New book 'Fury', by Arnaud Gillet

[arnaud]

Chers lecteurs,

L’article de Monsieur Souffan est basé sur une liste de pertes de Henschel 126 qui, écrit-il, se trouve à la WASt à Berlin.

Au tout début de nos recherches, nous avons réussi à avoir l’autorisation de copie de tous les documents de la WASt concernant les pertes de la Luftwaffe pour mai et juin 1940.

Or aucune des pertes des Henschel 126 citées par M Souffan ne figure dans les copies de la WASt en notre possession à une exception près.

J’ai écrit à la WASt. Si les pertes de Henschel 126 avancées par M. Souffan sont des mensonges, l’attaque de ce personnage est inqualifiable.


Arnaud Gillet



TRANLATION :

Dear Readers,

This article is based on a losses list of Henschel 126s which, as M. Souffan write, is stored in WASt Berlin.

At the beginning of my researches, I had a special authorization to have all copies of Luftwaffe losses for may and june 1940.

But not one Henschel 126 is mentioned in my copies I received from WASt except one.

I have written to the WASt archive to confirm it. If those Henschel 126 losses described by M. Souffan are lies, this attack is shameful.

Yours sincerely

Arnaud Gillet

[Peter Cornwell]

Both sides of this debate having now presented their respective arguments, I am pleased that we are finally able to consider each case with better objectivity.

One the one hand, Arnaud Gillet gives us ‘Furie’, a characteristically robust defence of his original proposition that GC III/7 shot down three RAF Fairey Battles and a French LeO 451 rather than the four Hs126 as claimed on 14 May 1940. However, I feel that he throws more heat than light on the subject while offering little by way of additional evidence to support his (inevitably) controversial viewpoint.

Many Souffan on the other hand, in his recent Avions #177 article, presents a cogent, well-considered, and coherent version of events that I find entirely plausible. Also, the supporting evidence he provides is compelling. So I am entirely satisfied that I was wrong to accept Arnaud Gillet’s account (albeit with reservation) when compiling The Battle of France Then & Now and am more than happy to concede the fact. In my opinion, Many Souffan is to be congratulated on finally setting the record straight on this issue.

However, I must dispute his assertion that all losses to Hs126 units attached to Panzer Divisions were reported through Army rather than Luftwaffe channels. This is an over-simplification which in no way satisfactorily explains how the four Hs126 losses on 14 May 1940 (apparently) do not figure in the Luftwaffe QM General’s Returns of the period. It is also demonstrably incorrect for every one of the Heeraufklärungs units that he cites as experiencing losses on 14 May 1940 routinely reported other losses in the Luftwaffe QM General’s Returns (under a Gen.d.Lw.b.d.H. heading) between 12 and 19 May 1940. So I remain at a loss to understand why certain losses seemingly went unreported other than to speculate that those aircraft losses not involving personnel casualties were simply not notified by the Heer units concerned ?