French Spitfires in Indo China

[Skua]

Bernard Fall's book 'Street Without Joy' is an excellent account of France's doomed attempt to hold on the their French Indo-China colonial empire. The book must have been ignored by the Pentagon as it seems the USA went through exactly the same experience - all be it for a different raison d'etre.

From 1945 to 1950 one of the aircraft used for the air support had been the Spitfire the most prevalent seem to be the Mk IX with and without clipped wings as they were assembled rather piecemeal by ground crew, I assume, unused to the type.

Bernard Fall writes that the skin of the aircraft as it was made of fabric 'peeled off' in the humid conditions!

I know that the early marks had fabric control surfaces but these, according to my research, had been replaced while in service, or at the factories by metal after the Mk V.

Has anyone information on this...and could Fall have been listening to someone talking about earlier types he had witnessed prior to D-Day?

He also mentions two seat Spitfires used for combat observation tasks.

 

[Delft]

Bernard Fall's book 'Street Without Joy' is an excellent account of France's doomed attempt to hold on the their French Indo-China colonial empire. The book must have been ignored by the Pentagon as it seems the USA went through exactly the same experience - all be it for a different raison d'etre.

From 1945 to 1950 one of the aircraft used for the air support had been the Spitfire the most prevalent seem to be the Mk IX with and without clipped wings as they were assembled rather piecemeal by ground crew, I assume, unused to the type.

Bernard Fall writes that the skin of the aircraft as it was made of fabric 'peeled off' in the humid conditions!

I know that the early marks had fabric control surfaces but these, according to my research, had been replaced while in service, or at the factories by metal after the Mk V.

Has anyone information on this...and could Fall have been listening to someone talking about earlier types he had witnessed prior to D-Day?

He also mentions two seat Spitfires used for combat observation tasks.

I think the French used Spitfire Mk IXs early in the "Indo China" war. If so these would have had metal ailerons. Maybe also Seafires ? The French never had 2 seat Spitfires so I think this part is not correct.

 

[OldParts]

Street Without Joy was the first hardback book I purchased and I still enlisted. But I just did a quick search and found several accounts of the French Indochina air operations. Spitfires were mentioned as the best fighter the French had initially but they also operated Mosquitoes which I knew had problems in Burma. Plywood de-laminated because of high moisture and heat. So Fall may have made an error. Great writer. Hell In a Very Small Space.

 

[NVSMITH]

-This has nothing to do with the basic question but is a partial reply to the comment about the Pentagon not reading Bernard Fall's books.
-In the 1980s I was assigned to a military (US Army) schoolhouse. Since we were studying what was then called "unconventional" warfare I collected information on post WW2 Southeast Asia, to include Malaya, the Philippines in WW2 and the Huk rebellion.
-We had quite a bit of Indo-China reports from French officers, some of which continued on to cover the war in Algeria.
-In our classes and briefings we even included the movies such as "The Battle of Algiers" as a "brown bag treat" shown during lunch hours. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers and La battaglia di Algeri (1966) - IMDb
-In researching why the US was unprepared when we had a wealth of information, we ran across senior officers essentially stating: "Why should we study a bunch of losers?"
-Oddly enough one of the best documents we found was the April, 1962 ARPA/Rand Symposium on Counterinsurgency held in Washingtom, DC. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reports/2006/R412-1.pdf
-Many of the documents not studied in the late 1950s - early 1960s were cited in regularly published Fleet Marine Force Pacific (FMFPAC) "Lessons Learned" documents.
-RE: Lessons Learned. We picked up a comment from a British officer that these should be published as "Lessons observed but not necessarily learned." 'Nuff said.

 

[Skua]

Seafires ! Yes, news to me that they had linen control surfaces...I need more research.

Two seat Spitfires.
In my copy (see below) I refer to Chapter 6: Diary: The Women, p.137 and tells a very sad story of a widow (3 times) who was invited for a ride in a two seat Spitfire piloted by the Northern Airforce Commander Brigadier General Hartmann. The aircraft was, Quote: a British 'Spitfire' fighter converted into a two-seater for reconnaissance purposes. Tragically they were shot down by the Viet-Minh. Quote: I found the photograph of their destroyed plane eleven years later while going through the photographic files of the North Vietnamese Government.

I have the 1963 edition, printed in the USA with a forward by Marshall Andrews of Haywood, Chantilly, Virginia, USA (just outside of Washington).
A quick search reveals this:

http://www.marshallfoundation.org/library/wp-content/uploads/sites/16/2014/06/Andrews_Marshall.pdf.

This indicates that Marshall was a retired USAAC, later US Infantry Major (served to 1945) and historian who worked as a 'military' reporter for the Washington Post.

Loads of caveats here of course...but Fall was 'in theatre' when the Spitfire was in use...could he have mistaken it for an observation light aircraft (?)...the French were using the metal winged M-S 505 'Criquet' based or copied from the Fieseler 156 'Storch'...a very different aircraft type than, as he states a 'Fighter'.

Did Marshall see the photo, I doubt it.

Local adaption (?)...but that would have been a very time consuming technical achievement....

 

[Skua]

Please see

French Spitfires in the Indochina War

Created by an aircraft modeller in 2010

 

[Skua]

'The British transferred 246 Squadron's Spitfire Mk. VIIIs in 1946, when the squadron left Tan Son Nhut to return to England, and these were supplemented by Spitfire LF.IXc and Mosquito FB.VI fighter-bombers hurriedly ferried in from Europe. These airplanes performed poorly in the colonial close-support role. The Spitfire had too short a range and too small a warload. Both types proved too fragile for long service in the tropics. The Spitfire's narrow-track undercarriages proved ill-suited to the short, uneven, PSP (Pierced Steel-Plank) runways common in Indochina. Ground-loops and undercarriage failure were common. The Mosquito had a robust undercarriage and a large disposable load, but, as the British and the Australians had already discovered during the war, its wooden structure suffered severely from heat, damp, and insects. Availability was generally low.'

Taken from a page created in 1998 by a Robert Craig Johnson:

COIN: French Counter-Insurgency Aircraft, 1946-1965

See also:

Gremlins And Masterdom – Britain’s Vietnam War

For most people, war in Vietnam means just one thing: the doomed US campaign of the 1960s and 70s. As Stuart Hadaway explains, there was a much earlier conflict involving the British and arising out of the post-war chaos in the region. Bizarrely, it also involved surrendered Japanese forces and...

www.keymilitary.com

Incidentally this also refers to Catalinas being used in the ground strike role!

 

[DaveyBoy74]

S Skua your link to the Andrew Marshall pdf is dead, any chance of a ew link Please ?, as this sound very interesting. Thanks.

Dave.

 

[Skua]

Yes, he looks a fascinating character.....I had a look and came up with these...they may help with further research.

Honoring the Legacy of Andrew W. Marshall | AWMF History

www.andrewwmarshallfoundation.org

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/andrew-marshall-brain-pentagon-passed-away/588952/

Amazon product ASIN 0465030009