Fighter victories 1940 – A few French figures

[rof120]

The figures for French fighter victories above include those victories won during the "Phoney War" (before May 10).

Accordingly I should have given the German losses from September 3 on, not from May 10 on - sorry for this error: 1,814 aircraft not 1,460 (according to Peter Cornwell in his book TBOFTN), which is 354 more. In September '39 over Poland the Luftwaffe lost no less than about 250 AC to Polish aircraft, AA and accidents. This leaves about 104 losses in the West but the Luftwaffe suffered some losses in Denmark and mainly Norway during the invasion of these neutral countries, mainly to British fighters and all Allied AA, some of them to Norwegian fighters (with provisional reservations) and also to SWEDISH AAA. Sweden was neutral too and not invaded by Germany but when German aircraft strayed over the Swedish-Norwegian border into Swedish air space Swedish AAA opened fire, often with success, with their excellent Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns (the famous Bofors 40 mm gun is a Swedish gun made by the firm Bofors in the city of Bofors, on the North shore of the immense lake Vänern (Swedish name; Vaener if you prefer. Swedish people say "Booforrrsh", rolling their European r's, but this is certainly too much for Americans!).

During the Norwegian Campaign the Luftwaffe lost a few dozen aircraft of all kinds (including naval aircraft) but I have no reliable figure for these losses. Thirty (30) could be close to the real figure, leaving approximately 74 along the Gerrman-French (and Belgian) border. French fighters alone claimed 71 and British fighters claimed a few dozen too so there was an amount of Allied overclaiming during the "Phoney War". I'll try to find more accurate information.

Taking the German losses during the "Phoney War" into account (French victory claims too, which I did from the start) lowers the overclaim rate of French fighters, if any, somewhat. Please consider what I wrote on this rate provisional only for I have to look at some important data again.