French reports for Allied air crashes in North Africa.

[Martin Gleeson]

Hallo all,

Could any of our French specialists please tell me if the French Authorities during WW2, especially in North Africa 1942, made out reports on Allied aircraft and crews that crashed or force-landed on their territory ? Military, Police or Civil.
Do they exist today and if so where ?

Thanks in advance.

Martin Gleeson.

[Stephane Muret]

Hi,

You could find for France some informations in french police (Gendarmerie) archives. They most of the time wrote reports about allied crashes but it's difficult to find them. You need to go to local archive and sometimes, they don't want to communicate them ! France have a strange spirit towards archives ! For North Africa, it could be the same thing but where are the archives now ? Perhaps in France (Archives Nationales ?)

Good luck !
Stéphane

[Laurent Rizzotti]

If such files exist in SHAA (Armée de l'Air archives), I have not found them yet. French crashes are listed, and described with more or less details. But there is no list of foregin aircraft losses in what I have seen.

Maybe you can have some luck with the reports of airfields where the Allied unit was based but I have not consulted them yet, as my own subject of interest was the French losses and there are described in specific archives boxes.

The main source in France for aircrashes reports are Gendarmerie reports, that are kept on a regional basis. I have no idea where the reports for North Africa may be kept....if they are.

As Mr Muret says, French archives are usually not user-friendly.

[Martin Gleeson]

Hallo Stephane and Laurent,


Thanks for your help. I has suspected this result, believing if such reports existed that mention would have been made of them prior to this. I do not think I will trouble the Algerian Police with any request for information !

Thanks again,

Martin Gleeson.

[Rémi Baudru]

The files of the french Air Force give a lots of informations on german, italian and british planes crash landed, shot down or landed in North Africa during the july 1940 / october 1942.
I have a complete listing of these events. Can you tell me what are looking for ?

[Martin Gleeson]

Hallo Remi,


Thank you very much. I am especially interested in Spitfire BP958 of 603 Squadron RAF, flown by Sgt. S. Walcott. It crash-landed near Setif in Algeria on 20 April 1942. Information such as reason for landing, pilot details, damage to aircraft, a more exact landing location, etc. would be very helpful.

Regards,

Martin Gleeson.