Baughen Greg. The Rise and Fall of French Air Force: French Air Operations and Strategy, 1900-1940

Fonthill Media, 2018. — 255 p.On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF. Six weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged. Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really so inferior? Baughen examines the myths that surround the French defeat. He explains how at the end of the First World War, the French had possessed the most effective air force in the world, only for the lessons learned to be forgotten. Instead, air policy was guided by radical theories that predicted air power alone would decide future wars. Baughen traces some of the problems back to the very earliest days of French aviation. He describes the mistakes and bad luck that dogged the French efforts to modernize their air force in the twenties and thirties. He examines how decisions made just months before the German attack further weakened the air force. Yet defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made of the planes that were available, the result might have been different. This is where it all started for me. Growing up in post-war Britain, there was no shortage of t.v. documentaries on the RAF's glorious victory in the Battle of Britain. Spitfires and Hurricanes hung from my bedroom ceiling. Then one day I saw a construction kit for a Dewoitine D.520. So the French had an air force as well! For a ten-year old this was an amazing discovery. Indeed, not only did they have an air force, they had a very large air force. So what happened to the French Air Force? So it began. First it was books on French aircraft.