By Peter D. Cornwell
In these pages, Peter Cornwell tells the story of
the greatest air battle of the Second World War when six nations were locked in
combat over north-western Europe for a traumatic six weeks in 1940.
We
begin our account in September 1939 when the newly-formed British Air Forces in
France sent the first squadrons to the Continent. This Phoney War period is told
through the eyes of Flying Officer Edward Hall, Adjutant of No. 73 Squadron, who
claimed his as the first squadron to be sent to France and the last to leave.
His unofficial war diary transports us back over 60 years to the immediacy of
the period before Hitler launched his Blitzkrieg in May 1940. As far as RAF
fighter squadrons in France were concerned, it was an all-Hurricane show, yet it
was the Blenheim and Battle crews who suffered the brunt of the casualties.
Every aircraft lost or damaged through enemy action while operating in France is
listed together with the fate of the crews. Fighting a rearguard action almost
from Day One, retreating from airfield to airfield as the panzers roared
westwards, the story of the British Air Forces in France has never been told in
this way before as it has largely been overshadowed by the Battle of Britain
which followed, yet the Battle of France was even more costly in lives lost.
Peter
Cornwell now redresses the balance as he describes the day-to-day events as the
battle unfolds, and details the losses suffered by all six nations involved:
Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and, rather belatedly, Italy. The
Royal Air Force lost more than a thousand aircraft of all types over the Western
Front during the six-week battle, but Luftwaffe losses were even higher at over
1,800 aircraft. Having the disadvantage of fighting over foreign soil, the RAF
had many men made prisoner when baling out or crashing behind enemy lines.
All
told, between September 3, 1939 and June 24, 1940, the RAF lost 1,127 airmen, of
whom 415 paid the supreme sacrifice. Their names, and the cemeteries where they
lie or the memorials where they are commemorated, are listed so their memory be
not forgotten.
They were - as Flying Officer Hall describes them - 'the
First of the Few'.
Size 8½" x 12" 592
Pages Over 900 Illustrations ISBN 978-1-870067-65-2 Price £44.95.
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