Armee de´l Air after the WWII: Colonial Conflicts

[gekho]

After the war, the United States refused to allow its European allies to use US-supplied equipment against their erstwhile colonial subjects, so the bulk of France's air force—P-47Ds based in Europe—could not be sent to Indochina. When nationalist Viet Minh insurgents resisted the reimposition of French rule in their homeland, Armée de l'Air units were at first forced to use abandoned Japanese aircraft, including Nakajima Ki.43 Hayabusa fighters and Aichi E13A-1 seaplanes. These were supplemented by the German wartime types tht were built in France during the occupation. The Amiot AAC.1 Toucan (Junkers Ju-52) was used for transport and paratrooping duties, and the Morane-Saulnier Criquet (Fieseler Fi-156 Storch) performed communications, observation, forward air control, and convoy escort missions.

 

[gekho]

In 1948 and '49, the rapid collapse of the Kuomintang regime in China and the apparently cordial relations between the Viet Minh and Mao's Communist party caused the US to relent and allow France to deploy some of its American equipment in Southeast Asia. Fifty Bell P-63C Kingcobras were hurriedly despatched from Europe. They proved well suited to the climate and the prevailing type of operations. Their range was better than the Spitfires, and were highly resistant to the ever increasing volume of groundfire that French pilots faced over Viet Minh-dominated areas. The lifting of the ban on US warplanes also let the French Aéronavale take a more active role in the conflict. The light carrier Arromanches took up station in the gulf of Tonkin and used its SB2C Helldivers, F6F-5 Hellcats, and, eventually, F4U-7 Corsairs to good effect during the remainder of the campaign. Douglas SBD-5 Dauntless dive bombers and Consolidated PB4Y-2 Privateers operated from shore bases. The Long time on station and heavy bombloads made the Privateers particularly useful. They were often pressed into service as flareships during night assaults on French positions.

 

[gekho]

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[T Bolt]

Great pictures of the kingcobra!

 

[Gnomey]

More good shots!

 

[syscom3]

Yes, great pics. I didnt know the French were using so much WW2 stuff.

 

[gekho]

The Korean War was thus a lucky break for France. While the immediate needs of the US services at first precluded delivery of aircraft the French especially wanted—notably B-26 Invaders, F-51 Mustangs, and additional Corsairs—Russian and Chinese involvement seemed to confirm France's interpretation of third-world nationalism. A global communist conspiracy seemed more plausible in Washington when Chinese soldiers were crowding round the Pusan perimeter. In 1950, after considering and rejecting a large-scale supply of B-25s and F-47s—replacement parts could no longer be had in the quantities required for operatinal use—US authorities decided to supply France with a single squadron of B-26 Invaders—25 aircraft—as an interim measure.

The Aéronavale received additional Hellcats in lieu of Corsairs (though the specially built F4U-7 and some surplus AU-1s were supplied later), while the Armée de l'Air got the Grumman F8F-1 Bearcat, a type relegated to Navy Reserve and National Guard units in the US. A further five RB-26C reconnaissance airplanes and 16 B-26C bombers arrived in 1952. Armed with napalm, 500-lb demolition bombs, M1A1 fragmentation clusters, 5-in HVAR rockets, and .50-cal machineguns (up to fourteen on the B-26s, most of which had the late-war, 6-gun wings and both turrets) or 20-mm cannon (many F8Fs and F6Fs and all the Corsairs) the new strike aircraft were reasonably effective. But they were still too few, and the single-engined types lacked the range and endurance that were increasingly necessary now that Viet Minh were now concentrated in Laos and along the Chinese border (the mainstay of the fighter-bomber force, the F8F, had, after all, been designed as a short-range, high-performance interceptor of Kamikazes).

 

[gekho]

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[Gnomey]

Nice shots! 8)

 

[gekho]

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[gekho]

The XF4U-7 prototype did its test flight on 2 July 1952 with a total of 94 F4U-7s built for the French Navy's Aéronavale (79 in 1952, 15 in 1953), with the last of the batch, the final Corsair built, rolled out on 31 January 1953. The F4U-7s were actually purchased by the U.S. Navy and passed on to the Aéronavale through the U.S. Military Assistance Program (MAP). The French Navy used its F4U-7s during the second half of the First Indochina War in the 1950s (12.F, 14.F, 15.F Flotillas),[84] where they were supplemented by at least 25 ex-USMC AU-1s passed on to the French in 1954, after the end of the Korean War. French F4U-7 Corsairs (with some loaned AU-1s) of the 12.F, 14.F, 15.F and 17.F Flotillas conducted missions during the Algerian War between 1955 and 1961. The 14.F and 15.F Flotillas also took part in the Anglo-French-Israeli seizure of the Suez Canal in October 1956, codenamed Operation Musketeer. The Corsairs were painted with yellow and black recognition stripes for this operation.

In early 1959, the Aéronavale experimented with the Vietnam War-era SS.11 wire-guided anti-tank missile on F4U-7 Corsairs.The 12.F pilots trained for this experimental program were required to "fly" the missile at approximatively two kilometers from the target on low attitude with a joystick using the right hand while keeping track of a flare on its tail, and piloting the aircraft using the left hand; an exercise that could be very tricky in a single-seat aircraft under combat conditions. Despite reportedly effective results during the tests, this armament was not used with Corsairs during the ongoing Algerian War. The Aéronavale used 163 Corsairs (94 F4U-7s and 69 AU-1s), the last of them used by the Cuers-based 14.F Flotilla were out of service by September 1964, with some surviving for museum display or as civilian warbirds.

 

[gekho]

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