Desertion of Two French Pilots.

[kaki3152]

In MAW3,there is a mention of two French pilots who "defected" back to France: "How the French pilots would perform was viewed with some concern as two of their number had deserted en route to the front, and had flown their new aircraft to German occupied France." They were flying P-40Fs. This happened around January 9,1943.

Does anyone have more information? Name of pilots? Subsequent fate?

[Kaiyan]

Hi, don't know if this helps -- this was talked about some years ago on the old LEMB and attached is a txt file covering that post. The pic is claimed to show one of the P-40's but I am not certain and never followed it up info has been sitting on my hard drive ever since.

[Laurent Rizzotti]

Another pic supposed to be one of these aircraft is there:
https://www.39-45.org/viewtopic.php?...3539&start=390

If you read French, this case is apparently discussed in several pages (230-236) from the book "Chasseurs au groupe "La Fayette"", de Jean Gisclon. I don't have it, but according to extracts available on Google books, Lavie and Quéguiner talked of their intention to return to France to at least one pilot. To be confirmed, but it seems that Lavie was a witness from the British attacks on Mers-el-Kebis in July 1940. Also several of their friends had been killed during Torch.

Edited: some more info on Sergent-chef Roger Quéguiner: he served with GC II/5 in 1939-1940, being the first victory of Werner Mölders during WWII on 20 September 1939 (baling out with wounds) and claiming a Bf 109 shot down on 6 June 1940. His aircraft was hit in the air battle of 8 November 1942 at Casablanca, but he was unhurt.

[kaki3152]

Thanks Laurent for that piece of information. One of those small footnotes in history,