When History That We Should Know Becomes Mythology That We Think We Know!
Early WW2 - 20th Century ‘Dark Ages’
Everyone has heard of the term ‘the Dark Age’ which refers to the early European Middle Ages and infers that there was somehow a black hole of known history during the period of (roughly) the 5th to the 10th century. However, this is a very misleading and controversial term that if now going out of fashion as the actual fact is that a lot is known about this period, it’s just that it was a ‘loaded’ term used by people to bemoan the fall of ‘civilisation’ (The Roman Empire). [This is my simplified explanation of the term.]
Similarly, we tend to perceive the early years of World War 2 as being unworthy of close scrutiny because - like the Dark Ages - we *think* we know the story of the period and therefore it’s not worth rehashing what has become lore.
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| Above: The Dutch Fokker D.XXI, typical of our perception of the ‘half assed’ European response to the German threat, i.e. ‘not quite good enough’ (or, ‘could do better’ as my teacher wife would put it). Easy to look down upon when compared to the Spitfire, but was it really illustrative of the ‘best’ that European aircraft designers were capable of? |
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| Above: “European nations had rubbish aircraft, no wonder the Germans defeated them. They didn’t have superb aircraft like we British had!” Pictured: The Fairly Battle, just one of the ‘superb’ aircraft types that Britain had… And if you don’t recognise the irony there then you haven’t actually read a history book! |
In fact, there has been something of a reevaluation of Germany’s early successes in their Blitzkrieg through Europe which, while not changing the fact that the German Army’s campaign was so surprising (not least to the Germans themselves) succcessful, the nations that they defeated were not precisely the push overs that history leads us to believe. Furthermore, the armies that Germany defeated were not entirely as useless as we tend to I think they were and neither were the Nazi weapons so technologically advanced that the tools used against the Germans never stood any chance.
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| Above: My previous COBI model, a Polish PZL. P11 fighter. What little people know about European aircraft of the early war period know tend to fall into two categories; either they were ‘rubbish’ or - in the case of the obsolete P11 - they were ‘plucky under-dogs’. Both seem to infer that all aircraft development on the continent was inadequate and low-tech. This P11 model led me to procure the PZL 23 model to compliment it. |
The Aircraft That Weren’t As Bad As You Thought They Were
Of all the weapon technologies fielded against the Germans during these early years aircraft tend to be one of the main whipping boys that ‘history’ uses to highlight Germany’s complete superiority over its victims. We just presume that the Germans were way ahead of everyone else - falling for Nazi propaganda - until The Battle of Britain broke this spell.
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| Above: Proving that Fokker did actually have it’s head screwed on properly and that the anaemic D.XXI was simply a product designed to fill the ‘budget’ end of the market, they shocked the world with this intimidating ‘destroyer’ class heavy fighter. Comparable in role with the German Me.110 the G.1 had great potential, and while the few that did get into action managed to score kills this was the same old story of too little too late. Source: Wikipedia |
But, in actual fact, while the European nations were in disarray as to how best to counter the German threat, they were aware that the ‘Germans were coming’ and did try their best to defend themselves by building stuff that they thought could compete with the Nazi war machine. It’s just that the Germans - as the belligerents - always had a head start over other nations leaving everyone else to scramble to play catch up… Which most were never able to do.
Aircraft, as I say, are a prime example of this with many examples of either missed opportunities or of exceptionally good types being ‘too little too late. The trouble is [my opinion on the matter] was that when you thought that the Germans had the advantage in EVERY sector of military enterprise, just what do you focus on in particular when you have limited time and resources to throw at the problem (The British - luckily - made the right bet as it turned out, but using hindsight to conclude that everyone else didn’t know what they were doing but ‘we’ did is - I think - the wrong lesson to conclude from what transpired.)
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| Above: The Lioré et Olivier LeO 45. Of all the defeated nations, none receive more scathing mockery for their perceived ineptness than the French! When it comes to aircraft we tend to focus on the weird and outlandish French interwar bombers - like the Amiot 143 & Farman F.220 ‘flying glass house’ - as exemplars of Gaelic incompetency in design. So you may be surprised when you see the beautiful lines of the Bloch MB.170 or the Lioré et Olivier LeO 45 bombers, modern and advanced aircraft which were (IMHO) superior to the British types like the Hampton, Blenheim and Whitley which made up the majority of the RAF’s offensive line up at the start of the war. Source: Wikipedia |
All other European nations laid their bets as to how they thought they might best counter the German threat but that none of them had a crystal ball does not mean that they were all stupid but the British weren’t. Yes, we had the Spitfire and the Hurricane and Radar - good bets - but even we had our Defiants, Fairy Battles and trust in the French - bad bets! ;)
Some might say that if it weren’t for the English Channel (and the Royal Navy) that ‘there but for the grace of God go I’! So, what did the other Allies have going for them?
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| Above: Talking about French bombers, have you ever heard of the Bloch MB.162 (or its competitor, the Breguet Br-482)? Both of these advanced four engined strategic bombers were comparable to the Boing B-17 and showed that the French were finally getting the right idea… But then the Germans invaded! Oooops, or should I say ‘merde’? Source: wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com |
Aircraft wise the Germans faced some very advanced types - contrary to popular opinion. The recurring fly in the ointment tends to be that they just didn’t have enough of them because they left their development a little too late. This means that we can only surmise just what an impact that particular aircraft types might have made had they actually been deployed in enough numbers ahead of the German invasion of the nations concerned.
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| Above: The Czech Avia B.35. Development of this impressive design was curtailed by Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939. Once again another nation was making the right design decisions in order to combat the German threat… But - once again - were too late. Source: www.destinationsjourney.com |
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| Above: Even Sweden showed that when it came to aeronautical design that they could compete with the best! The FFJ VS 22 is sometimes referred to as the ‘Swedish FW.190’, it was manufactured from 1942 to help defend Sweden’s precarious neutrality. While it lagged behind the rest of Europe’s race to compete with a belligerent Germany the story of how this superb aircraft came about is a tale of resourcefulness and ‘thinking outside the box’ that highlights that clever engineering was definitely not exclusive to Germany! In later tests the VS 22 showed that it hid-altitudes could outrun even the American P51. Source: Wikipedia |
That said, there is a general consensus among aircraft historians to believe that the examples I have outlined in this post were at least on par with comparable German types, and - in some cases - purportedly superior. It does highlight that European nations were capable of achieving technological parity with the Germans when the resources were available to take on the challenge.
‘What if’ is such a depressingly useless conjecture, and I do not what to infer that had certain weapon technologies been available that Germany would have been stopped in its tracks in 1940. There are far too many other dimensions to military success to hang the conditions for victory on one or two individual aspects. Much in the same way as German ‘wonder weapons’ could not have saved Germany at the end of the war.
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| Above: The aircraft that inspired this post (in model form) - the Polish PZL.23 Karas. This highlights another important point about ‘equity’ of aircraft technology during this period in that - while the Kara’s was *not* superior to German types it was on par and also illustrates similar thinking when it came to roles that aircraft would play in a future war. To my mind the Karas is generally comparable to the German Ju.87 Stuka in it’s abilities - it was not better than the Stuka BUT it shows that European nations were all apt to make the wrong predictions about what would be winning weapons in the next war. The PZL.23 foreshadowed exactly the same flaws the eventually affected the Stuka in that it was a sitting duck in contested airspace, something the Stuka would soon find out during the coming Battle of Britain. |
But, I do not like the opinion that European nations were completely useless militarily based on their performance during this early stage of the war… Were we to do this then we might as well say that Britain and American were useless militarily as they both also saw military failures during the onset of Axis attacks during these initial years. Britain and American were just lucky enough to weather the initial storm and reorganise and rebuild their militaries before fighting back. Mainland Europe did not have the benefit of either a sea or an ocean between it and its adversary.
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| Above: French fighters o f the early war had a lack-lustre reputation, models like the Morane-Saulnier M.S. 406, Bloch MB.152 and Cauldron 710 never quite matched the performance of the Me.109 or Spitfire. But that is not to say that the French were incapable of producing comparably advanced types. The Arsenal VG-33, for example, which was thought to have speed exceeding both the Me.109 and the Spitfire! …Unfortunately - you guessed it - the VG-33 was not developed enough to achieved wide scale adoption. Source: aerocorner.com |
Time was not on the Europeans side, however... Had it been, even the Belgians might have been able to put up something that would have given the Bf.109 a nasty shock. Here's an overview of the beatiful Renard series of fighter designs...
Intellectually European nations had the wherewithal to compete with German technology, a fact that can be shown by all the innovative contributions that refugee Europeans provided to Britain during the course of the war. (Quite aside from the fighting spirit displayed by Europeans who went on to fight for the British and who were essential to the eventual victory over Germany.)
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