Flames over France

by Robert Jackson

  Now, effective from 6 June, Huntziger’s new Army Group — into which the last of the reserves had been poured — was given the task of holding the Aisne from Montmedy to Attichy. Three days later, it received the full weight of the German attack, which was carried out by the armoured groups of Generals Heinz Guderian and Ewald von Kleist, the latter having been switched eastwards.

  This time, the infantry were to go in first and secure bridgeheads across the Aisne before the armour was committed. The first assault fell between Neufchatel and Attigny. The French resisted furiously, and by the end of the day the Germans had succeeded in establishing only one small bridgehead. The Germans made determined attacks on the French 14th Division — commanded by a fine officer. General de Lattre de Tassigny — through the murk that was a mixture of mist and the effects of smoke shells, lying like a veil across the valley, but the French broke them all and took 800 prisoners into the bargain.

  French losses, however, had been severe, and it was plain that Army Group Four would not be able to stem the German breakthrough for much longer. That night, Guderian pushed armour into the solitary bridgehead, and the next morning elements of 1st Panzer Division probed through the French advance positions supported by heavy air strikes. Village after village went up in flames, and although the tanks made slow progress, the defenders were gradually compelled to withdraw. Then, in the early afternoon, the Panzers encountered units of the French 3rd Armoured Division, comprising ten large ‘B’ tanks and two battalions of Hotchkiss. German reconnaissance aircraft had warned of the approach of the French armour, and when the tanks reached Juneville, the German anti-tank gunners were ready for them. Six Hotchkiss were knocked out in as many minutes, and although the heavier armoured vehicles made some progress, the French counter-attack — which lacked both artillery and air support — soon petered out.

  The situation continued to deteriorate, and in the early hours of 11 June the French Second and Fourth Armies began to disengage, moving back through the forest of Belval towards the river Marne. The manoeuvre was carried out with extreme difficulty, for by this time two Panzer corps had crossed the Aisne and were pushing southwards at speed, trapping some French units and destroying them. It was clear now that French resistance on the Aisne was practically at an end; by nightfall on the 11th the German armour had reached Reims, and a few hours later Guderian’s tanks took Chalons-sur-Marne, establishing a bridgehead on the river.

  With Rouen captured in the west and the Marne crossed in the east, Paris was now threatened from west and north, with the leading German forces only fifty miles from the capital. Immediately north of Paris, bitter fighting raged in the forest of Compiegne, where the 11th ‘Iron’ Division sacrificed itself to buy time while the Seventh Army fell back to the Oise. In Paris itself the thunder of distant gunfire could be clearly heard, and the roads leading south were crowded with the inevitable tide of refugees — among it the French Government, which was departing for a safer location at Tours. On the 11th, aware that there was no hope of defending the capital, General Weygand declared Paris an open city.

  Meanwhile, the French fought to hold their last line of defence on the lower Seine. Weygand had committed all his available reserves to the battle, including two fresh divisions from North Africa. At the same time, the first contingent of a new British Expeditionary Force — the 52nd Lowland Division and part of the 1st Canadian — was landed at Cherbourg under the command of General Alan Brooke. A brigade of the Lowland Division was immediately sent up to bolster the French line at Evreux, but when Brook arrived at the French GHQ on 12 June, with no clear idea of the true situation, he was horrified to find that the French position was quite untenable. He at once contacted the War Office and gave his views, and on the 13th — after Churchill had intervened — he was ordered to prepare the withdrawal and evacuation of all British forces from France.

  By nightfall on the 13th, the French forces in the west — the Seventh and Tenth Armies and the Army of Paris, the latter formed originally to defend the capital to the last — were all in retreat towards the Loire. That same evening, units of the German Eighteenth Army came within sight of the Eiffel Tower.

  At 0340 the next morning, a lone German motorcyclist roared across the deserted Place Voltaire, circled and went back the way he had come. As the hours went by, detachments of German troops began to appear all over the capital. Loudspeaker cars toured the streets, warning what was left of the population to stay indoors and await further instructions. Nevertheless, as the morning wore on, a few inhabitants began to trickle into the streets, braving a thin drizzle to watch the seemingly endless column of German troops, armour and transport that rumbled southwards across Paris.

  At 0930, the German flag broke over the Arc de Triomphe. Fifteen minutes later, the hard-bitten, veteran troops of the German 8th Infantry Division marched down the Champs Elysées in a triumphal victory parade. As the field-grey columns passed the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, with its Eternal Flame, they saluted. It was as much a gesture of total, overwhelming victory as one of homage.

  At six-thirty that evening, German soldiers clustered around the Arc dc Triomphe like peacetime tourists were astonished to see two elderly Frenchmen marching towards them in full-dress uniform, complete with swords. They were Edmond Ferrand and Charles Gaudin, both veterans of the 1914-18 war and both holding the honoured position of Guardians of the Flame. Instinctively, for they were soldiers with their own pride, who recognised the pride of others, the Germans snapped to attention as the two men solemnly extinguished the Flame that had burned without interruption for almost twenty years. Then Ferrand and Gaudin marched away, the tears glistening on their cheeks in the evening sunlight.

  Chapter Twelve

  They had been on the move for days now, leapfrogging from one airstrip to another, always heading south towards Provence and the Alpes Maritimes, where the French Army of the Alps had faced a new enemy since 10 June, when the Italian dictator Mussolini, eager for a share of the spoils now that the victory of his German ally was assured, had declared war on the Allies. Thirty-two Italian divisions that had concentrated on France’s Alpine Front moved forward to the attack, confident of overwhelming the thinly-spaced French defences by sheer weight of numbers.

  They were destined to receive a harsh rebuff. When General Weygand had called for “one last battle to save honour” with the French armies in the north collapsing, the Alpine Front had been furthest from his mind. Yet it was here, in the snow and the rarefied air of the mountains, that the battle was fought.

  The airfield at Luc-en-Provence was packed with aircraft. As well as the surviving Hawks, flown in by Armstrong and his fellow pilots, there were Morane406s, Dewoitine D.520s, and a variety of types belonging to the French Naval Air Arm: American-built Chance Vought 156 single-engined attack bombers and Bloch 151 fighters. Some of the latter were running up their engines before setting out on patrol and Armstrong watched them idly. He was stretched out on the parched grass near the airfield’s command post, stripped to the waist in the heat, playing a desultory game of chess with Kalinski, who unlike Armstrong was very good at it.

  “There is talk of an armistice,” Kalinski commented suddenly as he pondered his next move.

  “What?” Armstrong looked at the Pole, startled.

  “An armistice,” Kalinski repeated. “Everyone is talking about it. I’m surprised you haven’t heard. Apparently there’s quite a strong pro-armistice lobby in the French Government, led by some ancient warrior called Marshal Petain. The alternative, of course, is to carry on the fight from their North African colonies, but with the Italians in the war they might have their work cut out to hold on to them. One thing’s certain, though; they are done for here.”

  Armstrong nodded. The effect on French morale that had accompanied the news of the fall of Paris a day earlier had been little short of catastrophic, and that very morning — 15 June — word had also arrived that the fortress of Verdun, that symbol of dogged resistance w
here the flower of the French Army had been sacrificed in 1916, had been captured after less than a day’s fighting. There was also a strong rumour that German tanks had reached Dijon on the upper Seine; if it were true, the Maginot Fine would now be isolated, together with its defenders — some 400,000 men who would have been far better employed elsewhere.

  Armstrong wished, now, that he had severed his connection with the French and made his way to the Cherbourg peninsula, from which the last British troops in France were being evacuated. He had suggested this to Kalinski, who had reluctantly decided against it. Although Polish personnel from other units had already taken ship for England, their aircraft having been destroyed or abandoned in the fighting in the north, Kalinski’s small command was still pretty much intact, and he had no orders to cease fighting. So Armstrong had stayed too; if the worst came to the worst, and the French unexpectedly threw in the towel, he would head for Toulon or Marseille. There were bound to be British ships there, sent in to evacuate British nationals.

  The Bloch 151s, nine aircraft in all, were taxying out for take-off. Kalinski, the chessboard momentarily abandoned, watched them too. Suddenly, the Pole gave an exclamation and pointed towards the east. Armstrong followed his gaze and picked out half a dozen dots, growing larger by the second. Whatever they were, they were flying low, and they were heading straight for the airfield.

  “Italians!” exclaimed Kalinski, who had phenomenal eyesight. “Fiat CR.42s … I suggest we get under cover, my friend!”

  Without another word he jumped up and made for a slit trench which had been dug about fifty yards away. Armstrong grabbed his shirt and followed him, one eye on the incoming aircraft. He could identify them now: Fiat CR.42s, biplane fighters, the equivalent of the RAF’s Gloster Gladiator.

  Breathing hard, he jumped into the trench and cautiously raised his head. The first flight of four Bloch 151s had just got airborne and were beginning to climb away when the Fiats fell on them, their machine-guns stuttering. One Bloch was hit immediately just as its wheels were coming up; it turned over on its back, dived into the ground and exploded. A second, riddled with bullets and its pilot wounded, crash-landed in a cloud of dust; a third crashed just off the end of the runway, its pilot miraculously crawling unhurt from the pile of wreckage. The fourth flew slap through the middle of the enemy fighters, pulled up in a steep climb and turned back towards the airfield.

  Armstrong and Kalinski ducked down into their trench as the Italian fighters raced across the field, firing at a group of Vought 156 bombers. Six of them went up in flames. Then the CR.42s turned and came back to concentrate on the second flight of Blochs, which were just lifting away from the runway.

  Suddenly, a shadow flitted over the slit trench, its passage accompanied by the scream of an engine. Startled, the two men looked up and saw a Dewoitine D.520, flying very fast, closing in on the two Fiats at the rear of the enemy formation. Within seconds, both of them were spinning down in flames.

  Spellbound, Armstrong and Kalinski watched as the French fighter went unhesitatingly after the remaining Fiats, whose pilots, abandoning their pursuit of the Blochs as they became aware of the danger bearing down on them from astern, scattered to left and right. The Dewoitine shot the tail off one of them and another, its pilot making a desperate attempt to escape at low level, flew into the ground, his aircraft cartwheeling across the airfield in a ball of debris, smoke and blazing fuel. The other two got away, dwindling in the distance.

  There was no time to admire the French pilot’s performance. As the Dewoitine broke off its chase and came back to the airfield to land, an orderly came running out of the command post, waving his arms. He skidded to a halt beside the slit trench and looked down at its occupants, saluting awkwardly.

  “The Navy reports enemy bombers approaching from the sea,” he told them breathlessly. “Heading this way. At least twenty.”

  Armstrong and Kalinski leaped from the trench, the RAF pilot hurriedly pulling on his shirt. “Very well,” he said. “Let the other pilots know, quickly.”

  He looked around. Although the Fiats’ strafing attack had caused a good deal of damage to the aircraft on the far side of the aerodrome the Hawks and the Polish Caudrons were untouched. Moreover, they had just been rearmed and refuelled. Of the Bloch 151s that had just taken off, there was no sign; Armstrong assumed that they had streaked off in pursuit of the fleeing pair of Italian fighters.

  There was no time to lose. He ran towards the nearest Hawk and saw that the French ground crew, who had been lying prone on the ground during the attack, had anticipated his intentions. The fitter was already in the cockpit, and the engine coughed into life as Armstrong arrived at the wing. The mechanic jumped out on the opposite side, leaving the pilot free to take his place.

  Armstrong waved the ground crew clear and eased open the throttle, strapping himself in as he taxied towards the runway and leaving the cockpit canopy open for the moment. He turned the fighter’s nose into the light breeze and opened the throttle wide, giving the control column a gentle nudge forward to lift the tail as the Hawk gathered speed. Then he was airborne and climbing hard to the south, to where the Mediterranean sparkled beyond the Cote d’Azur. A quick glance astern told him that more fighters were following and he looked ahead again, scanning the sky.

  He saw the anti-aircraft bursts first, clusters of white puffs against the blue backdrop as French warships out to sea hammered away at the incoming bombers far above. It was a few moments more before he picked out the aircraft; there did not seem to be more than a dozen of them, flying in two tight boxes at about 15,000 feet. They were still over the sea as he crossed the coast, heading out over the lies d’Hyeres. A few moments later they passed over the top of him, still a couple of thousand feet higher up.

  Armstrong continued his climb until his altimeter showed 5,000 metres — about 16,500 feet — and then turned in astern of the enemy formation, flying through a spread of spent anti-aircraft bursts as he did so. He could see the bombers clearly now: they were twin-engined aircraft with twin fins, and he identified them at once as Fiat BR.20s.

  Remembering to close the cockpit hood, he put the Hawk into a shallow dive and gradually overhauled the bomber on the left of the rearmost formation. Fire was beginning to come at him from the dorsal gun positions of several aircraft; he ignored it and concentrated on his target. The Fiat’s wings and upper fuselage were painted in a mottled camouflage scheme of light and dark brown; its engine cowlings were yellow and there was a white band around its rear fuselage. Its wings bore the black-and-white insignia of Fascist Italy.

  Armstrong could clearly see the white face of the Italian gunner, peering at him over his oxygen mask as he went on firing at him with his single 12.7-mm machine-gun. The bullets passed harmlessly below the Hawk. Making quite sure of his aim, Armstrong opened fire, pushing on the rudder bar so that the fighter’s nose yawed from side to side, traversing the nose to allow his bullets to rake the bomber from wingtip to wingtip. The effect was immediate and dramatic. White smoke burst from both the Fiat’s engines and streamed back, enveloping the Hawk.

  Armstrong continued firing at the shadowy outline of the bomber, and a moment later the smoke became shot with flame as the Fiat’s wing fuel tanks caught fire. The aircraft entered a steep diving turn, jettisoning its bombs as it did so. It fell towards the sea, trailing sheets of flame, and a solitary parachute broke away from it. Armstrong hoped that it was the rear gunner, a brave man who had gone on firing at him until the end.

  Tearing his gaze from the doomed aircraft, he looked around him. The fight had taken him below the Italian formation, which was now being engaged by more fighters. He pulled up steeply, narrowly avoiding a diving D.520 as he did so, and found himself under a Fiat’s sky-blue belly. He put a two-second burst into it, the Hawk hanging on its propeller, then the fighter stalled and dropped away. Dust and other associated debris, the accumulation of several days, whirled around his head as he regained control. He swore, makin
g a mental note to have a word with the ground crew about keeping the cockpit clean, then realised that this was not his usual aircraft.

  He was well below the battle now, and could see that the unescorted bombers were taking a terrible mauling. One dropped ponderously past him, turning slowly over and over as it fell; another had turned out of formation and was being harried by three fighters as it dived away over the Mediterranean.

  Armstrong decided to try his radio, to see if the Command Post had received word of any more Italian bombers heading in from the sea. But the set was dead; few radios worked now. The Air Force logistical system had broken down and necessary spare parts were not reaching the squadrons. The mechanics worked valiantly, patching up serviceable aircraft with bits and pieces salvaged from wrecked ones, but even these were in short supply.

  His engine was beginning to sound alarmingly rough, and the oil temperature was rising. It was time to head for base; the others were quite capable of handling the Italians, most of whom in any case had jettisoned their bomb loads haphazardly and were heading flat out for home. One crew, however, was made of sterner stuff than the rest; the pilot pressed on with his mission, which was to bomb the airfield at Luc, and was shot down in sight of it by D.520s that had been patrolling Marseille. The Italians all bailed out safely and were dined by the French officers before being whisked off to captivity.

  Armstrong reached Luc without incident, despite the smoke that was now streaming from under the Hawk’s engine cowling, and taxied to a stop near the hangars. The mechanics stripped off the fighter’s engine cowling, looked at the oiled-up mess underneath and shook their heads sorrowfully. “It will be at least a day, man Capitaine, before we can make this machine ready for flight once more,” the senior NCO told the pilot.