From Dewoitine to Potez

Planes and pilots.
FRENCH AIRCRAFT 1939-1942
Fighters, Bombers, Reconnaissance and Observation Types
Volume 2 : from Dewoitine to Potez

This is the eighth volume in our series Planes and Pilots, and the second volume of 'French Aircraft 1939-1945'. Presented in alphabetical order, it evokes some of the most famous machines of the period, famous either because they were produced in large numbers and so there were many of them (like the MS 406, or the Potez 63 and its derivatives - more than one thousand examples of each of these machines coming off the production lines), or because they were the best that the Armée de l'Air had at the time (like the LeO 451 or the almost legendary Dewoitine D.520) even though they often arrived too late to have any great effect on the outcome of the fighting. The following pages again show the great variety of the materiel used ; it often had good performances, but it was all too often out of date - this was the major failing which the crews had increasingly to make up for every day with their experience and their courage, seeing as the military situation was getting worse and worse and material conditions were deteriorating daily.