Quote:
Originally Posted by edwest2
As I wrote before, you should write a book, or several.
Best,
Ed
|
- Oh, I didn't understand your preceding post correctly so my reply was not smack on target to say the least, sorry.
I consider your last statement very nice and a great compliment, especially coming from Ed West. Many thanks.
You're right and… I am working on at least one book on this subject indeed, which explains that I am relatively well-informed. I specialised heavily on this because, as I mentioned already, it has been mostly (not always) very poorly researched and treated up till now - with a few exceptions. If not the French but the German or British air force, or both, were the victim(s) of this bad treatment and incredible libelling I would concentrate on them instead.
There were two topflight (a good word here) historians who worked and published books together: French "ingénieurs" (scientists) - ingénieur with the design dept. of "aérospatiale" (now part of Airbus) / flight-test ingénieur with Dassault, Raymond Danel and Jean Cuny (not "Daniel" with an i), in particular Danel, who was a real, excellent historian too. I feel very modest as compared with him. Both died much too early about 30 years ago but they had managed to publish some remarkable books on the 1940 French air force including excellent monographs with the titles "Curtiss Hawk 75", "Le Dewoitine 520" (this book contains amazing detail on performance, production (over 400 before the end of the Fr. Campaign), improvements (by August, 1940, the Luftwaffe would have been in serious trouble facing D.523s and D.524s, then from about December on even better D.551s with ever-increasing, incredible performance - remember Spad and Nieuport in WW I...), engines becoming more and more powerful etc., the book "LeO 45, Amiot 350 et autres B4" (book on modern French medium bombers, all armed with machine-guns and one dorsal cannon; B4 means "Bombardement, 4 men on board), and the superlative "l'aviation de chasse française 1918-1940". Raymond Danel published numerous, excellent historical articles in early issues of "Le Fana" (actually, originally "L'album du fanatique de l'aviation", a magazine created by Robert Roux, an author himself) and also in the beautiful review "Icare" (specially recommended in spite of some flaws) published by SNPL, the main trade-union of French airline pilots. Starting 1970 "Icare" published about 17-20 special issues on the Armée de l'Air and French naval aviation as well as the Dutch and Belgian air forces at war 1939-1940 and two issues on the Luftwaffe. These issues often contain excellent fundamental historical articles by Raymond Danel, and mainly veterans' stories - most interesting. They are lavishly illustrated by original photographs, most of which were contributed by French veterans. "Icare" is still publishing several issues a year on all possible aviation subjects. Easy to find on the Internet. Back issues are easy to find on the Internet and cheap. The most important and useful issues are N° 53 "1939-40 / La drôle de guerre" (Phoney War) with general information too, and N° 54 "1939-40 / La bataille de France - Volume I : La Chasse" (The fighters). One of the mentioned flaws is the permanent use of the wrong phrase "La bataille (The Battle) de France" instead of "La Campagne de France" for "La Campagne" covers all hostilities from May 10 through June 24, 1940, whereas "La bataille" covers the 2nd part of the Campaign: 5-24 June. One or several issues were devoted to the Belgian and Dutch air forces, the French naval aviation, the French light bombers (Breguet 693-695), the French recce units, the bombers. There is a special issue on Czech fighter pilots with the Armée de l'Air and anoher one on Polish pilots. Both categories were excellent fighter pilots and fought very bravely, often with great success. If interested in the 1940 aerial French Campaign you can't live without the complete collection of these "Icare" issues. I understand 25,000 copies of each were printed. Some back issues can be ordered at "Icare's" Internet page, when out of print on various Internet sites.
It is perfectly possible that other excellent historians of the 1940 Armée de l'Air exist today. I admit that I don't know everything, in particular on various authors (sorry).
Here is an example of the innumerable, terrible statements made, both in France and in other countries, on this subject. I mentioned it already in one of my preceding posts but I feel it's worth repeating because the author is well-known and because of its stupidity:
Stephen Bungay (HE is the culprit) wrote in his well-known book "The Most Dangerous Enemy" (at the beginning of some chapter, probably the chapter dealing with the conditions at or before the beginning of the Battle of Britain; sorry, my copy of this book is still in a box too):
"Of course (or: "Obviously") the French aircraft designs were not of the same quality but…" (but French aircraft did inflict some losses on the Luftwaffe). "Not of the same quality" as in the UK and Germany. I already remarked that both the UK and Germany had only one excellent aircraft design each (1940) - Spitfire and Messerschmitt 109 - and that France had at least half a dozen in service. Bungay's wrong statement is very typical of all the nonsense we had to hear and read for nearly 80 years. Such people just gossip and make wind with their mouth without knowing anything, they just imagine it was like that (because France suffered an incredible defeat 1940 - but NOT in the air). Many French guys, probably wanting to look like smart experts, spread the following and are still doing so today: "The Dewoitine 520 was equal to the Spitfire and Me 109 but only 30 of these fighters took part in the Campaign." As I explained in other posts too this is nonsense: 34 D.520s took part in the fighting from May 14 on (GC I/3), 68 from May 15 on (GC I/3 and II/3), about 102 on June 1 (add GC II/7) and so forth (units, like for example GC III/6, newly reequipped with D.520s, came back to the front all the time - totalling 5 Groupes de chasse, each with 34-36 D.520s, totalling a complement of 170 D.520s in first-line units. Losses were compensated for without any difficulty (production exceeded 400, "one an hour", as "Flying" put it about 1959). Add 20 D.520s delivered to the French naval aviation (they must have had plenty of them at the Toulouse factory) and about 40 to units inside France so the grand total was not 30 but about 230.
"Usual disclaimer"