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)