DESPERATE FIGHT! French fighters of WW II

HISTORY HAS A WAY OF REWRITING ITSELF.

- BY BARRETT TILLMAN

DPS Hawk 75-Stephen Grey of the The Fighter Collection flies its Curtiss Hawk 75 atop the clouds near the Imperial War Museum site at Duxford, in Cambridgeshire, England. TFC's Hawk was shipped to the French Air Force in April 1939 and issued to GC 11/5 at Reims, thereafter based at Toul during the Battle of France. (Photo by John Dibbs/Facebook.​com/theplanepicturecompany)

If there is any lingering doubt, look no further than the record of the French Air Force in World War II. In the wake of a shattering defeat at the hands of Germany's Luftwaffe in 1940, the conventional wisdom arose more from apologists than from professional airmen. Among the explanations for the Armee de l'Air's performance were contentions that the French were outnumbered, ill equipped and/or poorly led. In fact, though there were deficiencies, in some areas the French air arm was as capable as Britain's or Germany's. Yet the Blitzkrieg launched in May 1940 needed only six weeks to conquer France and Belgium and eject their British allies from the continent. It had not always been so. France led the world in aviation well before the Great War, and of 22 world speed records between 1920 and 1939, French pilots held 11, more than the combined total of America, Germany and Italy. But the technical lead was permitted to erode. How did that happen?

The answer is complex, having more to do with government policy and service organization than anything else.

First, the Armee de l'Air only became an independent service in 1934. Previously, the air force had been part of the army, as was America's until after World War II. Therefore, French airmen often lacked the institutional ability to forge their own weapons and doctrine, in contrast to the Luftwaffe and the RAF.