In a confusion not unlike that of infantrymen running from nonexistent tanks, many French historians rationalized their terrible defeat with stories about German tank armies faced by nothing better than riflemen and swarms of Stukas without opponents. One by one, these long-standing myths have collapsed under scrutiny. Just as France had tanks as good, and as numerous, as those of the invading forces, so was the French air force at least numerically equal to the Luftwaffe.
General Kesselring said that the two Air Fleets of the German invasion force in France had a total of 2,670 aircraft. Of these about 1,000 were fighters, including the twin-engined Messerschmitt Bf 110 fighters.
The French air force, according to Guy La Chambre, the French Air Minister from 1938 to 1940, had 3,289 modem aircraft available. Of these 2,122 were fighters. He went on to explain that only a third of these planes were at the front; the others were in the interior of France. It is a strange remark, especially for an Air Minister. France measures only 620 miles from Brest to Menton, and even the most antiquated French bomber—the Bloch MB 200—could cross the country in four hours.
“Our air force ran into an enemy that outnumbered it by five to one,” wrote General Joseph Vuillemin, Chief of the Air Force. That is untrue and made the more absurd by the fact that, during the fighting, more and more new aircraft were sent to the French units. Between 10 May and 12 June 1,131 new aircraft were received, of which 668 were fighters. Vuillemin admitted that more aircraft were delivered during this period than were lost by enemy action. Thus French air power actually increased during the battle.
None of the foregoing takes into account the RAF contribution, from units based in France and from those that fought there from bases in the British Isles. Indeed, the RAF’s combat losses exceeded those of the French air force.
So where were the aircraft? French commanders have given evidence of the lack of air support. Infantrymen under bombardment by the slow, unarmored, and ill-armed Stukas wondered why the French
T Winston Churchill, The Second World War, vol. II.
Fighter arm did not knock them from the sky. General d’Astier de la Vigerie, air commander of 1 st French Army Group, said he had only 432 fighters, and 72 of those were RAF planes. General Gamelin himself asked, “Why, out of 2,000 modem fighters on hand at the beginning of May 1940, were fewer than 500 used on the northeast front?” Perhaps the answer to that question is contained in the fact that the Commander in Chief was asking it. “We have a right to be astonished,” added Gamelin. We have that right perhaps, but did Gamelin have it?
So what really happened to all those missing aircraft? The German attacks upon the French airfields—the very first step of any blitzkrieg —had unexpected results. Undamaged aircraft were hastily flown out of the immediate danger zone and parked at training fields, civil airports, and rear-echelon strips. No proper records were made of what was happening. Deliveries from the factories were diverted from frontline units and also parked in safe places.
While the front-line soldiers watched the German bombers wheel lazily through undefended skies, eyewitnesses counted 200 aircraft parked on Tours airfield, 150 of them fighters. After the armistice, in the unoccupied zone of France there were 4,200 French aircraft, of which 1,700 were suitable for front-line use. The Italian Control Commission, which reported on North Africa in 1940, found 2,648 modern French aircraft there. Over 700 of these were fighters, many brand-new.
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