Fighter pilots' guts

[Ruy Horta]

Perhaps part of the problem is how people perceive the western campaign of 1940. It appears that most believe that the western campaign was almost finished after the evacuation of Dunkirk, while this would only mark the beginning of the Battle of France. This is of course based upon the British point of view.

12 Days in May...

The BEF and offensive edge of the Anglo-French forces might have effectively been knocked out, but the Germans still had an undefeated French army opposing them. It isn't surprising that they were not keen to throw their panzers into the Dunkirk cauldron. Unfortunately geography didn't favor the French after the May disaster.

However the loyalty of french pilots would have been with France, with the hardest days yet to come, and rightly so, wouldn't you say? Those who stayed after Dunkirk choose to fight on, those who evacuated were (temporarely) OUT of the fight.

I may be arguing with Yves over some minor points, but that does not include the bravery of french forces (not only the fighter pilots btw). I don't even think that we should blame the officer corps. A lot went wrong, many new lessons were to be learned (or mistakes to be repeated).

This sounds much better.
Yes to virtually all British, German and other authors the French Campaign ended on 3 June 1940 with the end of the Dunkerque evacuation. Most of their books don't even mention the Battle of France (5-24 June), they jump directly from Dk. to the BoB, clearly showing that the French are wholly unimportant and uninteresting, only the British part being interesting.
I don't think that ANY French pilot went to England before June 17. Certainly some aircraft landed there for various reasons but they were not joining the RAF (not yet). I have explained why not already. During the Dk. operation (Dynamo) one French unit was sent to England (GC II/8 equipped with about 20-25 Bloch 152s and having 25-30 pilots) and based at Lympne from 30 May to 5 June (for 5-6 days). This was ordered by French HQ and certainly government. I believe the reason was not so much the Dk. evacuation but the fact that they could better intervene over N. France from Lympne. (No warranty). GC II/8 shot down 1 Ju 88 on 1 June, nothing else (much ado...), and had no losses.