid shelter. It was a not very reassuring mound of sandbags and corrugated iron, and just as we got to it the first bomb came down, bursting on a hangar about thirty or forty yards away. And then came a whole salvo of bombs which fell all over the aerodrome and the hangars. Later I was to learn that that day, the 3rd of June, 1940, was the one on which the Germans staged their one and only large-scale raid on the French capital during the whole of the Second World War.

There were some fifty or sixty fighters of the French air force standing parked around the aerodrome, and we saw a number if them blow up in the raid. Just as we were landing I saw three of the French fighters take off, but as far as I can ascertain these were the only fighters that attempted to go into action from Villacoublay that day. There could be no excuse for such a lack of interest in trying to get at the enemy because our Air Staff had obtained reports through our own Intelligence (RH: Ultra?) only a day or two before that the Germans were planning a big raid on Paris, and that information had been passed on to the French.

After the raid was over, Blake and Colyer and I made our way to the Officers' Mess, and there we found all the French pilots - with the exception of the three who were airborne - sitting down and not all interested in what had just happened. I could not help thinking what a striking contrast there was between their attitude and that of the gallant French pilots whom I had known in the First World War. It was an impression that stayed unhappily with me, and it was not until some time later, when I had Free French pilots directly under my command, that I found that there were still those Frenchmen who could be as keen and gallant as one could ever wish for.

He continues describing visits to both Darlan and Vuillemin, finding these encouraging and reassuring, having completed arrangements for cooperation with the French both at sea and in the air.

Judging by Years of Combat, Douglas is ready to praise the French, even at cost of the British as his acknowledgment as an artilleryman that British spit and polish were no match to French superficially unmilitary but in practice high efficiency illustrates.

Lets assume that there are no hidden agendas and that Douglas and the events are correct, that leaves interpretation as the main variable.

What types of aircraft could Douglas have seen at Villacoublay? He must have recognized fighters for what they were, but might he have overlooked if they were operational or not?

Those men in the Mess, were they fighter pilots?

Could culture and circumstance be part of the mix up, mistaking sang froid and nonchalance for lack of keenness? It is hard to show keenness if you see that defeat is almost certain. This is perhaps key between any Anglo-French comparison in this period, easily tagged as defeatism.

I cannot fault Douglas, because he clearly writes: I could not help thinking what a striking contrast there was between their attitude and that of the gallant French pilots whom I had known in the First World War. It was an impression that stayed unhappily with me, and it was not until some time later, when I had Free French pilots directly under my command, that I found that there were still those Frenchmen who could be as keen and gallant as one could ever wish for.

It is all about his perceptions and his feelings.

I can also understand why it is tempting to quote Douglas as a "concise" illustration of popular view in Britain of French defeatism, giving it the weight of rank and thus credibility. Townsend can be blamed for not digging any further, but this is but a small part of his book.

IMHO it is not worth all this energy to fight just one piece of writing as it is to discuss French (aerial) operations and their effects in general. By constructive debate we can create a better picture and even help dispel the notions of the defeatist and ineffective French air force.

To villanize an author is not the way to be taken seriously. Dispel the myth by reason, but also by reasonable debate.

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

Many thanks for this Ruy. Who typed these long quotations? You? It must have been a lot of work! So thanks again - much obliged. Said quotations are very interesting.

I am really sorry but I can't reply in detail today, not to Nick Beale's post either, which I regret : I have the tax office on my tail and I MUST do something about it - in particular that hated paperwork. Rats!

It seems clear that they really meant June 3, 1940. As I already explained several times I consider this impossible. You don't round up any top-ranking generals and admirals to an airfield on the very day you know the Huns are going to bomb that same airfield! This is absolutely hair-raising. Any airfield was a most dangerous place anyway during the war. Darlan was the Commander-in-Chief of the whole French navy (it was much smaller than the British navy but much bigger than the German one, with six battleships, 60 good submarines (twice the German sub force), 1 aircraft carrier, many cruisers and destroyers etc. and more of these being made, under Darlan's top responsibility too : several fast battleships and several aircraft carriers, etc. - this work was stopped by the armistice). Vuillemin was the C-i-C of the French Air Force. I think nobody can imagine that these four most important men would have gathered under falling German bombs just for fun. Possibly S. Douglas mixed up different days when he wrote this (such errors will happen often).

In any case it is a FACT that no French fighter unit was based at Villa on June 3. If really 3 fighters took off these were the airfield's own protection fighters (so-called local flights or "chimney flights") for several important aircraft factories were situated at or near Villacoublay and the new AC were test-flown there : Breguet (Br 693 / 695), LeO (LeO 451), possibly more. Nevertheless there was no local defence flight at Villa, probably because several well-armed fighter airfields were situated around Paris. Often the few defending fighters were flown by local test pilots (one of them, having started from Châteauroux or Bourges, won a victory flying a prototype fighter - as a civilian! Probably a very rare occurence in WW II.) Of course it is quite possible that some fighters were parked there, in particular awaiting repair of battle damage. The Morane-Saulnier factory of Puteaux was not far away and the new AC were flight-tested there (at Villa), but MS 406-production was being phased out : the Armée de l'Air received 7 in April, 10 in May and the last 4 in June. During the same months they received 371 D.520s (including 196 in June only - in 24 days not 30! In a complete month of June well over 250 D.520s would have been delivered), production rate still rising strongly (made far away from Paris : in Toulouse, where I was borne, heh heh heh, which is not surprising for a future old owl).

"The aircraft (MS 406) are assembled and flight-tested at Vélizy-Villacoublay" (sic : I think the double name didn't exist yet 1940). Found in the book "Le MS 406", a remarkable monograph published by "Avions"-Lela-Presse (12 authors including Mathieu Comas, Christophe Cony, Michel Ledet, Lucien Morareau, Lionel Persyn et al). So yes Villa was Morane-Saulnier's aerodrome too so possibly a dozen or more MS 406s can have been there on 3 June 1940 but with no fighter pilots, no ammunition and probably they were not airworthy.

Remember, please, that the Breguet 690 series had been originally designed and ordered as heavy twin-engined fighters (hence probably the powerful armament of one cannon and several MGs in the nose, more firing backwards) and were produced at Vélizy, which later merged with Villacoublay : nowadays the city's name is Vélizy-Villacoublay. Not surprisingly the produced Br 691, 693 and 695 were test-flown at Villacoublay airfield and yes, they could very much look like fighters - they had been designed as fighters! But if SD's story is true at all, which I strongly doubt, these were new Br 693s / 695s he saw; they had just rolled off the factory and were being or would have been test-flown in those very days. The "fighter-pilots" he "saw" in the officers' mess were certainly no fighter-pilots but test-pilots at best, possibly no pilots at all but other personnel (there were about 100 men for 1 fighter pilot in the A.A.). In any case these AC, whatever the type (most probably Br 693/695), had not been test-flown and certainly carried no ammunition to shoot at the naughty German bombers. Taking off among exploding bombs is a lot of fun (why did SD not take off himself with one of the 50-60 "fighters"?) but not really useful if you're unable to fire your guns.

Enough now : this in-credible story quite simply is not true, that's all.

Grozibou : actually it was more the aerodrome used by the surrounding aero-industry producing Breguet, LeO and Morane-Saulnier aircraft. This means a production of hundreds and hundreds of aircraft. No wonder the LW wanted to bomb it. Obviously during a war the Air Force will use any aerodrome which suits their needs.

Quote:

With nature of our welcome determined, Colyer and Blake and I rushed off to the nearest air-raid shelter. It was a not very reassuring mound of sandbags and corrugated iron, and just as we got to it the first bomb came down, bursting on a hangar about thirty or forty yards away. And then came a whole salvo of bombs which fell all over the aerodrome and the hangars.

- Visibly he was scared out of his wits by a few harmless small bombs. This'll kill me! (I'll be an innocent victim of those nazi bombs over 68 years later!)

Quote:

There were some fifty or sixty fighters of the French air force standing parked around the aerodrome, and we saw a number if them blow up in the raid. Just as we were landing I saw three of the French fighters take off, but as far as I can ascertain these were the only fighters that attempted to go into action from Villacoublay that day.

- Yes, if this story is not 100 % invented for some reason, it is even surprising that as many as 3 airworthy fighters were to be found there, for French HQ had concentrated elsewhere all fighter units they could get their hands on. But perhaps 3 test-pilots just wanted to fly one aircraft each to safety in order to avoid its destruction. The other guys in the mess most probably were mechanics or possibly pilots of any kind (including bombers) who had not got any airworthy AC to fly at the moment, all other AC not being able to fly. In any air force of the world it is very difficult to know what kind of a pilot you are seing : they all wear the same pilot's badge. (I was an officer with the A.A. myself and I am used to this) Only the unit's badge can give you a clue but you have to be an expert to make the difference between hundreds of different, mostly strange or even weird badges. A pilot wearing his pilot's badge (RAF : his "wings") can be a bomber pilot or a young lad flying only light liaison AC (commandeered tourism AC), ambulance AC etc.


- This is ludicrous. Such arrangements had been completed as early as 1938 and possibly 1939, which didn't make some refinements or changes impossible but the main work had been performed long ago.


- You hardly can tell by just looking at them. An aircraft must have sustained really heavy damage if you want it to be obvious to the onlooker that it can't fly at the moment.

- Certainly not. The fighter pilots were in their fighter units, based on all possible airfields but not at Villa. Civilian test-pilots of the companies Breguet, LeO and MS at best, most probaly unable to perform air-to-air shooting, in particular without any ammunition. In France no civilian person, no matter his competence, is authorised to use any military weapons in anger at war, not even a simple pistol or rifle.

- French personnel were used to be attacked, British generals were not. What's more, even the most eager test-pilot or bomber-pilot is unable to fly a fighter in combat if this fighter is a Br 693 bomber which is not airworthy and has got no ammo.

- Yes! Frankly I can't imagine how an RAF general or AVM or whatever should have known everything on the various insignia and badges of the FRENCH Air Force : this was not his business, he had to deal with quite different matters at top-level. His rank does not make his story more credible. As I already mentioned a top-ranking German general published a book in which he stated that the Japanese had conquered Midway (Adolf Galland). You could say : "Come on! Galland was a general! He could not possibly be wrong!" Bullshit.

- In theory you're perfectly right. Unfortunately Sholto Douglas is a very famous man, Peter Townsend, princess' lovelace, even more so, in particular in... France! His book is widely spread and often quoted from. You can be sure that even in 500 years people are going to "prove" French airmen's cowardice "thanks to" Townsend's book. This will never end so it must be fought "with every ounce of energy". Books, in particular historical books - here we have got TWO, written by S.D. and by P.T. - have an important characteristic (feature) : they never disappear, once they are here they are here to stay so such insulting libelling must be fought immediately (if possible) and with the last ounce of energy.

A last "small detail" : according to excellent airpower historian Raymond Danel ("Icare" N° 54) the huge German attack on June 3 gave the following results : on operational airfields 6 (!) French AC were destroyed on the ground, 7 were damaged, 32 men killed. 5 non-operational Amiot 351s were destroyed at Le Bourget and 5 D.520s of the naval aviation at Orly totalling 16 AC destroyed on the ground (none at Villacoublay, as you can see : zero aircraft destroyed by boms at Villa on 3 June). Damage to railways, factories etc. was insignificant.

And now back to the tax office. Sorry. HELP!

Re: Book on French AF 1939-40?
 

- OLD not wise! You can stuff me soon.

- This is probably the sole French victory on England (except in rugger/rugby of course). What a triumph!

- No please don't be kind. Just simply tell the truth, not any invented horror stories about French fighter pilots taking shelter under concrete instead of fighting the Hun bombers.

- No! Please! We are discussing the 1939-1940 FRENCH (not Free-French) Air Force here! I respect the Free-French (and Poles, Czechs, Norwegians, Belgians etc.) very highly, they were morally very brave (far from their homeland and their families, from their children in some cases) and physically too but Tobruk (1942) is not the French Campaign (1940). How can a discussion make any sense if we mix up entirely different periods? Nobody in England ever criticized or libelled the Free-French. To British aircrew the Free-French and the others (Poles etc.) were comrades who flew and fought together with them and took the same risks, or more. Of course they liked each other.

OF COURSE all Britons really LOVE the Free-French (and the other nationalities) who managed to escape to England or Egypt - it wasn't that easy! - and fought side by side together with them from the BoB on. We need no explanation on these obvious feelings.

Well Nick...
 

- All right, this is true but even 70-80 years later (!) no German has noticed yet. They're pretty slow sometimes, die haben eine lange Leitung (they've got a long pipe (to forward the message). How come that all other nationalities don't make this error, not even the French, who admittedly are not really good at languages?

Still today the Germans are the only people in the world saying "viski" for "whisky" (the Russians possibly too?). For several centuries they called the US capital "Voshington" (certain of being remarkbly fluent in English). I spent 18 years in Germany and I was incensed at this stupidity. "Ve heff a bird vith bleck vings". Absolutely ridiculous even if their knowledge in vocabulary and grammatics can be pretty good. They don't say "we have" but "ve heff". They are perfectly able to pronounce English perfectly well if they so wish but no, they have decided that only their "English" is the good one! They are taught it this way at school already and no English-speaking radios or TVs can change anything (AFN had their transmitters in Germany for about 50 years and most German youngsters listened to it very eagerly because of the music, or "music"). THey don't even believe their English-teachers from... England, they insist on being right.

The Nasdaq index and the lap-top were not invented in the 1930-40's but in Germany they say "Naisdaiq" and "Laiptop". Frankly I think they're nuts - sorry for our German readers, who know better, I know. The so-widely used @ is "ett" in Germany! Sole country in ze vörld! Zay eat a "Big Meck" (and they even write it "Big Mäc" - jokingly) ett "MaicDonald's". OK, let me stop or I'll explode. Just listen to German radio or watch German TV and you'll see... er, hear. Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton is called "Haymiltn" in Germany (yes they always think that the end must disappear : not "HaymiltOn").

- Wrong as usual. 1940 I wasn't borne yet, far from it. No member of my family took part in the French Campaign, none was killed or wounded. No, the deep reason of my reactions is that I quite simply can't stand any big, shocking errors nor some swines insulting dead heroes who died fighting for their country, which is fair enough, but for liberty and civilisation too. The average French fighter pilot, for example, was aged about 24. So when Hitler took power they were aged 17 and still civilians. They had plenty of time (the older ones too) to think of it and decide what they would do, so it is absolutely outrageous to hear and read, again and again, that they were not eager to fight, not keen, not brave etc. They had joined the Armée de l'Air knowing perfectly well that Germany was about to start a war again (ze vhole vörld knew it), in which THEY would personally take part and probably die, for they were aware of all the dire hazards of being an aviator, in particular a combat aircrew. Admittedly many joined the Air Force because they wanted/loved to fly but this doesn't exclude the other part.

I mentioned repeatedly that in my book "Invisibles vainqueurs", published 1991 by myself, I stressed that British AND (even) GERMAN aircrew were brave men, simply because some people expressed doubts on this in France and elsewhere. Likewise I explained (1985 in "Les premiers et les derniers", or so I think) that it was a stupid legend (spread also by JE Johnson, RAF) to say that the high scores of German fighter pilots were easy to explain because a German unit leader would get all the credit for all victories won by his subordinates. Ludicrous! It would mean that some German commanders would have got the credit for 3,000 victories each, and more.

- Good! France had the bad luck not to be on the right side of a sea protecting her from the German hordes.

- Of ALL nations including Germany! But remember that the UK alone never would have been able to land back on the continent and chase the German army. Instead, the Red Army of our good Soviet friends would have invaded Europe entirely to the Atlantic coast, and eventually the UK probably too, as the last "horrible capitalist plutocratic country" (with a KING on top of the rest, can you imagine what good ol' Stalin thought of the British king!).

- Too bad! It would be bloody necessary. In France they are taught about WW II (I guess at the age of 16-18) but I fear they're taught a lot of bullshit, in particular about de Gaulle's imaginary influence on the 1940 fighting, and quite generally about Our Great Hero de Gaulle (tons of exaggeration). He did the right thing - no doubt - but his influence was much smaller than they claim in France still today.

- Indeed! It was emulated in the whole world in the meantime. You simply have to admire it.

- One more misunderstanding! This is not what I am looking for - it is French people's own job to reach this goal and I must say that in the last 17 years and even before ("Icare", starting 1970, and more) many authors and several publishers have made a tremendously good job which I very much admire and enjoy, mainly with remarkable aircraft monographs (I mentioned most of them at the beginning of this thread : Docavia, Lela-Presse, Icare, Les Ailes de Gloire, etc.) - "usual disclaimer" from my part. These works contain very interesting pages on actual fighting 1939-40, losses, victory claims etc.

No - what I wish from foreign (non-French) authors is just that they stop insulting and libelling French aircrew as non-keen, non-eager-to-fight cowards. Is it asking too much? As I already remarked these insults are ludicrous anyway, not credible in the least in view of the missions actually accomplished and of the losses in combat, and such insults eventually make only their authors dirty. They ARE dirty.

Besides, it happened quite a few times that French fighters protected British bombers effectively or took part in air battles against German fighters, together with British fighters. I never heard that they didn't look keen in these instances so why should they not be in other air battles?

- This was a matter of but a few weeks! Bad luck! 6 more weeks and hundreds of excellent D.520s, soon the even better (!), much-improved D.523s and D.524s, would have shot the Luftwaffe to ribbons. I mean it. Remember : you can't always win and if your top generals are hopeless fools you have no chance to hold the ground and produce your excellent aircraft designs... (the UK was lucky enough to be able to do this but alas only the "Spitfire" was an excellent aircraft).

As I already remarked aircraft technical superiority is an alternating business : you are better for a while, then the enemy, then you again etc. This went on for the whole of WW II, ending with Me 262s and Ta 152s.

- Here I fear that they were just as hopeless as the US forces (remember Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, 1 1/2 years later! They were hardly better.). France was aware of radar, which equipped for ex. the Atlantic liner "Normandie" (for icebergs...), but those old moustached generals never realised its military potential even though I suspect that they were duly informed by their British counterparts but didn't take it seriously (!). Or was it TOO secret to be revezaled to the French?

I think that NO country is perfect in all categories at the same time : the French were making the best tanks and the best aircraft cannon in the world, which is not that bad, and from August 1940 on they would have mass-produced half a dozen superlative aircraft types : D.523-524-551, Bloch 175, CAO four-engined heavy bomber and many more. French naval ships including subs, albeit less numerous than the British, were superlative ships too, very fast, well-armed etc. The UK didn't produce any good aircraft weapon (except US Browning .30 machine-guns) but it did produce decent fighters (Hurricane) or excellent ones (Spitfire) in due time, not too late, and had the exceptional, unique merit of building up this remarkable (unique at the time) radar and radio-control system. Nevertheless the RAF still had a lot of "Gladiator" biplanes in May 1940... To sum up, one of the advantages of an alliance ist that every country has his own strong points and these can be shared.

Let us remember that French AC production was just approx. 4-6 weeks late : what are 4-6 weeks in a world war lasting for 6 years? But even 5,000 excellent French aircraft would not have prevented the clever German generals (Manstein, Guderian, Rommel and more...) from beating the senile French fools - I am not meaning the actual soldiers who fought on the ground. Did you know that the C-i-C of all Allied forces, general Gamelin, had been suffering from syphilis for years? This illness destroys your brain, too... Of course the French government was aware of this. But I guess Gamelin was a good-looking and welcome guest at political parties and the like, possibly for political reasons too. Well, I fear this is hardly different in Washington even today (No I have no insider informations!).