Fighter pilots' guts

Originally Posted by Smudger Smith

France had a simple decision to make, continue the fight or give in and surrender, they chose to surrender. A brave few decided not to, they are a credit to France, and I salute their memory.

I agree entirely with them and with you Smudger but let us remember that taking part in a great war, or not, very rarely is a personal, individual decision (there are only a few individual volunteers). Government takes these decisions. After Pétain's very unfortunate words almost every person in France was FIRMLY CONVINCED of what he had just said : we must cease fighting ("Je vous dis - I am telling you - qu'il faut cesser le combat"). If admiral Nelson during his lifetime, or Churchill, had said the same thing, how many Britons would note have followed him and refused to cease fire?
I repeat : Pétain was "THE" French hero, the man of Verdun, "THE" enemy of Germany, almost a holy man! He was just what de Gaulle was from 1944 on. Or what Churchill was to Britons 1940-45.

Hindsight :
(To non-English native speakers, in particular French readers, I'd like to explain that "hindsight" means "afterwards", looking backwards etc. : it's very easy to be wise and clever with the benefit of hindsight, 20 to 3,000 years later. When you know everything about a problem (people didn't know at the time) you can solve this problem much better and look very clever!).
Yes hindsight is very useful and helps a lot.
I didn't claim I hadn't the benefit of hindsight. I have. Clearly many things I / we know today were not known 1940. This does not make my reasoning wrong, on the contrary.
In any case I repeat for the millionth time : wholesale insulting a whole nation (in a nutshell : "No Frenchman was keen nor gallant 1940") cannot be accepted, that's all I wanted to say at the start. What's more, it's an extremely stupid statement and very easy to prove the opposite including using British statements only (Churchill's etc.), for ex. about the French rearguard at Dunkerque.
The fact remains that - in half the time - French fighter pilots, including their brave and much-valued Czech and Polish comrades, destroyed as many German aircraft as the RAF did in the BoB. In half the time! So they did their share of the job, the RAF finished the job and did the 2nd, remaining half. It had become easier for all the well-known reasons (radar, own soil etc.) but also because the French (including AA in many cases) had destroyed a large part of the German aircraft (German production was very insufficient at the time) AND of the German aircrew, almost exclusively perfectly-trained, combat-hardened men including many a German fighter ace who didn't survive. These AC and these aircrew would have done a lot of harm in the English sky and possibly would have tipped the balance. Townsend ought to have been very grateful to the French instead of spitting at their graves!
Last but not least : the French should not have surrendered? What about the Dutch, who surrendered already on 15 May, a bit hastily I think (I am aware of the Rotterdam fire), what about Belgium, which surrendered on 28 May, leaving the French army "in the air", in a very awkward (and deadly) position, what about the British, who started their evacuation planning very early indeed, namely on 20 May (!) and possibly in September 1939, and let down their ally exactly in the middle of the fighting, what about the USA, which didn't even take part in this war although they knew perfectly well that eventually they would have to but waited until they were forced to do it by Japanese aggression at Pearl Harbor, the US forces being terribly ill-prepared even in December 1941 (France was at war, and experienced some fighting, more than two years earlier!).