72008 FRENCH PILOT (WW II) NO. 2 (2 FIGURES)

At the end of World War I, the French Air Force (now Fr. L'Armee de l'air) were one of the most powerful in Europe and had many very modern machines in stock. However, in the 1920s and at the beginning of the 1930s, as a result of the Great Depression of 1929, this state of affairs changed negatively. The peculiar sanitation of the French air force began in the mid-1930s, when many new constructions began to be developed and introduced into the line, such as Dewoitine D.520, Potez 630 or Liore et Olivier LeO 451. German from the same time and could undoubtedly engage in an equal fight with them. Moreover, in the period 1939-1940, France also made large orders for aircraft in the USA, which led to the fact that during the 1940 campaign, the French air force had, for example, Curtiss Hawk 75 aircraft. On May 10, 1940, L'Armee de l'air had a total of approximately 5,030 aircraft, and approximately 3,550 aircraft were fully operational. Also, the training of French pilots was not bad at all. This is perfectly evidenced by the data quoted by Karl-Heinz Friesser in his book "The Legend of the Blitzkrieg", which states that during the 1940 campaign, the French lost only 306 aircraft in the air, while knocking down as many as 733 German machines.