Greg Baughen

Having already read several books by the author, I already had a good sense of what his argument was going to be; that the fixation of the RAF high command on strategic bombing as the only relevant mission to justify its existence as a service stunted the development of "operational" air war, as part of a combined arms team with land forces, and such is the case. The real interest here comes from how the Battle could ever have been considered a "strategic" bomber, and why the RAF could have continued with this delusion for so long. This is followed by a close examination of just how the units equipped with the plane were actually used in France in the Spring of 1940. Finally, Baughen muses on how the Battle could have been the perfectly acceptable close-support machine Britain needed at the time, with the proper equipment load-out and proper fighter escort.… (meer)

This was my first read from this author, and I must say I am impressed by the quality of this work. Touching on areas of the Franco-German conflict of 1939-40 covered by Robert Forczyk in "Case Red", Greg Baughen focuses on the air battles between the French Armee de l'Air and the German Luftwaffe in the early months of World War II. This story has not been covered well (at least in English text), as previous authors have wrapped the French defeat in 1940 in a variegated quilt of causes. This book looks specifically into the air forces and their relative effectivenesses.

The author presents his case in the 15 numbered chapters that follow the Acknowledgement and Introduction pages. The 320 pages are arranged chronologically, but Baughen spends more than half the book setting the stage for the French defeat in the air in 1940. That defeat, ironically, is grounded in the victory of Allied air arms over the Central Powers in November 1918. French air and ground leaders were convinced of their understanding of their defeat of the Germans, and their distillation of the lessons learned lead to some serious mistakes. One that affected the air arm in particular was a fixation on what was termed the "multiplace de combat" aircraft, a large twin-engined multi-role aircraft that could perform light bombing, reconnaissance, and long range bomber escort missions. The French air force and aircraft industry wasted the decade of the 1920's trying to build such an aircraft only to find that this combination of capabilities was simply beyond the state of the art.

The decade of the 1930's saw French military leaders wage the same conflict fought in several other military services around the world--should they invest in bombers on in air defense measures to include fighter/interceptor aircraft? As the 1930's were a particularly volatile period in French politics, the answer to the question depended upon who was in charge at the time. Some leaders believed in the bomber and the deterrent effect it supposedly had, while others believed in fighter aircraft and other anti-bomber measures. This recurring debate handicapped French combat aircraft development that lead to few or no large production efforts and a scattered research and development programs. Meanwhile, a reunified Germany rearmed.

As a result of this programming confusion, the Armee de l'Air did not have the aircraft it truly needed for the war that began on 1 September 1939, the period Baughen covers in Chapter 10. This problem was not apparent in the first months of the war, the period known as "The Phony War", as skirmishes between French and German aircraft revealed no serious shortcomings either in French aircraft design or in Armee de l'Air organization and deployment. However the German offensive that began on 10 May 1940 quickly revealed critical problems in aircraft, command and control, logistics, and tactics. The French quickly lost control of their own airspace, and the Luftwaffe permitted the German ground forces to roam wherever they desired during the ground campaign. So in little more than six weeks, the Germans had overrun an opponent who though the next Franco-German war would extend for years.

This book has been a great learning experience for me as I am one of those military history types who viewed the French defeat in 1940 as a large speed bump on the road to Allied victory over Nazi Germany. Baughen's handling of this lesser-known aspect of World War II was easy to read as well as enlightening.

Highly recommended!… (meer)

What I liked best about the author's examination of the French air effort in 1940 remains true here, as Baughen has a real talent for linking doctrine and strategy with procurement and deployment; particular note is made of the ill-use of American lend-lease aircraft because they didn't fit in with the RAF obsession with strategic bombers and point-defense interceptors. As for what gives me pause, while I agree with Baughen that the cult of independent airpower is at odds with what really works, operational coherence, I'm not sure from what I read about his grasp of overall British strategy. Maybe this is just because I haven't read his earlier works, but there is a little more scent of 20/20 hindsight in this book, though I intend to look at more of Baughen's work.… (meer)