Flames over France by Robert Jackson

four ‘vics’ of three, with Armstrong — very much the new boy as far as the French were concerned, despite his success over the airfield a couple of days earlier — flying on the right-hand side of the last formation. As they would not be flying fixed straight-line patrols in the combat area, Villeneuve had decided to dispense with the ‘weaver’.
    A hundred and fifty miles away, the lumbering Amiots had left their bases a while earlier and were cruising towards the target area. Over La Fère airfield they picked up their close escort of twelve Moranes; the other fighters were sweeping the sky a few minutes ahead, at high altitude.
    Far to the south. Colonel Villeneuve took the Hawk formation up to 15,000 feet and crossed the Meuse, the fortress town of Verdun over on their left. Villeneuve brought the Hawks round in a gentle turn towards it, then flew north towards Luxembourg, twelve pairs of eyes anxiously scanning the sky. They saw nothing; but they could tell by the shouts and screams over their radios, tuned to the same frequency as those of the bombers and their escorts, that a murderous battle was developing in the sky over Sedan.
    Just how murderous, they would not discover until later.
    At 1215 the bombers and their escorts passed to the south of Mezières. A few minutes later they reached the Meuse, and a turn to starboard brought them in towards Sedan from the north. So far, it was like a peacetime training flight; the sky was absolutely empty.
    Suddenly, the air was filled with flak bursts and glowing trails of 20 mm shells. An Amiot was hit and began to drag a long ribbon of flame. It was an aircraft of Bomber Group 11/34, and it carried the unit’s commander, Commandant de Laubier. At the last moment, as the machine had been taxying out for take-off, de Laubier, defying orders to stay behind, had jumped aboard and taken the place of one of the gunners. Now, thirty minutes later, the other crews watched in horror as the Amiot plunged earthwards like a torch. Three of the crew bailed out and were taken prisoner; de Laubier was not among them.
    At that moment the six aircraft of the second group, GB 11/38, broke formation and turned in the direction of the Meuse bridges. The manoeuvre presented the fighter escort, which now had two separate formations to cover, with a problem. The Moranes split into two flights of six, one of which chased after 11/38. The other six Amiots continued their run-in and unloaded their bombs on the congested roads north of Sedan, lurching as the flak hit them again and again. One machine turned away, trailing smoke, and began a descending turn towards friendly territory. Despite being attacked by an enemy fighter the pilot, Lieutenant Foucher, managed to regain his base after flying the whole way at treetop height.
    As the bombers roared out of the flak zone, throttles wide open, the Messerschmitts pounced. A pair of Me 11 Os fastened themselves on to the tails of the surviving Amiots of 11/34, one of which was quickly shot down in flames. The five-man crew bailed out. Another aircraft received three 20-mm shells in its port engine, which began to stream dense white smoke; a fourth shell shattered the port undercarriage, a fifth ripped the pilot’s parachute pack to shreds and a sixth tore away the co-pilot’s control column. The pilot, Adjutant Milan, made his escape into a bank of cloud and crash-landed in a field a few minutes later. The crew all got out safely, but the aircraft was a complete wreck.
    By some miracle, all the other Amiots in the Sedan operation returned to base, although all of them were shot to ribbons and not one was in a battleworthy condition. Six Amiots, having failed to rendezvous with the fighter escort, had never reached the target area, but had turned back on the orders of their leader.
    To the south, Colonel Villeneuve, incensed by the noise of battle over the radio and casting aside his earlier caution to save fuel, ordered his twelve fighters to