French aircraft factories in WW II

[Richard T Eger]

From further within the thread on TOCH!:

Laurent Rizzotti
Comments
Mon Dec 13, 2024 10:01
62.39.9.251



A good part of the aeronautic French factories were during WWII (and still are) in Toulouse and other towns of SW France, because this was the area the most remote of Germany and Luftwaffe bases.

During German occupation, these factories were used to build some planes but mainly to repair existing ones. Ju88s were one of the type repaired in French factories and a good number were left when the Germans retired from the area in late August 1944.

The French managed to repair several of them, enough to form a little squadron that was then used to bomb the German pockets on the Atlantic coast (that were not taken until April 1945 or even the end of the war).

So this Ju88 was not stolen but rather recovered in a freed factory or airfield and repaired.
And in 1944 there was no more "Free French Army", but only a French Army ("Armée de l'Air" in the skies).... at least on paper. People enlisted in Free French Forces before mid-1943 and then in the (reunited) French Army.

I remember reading about this loss in a French magazine, don't remember wich right now.

Local memory in Blagnac (near Colomiers and now the Toulouse commercial airfield's site; the airfield is between the town of Blagnac and Colomiers) remembers two noteworthy crashes:

_ during German occupation a German trainee pilot was flying above the village when he had (mechanical ?) problem and dived towards the school courtyard, that was full of children. He remained in the aircraft and managed to "dodge" it but crashed in the nearby churchtower and was killed.

_ shortly after the Liberation, French recovered some D520s used before for training by Luftwaffe and used them to strafe the German columns retreating from SW France in late August. The unit was called "escadrille Doret". One of these fighters was lost in a crash with his pilot. According to the local Resistance members, his plane crashed because he had been sabotaged before the Liberation by the Resistance.

(To read the entire thread, the reader is referred to the topic "Books on Ju 88/188/388/488 - 8" on the "References & Reference Materials" forum.

Regards,
Richard)