RAF and FAF Victories over France 1939-1940

[bpiotrAgain]

Interesting title of the movie.

I dont hear Nothing about French/English Air combat against Luftwaffe

in period 1939 -1940 BEFORE German invasion on France in May 1940,

without of course "War on Confetti/Leaflets".

[martynrobin121]

@bpiotrAgain What about the Battle of Britain 1940, The biggest Air-Battle in history? Also turning point of the WW2.

[VVojtekSoldierBear]

A single Polish squadron put down 53 luftwaffe planes, which makes about 8% of all allied victoryies.

[VVojtekSoldierBear]

8% of these victoryies belongs to Polish Air Forces...

[jrobertsoneff]

What proporganda RAF had to retreat from france  after losing too many planes

[SunKing968]

The French Air Force did well during the battle and had a very respectable kill-to-loss ratio. They were unfortunately outnumbered (unlike the ground forces, which were NOT outnumbered but had terrible strategies)

[MadMac2236]

The French army in 1940 was actually one of the better equipped armies in Europe, you had tanks that were better than the Germans, good weapons and good men! Your leaders however, were bloody idiots, not seeing the German attack for what it was, and treated it like a WW1 action. Your generals limited the flexibility of your army, allowing them to be out-maneuvered by the Germans, and annihilated! The British leaders were the same! We all learnt the truth the hard way!!!

[Clauteaux]

You are right. And its not sure England would have won the "Battle of England" it not the french air force sacrifice would have been made But this is not the "official history"

[delboy193773]

Anyone needing to read a report by a British pilot who fought throughout the 1940/41 action in France flying a Mk1 Hurricane should read 'Fighter Pilot' by Paul Ritchie.

You will read of how superior the Hurricane and our pilots were!

[FuelledByForties]

I read about him in 'Finest Hour'

I will definatley read his book x

You should read 'Finest Hour'

Its sooo good, makes you laugh and cry, the best account on the battle of Britain so far. xxx

[doncoro]

Too bad France wasn´t able to defend itself and surrendered so quickly. No testosterone, whatsoever.

[Fridomfry]

A book by Jean Gisclon, "Les mille victoires de la chasse française, mai-juin 1940", (Editions France-Empire, 1990, 283 p.) gives a day-by-day account of the FAF combats against the Luftwaffe, based mainly on the squadrons' logbooks. It has some journalistic flaws yet.

The author was one of these pilots with the Lafayette squadron (created during WW1).

[CaptBubble]

great rare film

[frenchking122]

british held back the drudge and took down over 1000 planes from ground. reported 210 men died

[Dedu22]

The BEST!!!!!

>Where does it come from ? Where is the original film ?

+1!

[artyparis]

too few, too late :/

And old tactics inheritated from WW1 for field operations.

British understood, and managed to adapt their army during Batlle of Britain

[mortensangel]

fabby

[vistighe]

Fabuleuse video ! Merci !

[borncoza]

FAF destroyed 900 german planes in 1940, and lost only 450 planes in the same time.

[whizbang47]

I've read this too. How did the Curtiss Hawk fare? I've never seen any data, but you notice lots of them went on to serve in the Vichy service.

[borncoza]

I don't know much about Curtiss Hawk,

but it might be easy to find records...

[MightyFrenchWarbeast]

Will to be prises half the French airforce joined the Vichy airforce but the outher half of the French airforce joined the Free French airforce the FFAF.

[Fridomfry]

whizbang47 , Some 200 Curtiss H.75A were in service in the French Air Force in 1940. They were considered very handy, "agreables à piloter". Yet, as they had no cannon, only light machine-guns, they were unefficient against bombers. Also, above 4000 m they (and their weapons) were less reliable. There are cases of pilots in combat, desperate with out-of order machine-guns, who deliberately rammed their Curtiss against German airplanes.

[nemesixsixsix]

it was however more maneuvrable than a spitfire but lacked in speed negating the ability to enter and exit dogfights with the replacement of the guns to.50 caliber and a 1200hp curtiss-wright radial the hawk wouldve been a sure winner.

[Fridomfry]

Let me dream! " would've been a sure winner" is one of the saddest phrases in human languages. The past is past...

Anyway, at that time there were practically no Spitfires in the battle: The main RAF fighter was the Hurricane (and still in the battle of Britain in the summer of 1940), as the French main fighter was the MS 406.

[ARNO238845]

Where does it come from ? Where is the original film ?

[utkonos313]

Looks like some is Movietone newsreel.