Dear Ruy, please don’t force me to write any long replies right now, I simply haven’t the time : I am filling moving boxes with books etc., or rather I am trying to. At the end of next week perhaps I’ll have more time…

And right now a German TV-network is showing the film « Independence Day », which I MUST see for the 3rd time while I’m writing this ! This is torture on an innocent veteran.

I don’t understand why I am the only person in the world who has no right to say the truth on certain books and their authors. You could call this « review ». Innumerable book reviews published daily all over the world are MUCH HARDER than mine about P. Facon’s mediocre book on the 1940 French AF. On TOCH we could read many very harsh book reviews, for ex. about Osprey and others. So what’s the matter ? Have I only limited civil rights ?

Let us see FACTS that even you hardly can dispute. Facon’s appendixes : page 270, Bf 109’s top speed 550 instead of 570, a figure so well-known that I have been knowing it by heart for 20 years. Even the French experts found out precisely this figure when they flight-tested some captured 109s 1939. The reports are in SHAA’s archive and Facon is « Directeur de Recherche » at SHAA.

Do 17 Z : « 7 machine-guns ». It was rather 3. We are still dealing with the French Campaign only not what happened afterwards.

He 111 H : top speed « 365 » (ludicrous, slower than the Stuka) – Armament one 20 mm-cannon ( !), one 13 mm-MG ( !), 3 light MGs. The heavy armament possibly was added during the BoB, I’m not quite sure, but in any case this never was standard equipment. I hope BoB experts can help on this point.

Ju 87-B Stuka : top speed 370 (faster than the He 111 H according to Facon), bomb load 1 000 kg instead of 500 (officially still 250 but OK, 500 quickly became standard).

I didn’t check everything in the more than 6 pages of such data…

We could generously say that 136 of the 305 pages (plus preface but including index and bibliography) are more or less devoted to the subject announced on the cover : L’Armée de l’Air dans la tourmente (Subtitle : La bataille de France 1939-1940). It is really incredible, for a man covered in honors and titles like Rudel was covered in medals, that this subtitle contains TWO major historical errors and they cannot be disputed either : the correct phrase is « La Campagne de France » (not bataille de France, which officially is the designation of the 2nd part only, starting on 5 June along the Somme and Aisne rivers). Even worse, it didn’t start 1939 but on 10 May 1940 ! And this man is a great historian ? This is precisely what a well-known, respected researcher disputed several years ago when he told me that Facon is considered unserious ; I fully agree with this.

On pages 169-170 Facon compares the numerical strength of SERVICEABLE French AC and ALL German AC, serviceable or not. This is how you can « prove » that we poor little Frenchies had got nothing but our heroical chests to stem the tide of millions of German tanks and giant aircraft. The truth is that France had made, and possessed, much more numerous and much better tanks than Germany. The only problem was the right way to use them (no place here to elaborate on this, see the remarkable German book I mentioned).

Now guess who wrote the following – was it me or Facon ? (… are the passages I deleted)

<< A first way of reporting the 1940 battle tells us that the Armée de l’Air was crushed on its airfields right at the start of the offensive… There is no other choice than to note how wrong this is. The French Air Force was no more nailed to the ground than were the Polish AF in September 1939 or the Belgian AF in May 1940. 47 airfields were attacked in the whole [French] country… and about 60 Ac of all kinds were destroyed. Such a figure is certainly not negligible but it is nonetheless very far from corresponding an annihilation of the French AF. In the Northern zone of air operations, where 16 of these attacks took place, the losses on the ground were « insignificant » according to the history of the Air zone, with the exception of one Groupe de Chasse which lost 13 fighters [from approx. 30]. The damage to facilities was fairly limited. …

THE ARMÉE DE L’AIR IS NOT CRUSHED ON THE GROUND

The figures trumpetted by OKW (German GHQ) could give the illusion of an immense success. Indeed, the Germans announced the destruction of 300-400 Allied planes on 10 May… [and so on]. At this pace, Armée de l’Air and BAFF would have disappeared within a few days [and Jochen Prien keeps spreading these figures in spite of my remarks about this already years ago, sometimes adding that these figures are disputed on the Allied side, which does not means that they are wrong]. But this is not the case. In fact the Armée de l’Air was not crushed on her airfields, neither on the first day… nor in the following weeks. French airpower did not become the system, deprived of all cohesion and unable to react, which usually many English-speaking historians, who are poorly informed to say the least, use to claim… French fighters are markedly effective already on the first day… More than 50 He 111s and at least 25 Do 17s were shot down [by all Allied forces including AA]. This is one of the little known facts of this May-June air battle… >> And so on.

Well, what do you say ? Whose style is this ? Who wrote this (in French) ?

Something else : history is officially considered part of literature. (For ex. a liter. Nobel prize can be awarded to an historian.) So it is very sad that Mr. Facon’s French really is very poor and he makes horrible linguistic mistakes.

- Why don't you make the same statement evry time a book is criticised here?

- Of course he is able to defend himself! I am not cowardly attacking a defenceless little baby but a so-called "historian" who is a mighty man and has all advantages on his side : high positions, high university degrees, prestige, certainly influential friends etc. He can reply here any time if he so wishes. I think nobody will try to prevent him from doing so.