- 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!).