The Allies still concentrated their attention, and their air forces, upon the northern sectors. The Maastricht bridges and the road to Tongres were where Hoepner’s XVI Panzerkorps looked as though it was making a desperate attempt to capture Brussels and might succeed. On Whitsunday morning the French called for an RAF raid on that stretch of road. Nine Blenheims attacked; seven were shot down by German fighters.
The French air force’s Groupe 1/54 also attacked that day. It was their first action in the battle. Since the German breakthrough they had moved from airfield to airfield. Suddenly they were found to be short of bomb-release equipment. Only by collecting supplies from the manufacturers were they able to mount the attack by noon. Eighteen Breguet bombers went in very low, but the German columns’ light flak shot down eight of them. That evening a formation of French Liore et Olivier LeO 45 bombers again attacked the columns but kept to about 2,500 feet and so avoided most of the 20 mm and small-arms fire. All the bombers were damaged, but they all returned to base.
Lessons were being learned but were not being learned fast enough. Right from the beginning of the battle, the value of low-level attacks was as obvious to the Allied air forces as it was to the Luftwaffe. Then why had the French so neglected the 20 mm and 40 mm antiaircraft gun, particularly when the useful Swedish Bofors was
The longest setting of a time fuse — a lucky shot can hit target
At which gun gets several shots at target that is well within gun's capabilities
The Anti-Aircraft Gun
The Difference Between Range and Effective Range
Available to all comers? Both the Germans and the British already had it. Why did the air forces continue to send bombers into raids without providing them with close fighter escort? And why was the element of time still being squandered by Allied commanders?
Realizing now what sort of defense the Germans were likely to have on the Albert Canal bridges near Maastricht, the RAF commander requested No. 12 Squadron to send six volunteer crews to attack the Vroenhoven and Veldwezelt bridges. Since all the crews of “the dirty dozen” squadron volunteered, they continued to go by the duty roster. Although Hurricanes flew “protective patrols” there was no attempt to provide close escort for the Fairey Battles. One plane going in almost at ground level, with its bombs on eleven seconds’ delay, managed to knock a section out of the metal bridge at Veldwezelt.
An RAF survivor from the burning wreckage of one Battle was told by a German, “You British are mad. We capture the bridge early
Friday morning. You give us all Friday and Saturday to get our flak guns up in circles all round the bridge, and then on Sunday, when all is ready, you come along with three aircraft and try and blow the thing up.”
None of the six Fairey Battles survived.
By the end of Whitsunday, 12 May—after only three days—the RAF’s Advanced Air Striking Force had lost 63 of its original 135 aircraft. On Friday it had lost 40 per cent of the sorties it flew. On Saturday 100 per cent. On Sunday 62 per cent. These figures take no account of damage suffered by almost every returning aircraft. On 13 May the Blenheims did not fly and the Fairey Battles flew only once.
There was at least one indication of what the Allied air forces might have achieved if used with more skill. The French air force’s Cigognes (Storks) unit—which became famous in the First World War when its pilots included the ace Georges Guynemer—was flying Curtiss Hawk 75 fighters, which were not the best fighters the French had. They found twelve Junkers Ju 87 Stuka bombers returning from Sedan and shot down all of them without loss to themselves. They then found the second wave and shot down some more. The Ju 87s turned away before letting go their bombs.
World History
