The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force: French Air Operations and Strategy, 1900-1940

Baughen, Greg

ISBN 10: 178155644X / ISBN 13: 9781781556443

Published by Fonthill, London, UK, 2018

About this Item

First edition, first impression. 288pp, plus a central section of black and white plate illustrations, a couple of maps in text. Black cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering to spine. 8vo. Cloth very gently rounded at corners and spine ends. There are three small, mild marks on the front endpapers else volume is neat, clean, bright and tight. In its original worn and blown dust wrapper, a little bumped at edges and a couple of short, flat creases on the rear inner flap.

Seller Inventory # 043577

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force: French Air Operations and Strategy, 1900-1940
• Publisher: Fonthill, London, UK
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 178155644X
• ISBN 13: 9781781556443
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition.
• Printing: 1st Impression
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • War, Military History and Weapons

About this title

Synopsis

On 10 May 1940, the French possessed one of the largest air forces in the world. On paper, it was nearly as strong as the RAF. Six weeks later, France had been defeated. For a struggling French Army desperately looking for air support, the skies seemed empty of friendly planes. In the decades that followed, the debate raged. Were there unused stockpiles of planes? Were French aircraft really so inferior? Baughen examines the myths that surround the French defeat. He explains how at the end of the First World War, the French had possessed the most effective air force in the world, only for the lessons learned to be forgotten. Instead, air policy was guided by radical theories that predicted air power alone would decide future wars. Baughen traces some of the problems back to the very earliest days of French aviation. He describes the mistakes and bad luck that dogged the French efforts to modernise their air force in the twenties and thirties. He examines how decisions made just months before the German attack further weakened the air force. Yet defeat was not inevitable. If better use had been made of the planes that were available, the result might have been different.

About the Author

Greg Baughen was educated at Sussex University where he obtained a degree in Mathematics. In a varied teaching career, he has taught Maths and English as a Foreign Language, to children and adults, in Britain and abroad. His interest in military aviation was sparked at a very early age by curiosity over the defeat of British and French air forces in the Battle of France in 1940. For forty years, he has delved though public archives in Britain and France seeking explanations. The quest has taken him back to the origins of air power in both countries and forwards to what might have been in the Cold War. In between marking homework and bringing up a family, he set to work writing a definitive history of air power in both countries. Retirement has provided the time to turn these drafts into polished books. “The Rise and Fall of the French Air Force – 1900-1940” has been published as have the first four volumes in the history of British air power. The fifth volume “RAF at the Crossroads” is in preparation. The huge volume of new information uncovered over the years has also provided the basis for a series of spin-offs. The first of these is a reappraisal of the career of the Fairey Battle. Greg Baughen's career has now turned full circle as he makes use of the teaching skills acquired over the years to turn some of the themes developed in these books into an increasingly sought after series of talks and lectures