Blitzed: The Battle of France, May-June 1940

[Jim Oxley]

I've come across this book on the Net, but haven't been able to find any write-ups on it. it's authored by Victor Bingham back in 1990. It's supposed to be he aerial defence of France against the German Blitzkrieg advance of 1940 using a day by day account covering alair forces.

Anyone have it? Would like to offer a precis? Cheers
Jim

[Marius]

Hi Jim,
the book contains RAF action only and it`s written rather "superficial". As I remember completely no action flown by French AF. And regarding Luftwaffe you will find the GQM losses at the appendixes, but it is a kind of summary without any comment. For example: 5th June 1940 2xBf 109E1 missing 100% and so on.

Regards,
Marius

[Jim Oxley]

Thanks for the comments Marius. I appreciate it.

What a bummer. I was hoping that I'd finally found a book (in English) that offered 'all' sides of the French air campaign.

Oh well.

[Griffon]

for starters, there still is the excellent "12 Days in May" from Grub Street

[Jim Oxley]

That book also concentrates mainly on RAF/Luftwaffe engagements. I'm after something the provides the same level of detail for the Armee d l'Air. So far only French books seem to do that.

English snobbery at play?

[robert_schulte]

I haven´t got this one, but what about "Air War over France 1939 - 1940" by Robert Jackson?
Regards
Robert

[Jim Oxley]

Same thing unfortunately. It too deals primarily with the RAF from 10 May to 31 May. It does include some info on Dutch and Belgian air units, but none on the French.

[Jim P.]

There is a 3-volume set entitled 'Les victoires de la chasse francaise' by Arnaud Gillet that covers the French fighters from 10.May through 24.June 1940. Volume 3 was published in 2005. I had never heard of these until recommened by Olivier Lefebvre. Now that I have them and have been working with them for a few weeks I would recommend them as well.

[Juha]

Jim 0xley, have You seen the Fighters over France and the Low Countries. Mushroom Model Magazine Special No 5104. Sandomierz 2002. In it there is an article by Bartlomiej Belcarz on L'Armée de l'Air (pp. 49 - 67 plus 6 pure photopages) The book seems to be good and the articles cover the fighter operations of all the combatants (Belgians, Dutch, French, RAF, Polish, Czechs and LW). And of course the Poles and the Czechs fought under overall French command. I think that book is well worth of its price. I paid for it 17€ in 2002 here in Helsinki. There is 152 pages, the last 27 pages are purely photo and colour profile pages and there are at least 150 other photos among the text on those 126 first pages .

Juha

[Jim Oxley]

Jim P, sadly I cannot read French so Gillet's series is lost to me.

Juha many thanks for that recommendation. I wasn't aware of that book. I'll chase up a copy. Cheers.