[rof120]

e: The Eagles Over Europe Project
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rof120

1. Oh yes. It was released 2008, only 68 years after the fighting (almost all those who had been involved in it had died long ago). Not Peter Cornwell's fault - he did a very commendable job and his book is very good and very useful.

2. I think since 1940 about 37,000,000 books were published on the Battle of Britain, which admittedly is an important and interesting subject too, not to mention millions of books on other aerial campaigns.

1. And your point is...?

- Is obvious. It’s a great pity that no COMPREHENSIVE story of the aerial part of the Fr. Campaign was written before all the survivors passed away. Obviously it was the French’s responsibility to do the job. I understand the French Defence historical branch (Service historique de la Défense) in the Château at Vincennes (close to East-Paris) published some documents and books. I have to admit that I don’t know the details on these yet. They also made recordings of numerous survivors talking on their experiences. A great big book like Peter Cornwell’s should have been published in France itself decades ago – 1960-70 would have been a good time frame, 1970-80 would have been allright too. 2000 was too late already for those who were aged 20 in 1940 were 80 years old in 2000, 85 if they were 25 in 1940, and many of them were no longer among us.

There are relatively numerous French books on the subject but each book covers only a little part of it, like some excellent monographs on aircraft types published by Éditions Larivière (Docavia series) and by Lela Presse. They contain good summaries of war operations too. As usual all over the world most books are devoted to fighters and fighter units. I feel nobody will ever be able to change the general fascination mostly for fighter aircraft and fighter boys. Let us accept this as a fact of life.

In my eyes there is a special case : both little books published 1941 and 1942 by “Capitaine Accart”, who 1940 was a captain (corresponding a Flight Lieutenant with the RAF) and led a fighter “escadrille” of 12 fighters, of which a maximum of 9 flew at the same time (more or less corresponding an RAF fighter squadron with 16/12 AC). His escadrille was the by very far top-scoring one among 52 others with twice as many victories as the next ranking unit (n° 2) and he was one of the top-scoring Allied fighter pilots although he was very seriously wounded on 1 June 1940 and spent the rest of the campaign in hospital (23 days, half the total time). He was an extremely clever, brave, generous and modest man. He very nearly was killed twice by rear-gunners of German bombers or recce AC. The 2nd time he actually received a machine-gun bullet, fired at short range, exactly between his eyes. He survived by the skin of his teeth to become a very high-ranking 4-star general (French star system with 2-5 stars) in the 1960s and 1970s with the French Air Force, NATO etc. He never received his 5th star because he disagreed with de Gaulle (then the French President) on a strategic matter. He was one of very few French men having said “No” to de Gaulle directly into his face. He left the AF and retired.

In his first booklet, “Chasseurs du ciel” (Hunters of the Sky, 1941) he reported mainly his personal part and his unit’s part of the fighting. The second booklet, “On s’est battu dans le ciel” (There was Fighting in the Sky), gives general explanations on the air war, especially combat by fighters, its rules and possibilities and what was not possible (roughly: giving every single French infantryman (there were well over one million of these) his very own, personal fighter aircraft and pilot to protect him 24 hours a day against the naughty Stukas – the bitter irony is mine not his). His explanations on tactics and strategy are “smack on target” and mostly still valid today. This is an excellent fundamental text on aerial warfare. In both booklets some inaccuracies are the result of inevitable poor information at the time on German AC etc. – these matters were still hush-hush. Everybody who wants to research the 1940 French Campaign should read, among other things, this remarkable booklet, sold on the Internet for about 5 euros.

2. Again, and your point is...? Note to self: Got a lot to catch up on those millions of books...

My point is obvious again. It is perfectly all right that so many books were, and will be, published on the Battle of Britain (many are good to excellent – not all of them), quite a few in foreign languages including many in French or in German. I feel French authors writing on the BoB ought to write on the Fr. Campaign instead – but they couldn’t use those millions of books already published in English on the BoB… They often betray that they just copied some English sources, mostly a few books (or only one) when they use the English word “Mark” for German hardware, like “Panzer Mark II” (or Mark III, IV). You’ll never find “Mark” in this meaning in a German text, except possibly about English or American hardware. German people write simply “Panzer I, II, III, IV” and so on. One of those misguided, phoney French “historians”, who is very famous and very successful, writes mostly nonsense and wants us to believe that RAF Bomber Command used Mosquitoes and Lancasters 1940. This is just a small sample.

The aerial part of the French Campaign was in no way a sideshow, as almost everybody in the world believes. The total losses of aircraft from all waring parties were higher by more than 1,000 than in the Battle of Britain but in less than half the time (35 days of actual fighting in the 46 days of the campaign as compared to 83 days from July 10 through September 30, October not being really part of the actual BoB). In the French Campaign Germany lost 1,460 aircraft (according to P. Cornwell’s figures), which is about the same figure as in the BoB but in half the time at most, so the fighting was much harder and much more bitter for the Germans over France than over GB.

The point? It’s a shame that no comprehensive book tells this story, at least the French part of it, which quite naturally was much larger (except possibly for British bombers) and above all much longer (totalling the famous 46 days) than the British part (very little after the end of “Dunkirk”-Operation Dynamo on June 3).