Caudron C.440 'Goéland'. Home Users Part Two.

 

The Caudron C.445 model, which would eventually, be the most produced variant, began in 1939 and continued during German occupation, at Renault's factory in the Seine department, close to Paris. A total of 690 Goélands were manufactured for the Luftwaffe alone, which, as we already saw it, used the type in the trainer, transport and liaison roles.

Under Vichy's government, the Goéland constituted the backbone of the Services Civils de liaisons aériennes metropolitaines (Metropolitan Air Connection Civil Service - the official paramilitary airline of Vichy France) and its subsidiaries in the French West Africa and Algeria. A dedicated variant of the C.445 - called C.445EF - was made for the Vichy French Air Force, of which just 120 exemplars were manufactured between 1942 and 1943. 

The next major version was the C.449 which was manufactured at Ateliers Aéronautiques in Issy-les-Molineaux, in the Seine department, close to Paris, after the liberation. The main user of this variant was the Aéronavale (French Navy's Air Arm) which employed the type from 1945 onwards (they also have been using some C.445 since 1943). The Aéronavale used the C.445 and C.449 until 1954, for liaison and training purposes in various units and they served also with the Escadrilles (Squadron) 51.S and 55.S plus many flying schools located in Morocco. A total of 349 exemplars of this variant were made, though, according to other sources, that number falls to 325. They were manufactured between the years 1944 and 1948. 

After the war, Air France acquired several Goélands for pilot and crew training and night postal services. On 1st January 1946, there were 23 C.445 and 19 C.449 serving with this French airline. They would be, however, sold, loaned or ceded to other operators and most of them were transferred to Madagascar and the French North Africa.

Some other minor French airlines like Air Azur also employed the type after the war and it was reportedly, also employed by the Beglian SABENA airline. 

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudron_C.440_Goéland

2. https://aviatechno.net/vilgenis/46-49/caudron440.php (translated)

3. https://aeronavale.org/lhistoire-de-laeronautique-navale/les-avions/ (translated)

4. https://www.valka.cz/Caudron-C-440-Goeland-t168115 (translated)

ANF Les Mureaux 115

 

The ANF Les Mureaux 115 was a French two-seater reconnaissance fighter and light bomber. It was powered by a single Hispano-Suiza 12Ycrs which delivered 848 hp of power and drove a three-bladed propeller. 

The prototype flew for the first time on 6th March 1935 and a total of 119 aircraft of the type were manufactured between 1935 and December 1938 by Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Nord (National Company of Aeronautical Constructions of the North) at Les Mureaux, close to Paris. The production version was given the suffix of R.2 by the Armée de l'Air (French Air Force) as they were suited to reconnaissance role. 

The Mureaux 115 was armed with a single 7.5 mm MAC 1934 machine gun mounted on the engine, a single 20 mm Hispano-Suiza-9 cannon mounted in the engine and firing through the propeller hub, a single defensive 7.5 mm MAC 1934 placed in the observer's cockpit aimed to the rear and, initially, a single ventral 0.303 in Lewis machine gun which was fired by the observer through a hatch, though this machine gun wasn't mounted in most of the machines. It also had provision for four 50 kg (110 lb) bombs, two under the main fuselage and two under the wing. When equipped with bomb, the suffix B.2 (which stands for Bombardier - Bomber) was given. 

Just like every type in this family of planes, by 1939 it was already obsolete, however, as the Armée de l'Air didn't have any better alternative, they were kept at the frontlines when World War 2 began in September 1939 after undergoing some small modernisations as they were the backbone of the short-range recon aircraft fleet.

During the period known as the "Phoney War", the Mureaux 115 took part in many photo-reconnaissance missions over the Siegfried line and, given their vulnerability to German fighters and anti-aircraft fire, a Mureaux 115 has the dubious honour of being the first French aircraft shot down in the World War 2, during one of those recon missions. 

In spite of having fighter cover, they were still highly vulnerable because of their slowness (their maximum speed was just of 327.5 km/k - 203.5 mph) so, since before the beginning of the conflict, they were being replaced by the much better Potez 637 and Potez 63.11. However, deliveries of this aircraft were slow and by May 1940 some Mureaux 115 were still in active service and were employed all throughout the Franco-German front. 

When France fell in late June 1940 the Armée de l'Air de l'Armistice (Vichy France's Air Force) was created which took care of the remaining Mureaux 115 which, once unarmed, were employed as trainers, before being written off from service in July 1941.

Oddly, in 1938, various French right-wing newspapers published that some Mureaux 115 (together with some 117) were sold to the Spanish Republicans and took part in recon missions in the Spanish Civil War. Those reports weren't based in real facts, so they were simple propaganda, however as with many other profiles, we decided to draw an hypothetical-looking Mureaux 115 serving with the Spanish Republican Air Force.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANF_Les_Mureaux_113

2. http://www.airwar.ru/enc/other1/mureaux115.html (translated)

3. https://www.valka.cz/ANF-Les-Mureaux-115-R-2-B-2-t42733

4. http://bioold.science.ku.dk/drnash/model/spain/index.html (accesible only through the wayback machine)

Morane-Saulnier Ms.406, Free French and Vichy France users

 

After the French armistice on 25th June 1940 and the establishment of Vichy France in July that same year, the Armée de l'Air underwent a major re-organization. This way, the Groupe de Chasse I/6, based at Marseille and equipped with the Ms.406, was dissolved on 30th October 1940. The Armée de l'Air de l'Armistice (Vichy France's Air Force) kept just 6 groups on mainland territory all of them equipped with the Bloch Mb.152. In North Africa there were based another 6 groups with either the Dewoitine D.520 or the Curtiss H-75 (The best fighters that France had back then). The Groupe de Chasse I/7, based in Rayak, Lebanon and the Escadrille de Chasse 2/595 (an unit composed of just 9 aircraft which sits between the group and the flight unit in terms of strength) based in Bach Maï, Tonkin. Thanks to the dissolution of some squadrons in the mainland, a new group (Groupe Aerién Mixte) was created in Madagascar, while others were sent to flying schools, in the French mainland. 

During the Lang Son incident, between 22nd and 25th September 1940, one Ms.406 was severely damaged by a Japanese Nakajima Ki-27 in flight when escorting a formation of outdated Potez Po.25TOE. One Japanese bomber was shot down during those days by Sgt. Labussière. However, it was never officially recognised to avoid diplomatic tensions with Japan.

During the Franco-Thai War in October 1940, on 10th October, seven Ms.406 were sent to Tourane (nowadays Da-Nang), to form a new fighter escadrille, the EC 2/595. The first sortie of this unit took place on 23rd November 1940. By 18th January 1941, the Armée de l'Air de l'Armistice in Indochina had no more than 14 Ms.406 and, when the combats ceased on 28th January, the French scored 4 victories for two Ms.406 destroyed on ground by bombardments. The next year, in 1942, every Ms.406 present in Indochina was vastly overhauled due to the lack of spare parts.

On another theatre of war, Middle-East, the British and Commonwealth Forces launched an attack on 15th May 1941 against Syria. This attack began with an aerial attack against the airfields present in that region. During that campaign the French pilots of the G.C. I/7 (based in Rayak, Lebanon and equipped with the Ms.406) clashed against the Gloster Gladiator and Fairey Fulmar fighters of the Royal Air Force, but their main task was to support ground troops until the region capitulated on 14th July 1941. After switching sides and joining the Forces Aériennes Françaises Libres (Free French Air Forces) the G.C. I/7 was dissolved and replaced on 15th September 1941 by the Groupe de Chasse Alsace which was initially composed of fourteen Ms.406 (two of which were unusable) and six aircraft of other types. This unit remained in Rayak, tasked with the defence of the Lebanese coast, until the outdated Ms.406 were replaced by, also outdated, Hawker Hurricane Mk.I fighters in January 1942.

Madagascar was invaded on 5th May 1942 by Commonwealth forces. During this battle, the Escadrille 565 present at Antananarivo had 17 or 18 Ms.406 in strength, with only 11 machines available, including a permanent detachment present at Diego Arrachart airfield located in the town of Diego Suarez, in the far north of Madagascar. Those Ms.406 took part on ground attacks against Commonwealth and South African troops and were, therefore, the last Ms.406 which fought with the French roundel. Piloting one of those fighters, bearing the number 995, Jean Assolant, former pilot of the l'Oiseau Canari (literally 'the canary bird' a Bernard 190T airliner modified in 1929 to non-stop cross the Atlantic Ocean) was shot down and killed on 7th May 1942 by Grumman Martlets belonging to 881 Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm which had taken off from HMS Illustrious (87).

Sources:

1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morane-Saulnier_MS.406#La_défense_de_l'empire (translated)

2. http://www.traditions-air.fr/index.htm

3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Fairey Fulmar, part one

The Fairey Fulmar was a British carrier-borne reconnaissance aircraft/fighter developed and manufactured by Fairey Aviation Company. Named after the Northern Fulmar, a seabird native to the British Isles, the Fulmar served with the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA), with Vichy France and it would've served with Denmark.

• Denmark: Together with the previous P.4/34 (of which we made a post), the Royal Danish Navy took interest in the Fulmar (as the later was a developed variant of the first) and plans were made to set up a licensed production chain in Denmark. However, with the course of the World War II and the German occupation of Denmark in April 1940 those plans were cancelled.
• Vichy France: On 27th March 1941 a Fulmar Mk.I belonging to the HMS Furious (47), most probably from 803 Naval Air Squadron was performing a reconnaissance mission over Senegal. The aircraft took off from the carrier, which was off the coast of Freetown, in the Sierra Leone Colony and Protectorate (under British control) and was flying over Senegal (under Vichy French control) when, for unknown reasons, the plane had to force land at Dakar's airport, in French controlled territory. The aircraft was pushed into service with the Vichy French Air Force, with its former British markings overpainted with French ones and served with the Groupe de Chase (Fighter Squadron) 1/4 which was based in Dakar and Gao, both of them in French West Africa. As the GC 1/4 sided later on with the Free French Air Forces, the captured aircraft, which initially was used for propaganda and evaluation purposes, was most probably either destroyed (most likely) or taken back by the FAA.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Fulmar

2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Fulmar (translated)

3. http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/showthread.php?t=55460

4. http://www.traditions-air.fr/unit/escadron/groupe_chasse05.htm#GC00401 (translated)

5. Hall Park Books - Warpaint 41 - Fairey Fulmar

6. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters

Loire 130

As this is the last post of the year, we would like to wish all our readers a merry new year's eve and a happy 2020! That's why in this post we bring you not one but three drawings.
The Loire 130 was a French hydroplane that saw service during World War II and also post-war French colonial conflicts.
It's origins can be traced back to mid-1930s when the French Navy made a requirement for a reconnaissance seaplane or flying boat that could serve aboard French battleships and cruisers of the time. It was chosen in 1936 against five competitors (Bréguet 610, Gourdou-Leseurre GL-820 HY, Levasseur PL.200 and Potez CAMS 120).
It was powered by a single 12-cylinder Hispano-Suiza 12Xirs liquid-cooled vee engine, rated at 710 hp. It was armed with two 7,5 mm Darne machine guns, one of them placed just above the propeller, in a defensive position. It also had a payload of 150 kg of bombs, as it could carry a 75 kg bomb under each wing.
After flying for the first time on 19th November 1934, its performance was considered good enough so a production order for 150 machines was placed and in August 1936 it entered mass production. A total of 125 machines were manufactured by Loire Aviation (later named Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques de l'Ouest) in the French city of St. Nazaire from 1937 until 1941 when, under German occupation production ceased. In 1938 it entered officially in service replacing most of shipborne seaplanes and flying boats already in service.
Of those 125, one of them was the prototype, 111 were sent to the French Navy and 12 to the French Air Force which used a modified version called Loire 130CI which had an enlarged radiator. The French Air Force employed it in the colonies, specially in Indochina, where it served through the Franco-Thai War in early 1941.
In the late 1930s the Loire 130 was serving on board of most French battleships and cruisers, as well as aborad the Commandant Teste seaplane carrier, which had assigned a squadron of six machines in 1939. After the fall of France in June 1940, most of them passed on to the Vichy France's Air Force and, as previously mentioned, some of them were used to fly reconnaissance missions during the Franco-Thai War. The German Luftwaffe also performed some testing in 1940-1941 with some captured aircraft but rejected it due to its obsolescence and poor armament, which was deemed as "not sufficient under any circumstance", however it seems that at least one of them could've been used as an improvised transport from the coastal city of St. Nazaire to the town of Mâcon, in central France.
Although looking quite obsolete and having quite a very marginal performance numbers for its time, some of them survived the war and kept on service until 1949-1951, specially in French Indochina.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire_130
2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loire_130 (translated) 
3. http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/archive/index.php?t-2066.html
4. https://www.valka.cz/Loire-130M-t25885

Amiot 354 - Various users

As these aircrafts went beyond our radar, we have decided to post them now because we felt that it was needed.
Those two users are Vichy France and the Third Reich.
Vichy France, wanting to keep the connections with the French colonies, specially with Djibouti and Madagascar, asked the German authorities for permisson to use Amiot twin-engined airplanes qualified as mail airplanes to carry mail, medicines and supplies. They all served with Air France for that matter and most of them were Amiot 351 that were converted into 354 standard, unarmed in order to keep the aerial link between French metropolitan land and the aforementioned colonies of Madagascar and Djibouti. One of them suffered an accident when landing in Dakar, Senegal and was forced to remain there until after the end of the war, until 1946.
Germany, captured four of them when they entered in Amiot's factory and assigned two of them to the Luftwaffe that served until 1942 with the famous 1./KG 200 special service geschwader and, one of them were used by the high command of the Luftflotte 3.

Sources:
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_354 (translated)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_354

Amiot 143, various foreign users

A little bit later than usual but now it's the turn for the foreign users of this French medium bomber as France wasn't the only one to employ it.
The Air Force of the Independent State of Croatia apparently received one of them and used it, probably, for training purposes. However as we couldn't find any graphical evidence, the drawing should be considered as speculative.
The Vichy French Air Force got some of the bombers that weren't destroyed after the French armistice, and gathered them in Istres, southern France in order to use them as transports to send them to take part in the Syria-Lebanon campaign, which is why they created the G.T. I/15 meaning Groupe de Transport or Transport Group on 14th July 1941 and became the G.T. III/15 in October of that same year. However, as the Syria-Lebanon campaign finished just in July 1941, they were never sent to Syria and were based in the French North Africa, mainly in Algeria and Morocco where most of them were destroyed during Operation Torch with some of them, belonging to the G.T. I/36 (a reformed G.T. III/15) being used during the Tunisian Campaign in January 1943. Anyway, all of them were scrapped in early 1944.
The Polish Air Force in France, employed some Amiot 143M as bomber trainers, mainly in the bomber flying school of Lyon-Bron and Caen. During the last days of the French Campaign in June 1940 they were used to evacuate personnel to Southern France.
Regarding the Spanish Republican Air Force, there were several reports of them being used in the early days of the Spanish Civil War, but they seem to be erroneus, as there aren't any significal evidence of the airplane flying in that conflict. We couldn't however let the oportunity pass and painted one of them with the colours of the FARE (Fuerzas Aéreas Republicanas Españolas - Spanish Republican Air Forces) to see how it could have looked like.

Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_143
2. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiot_143 (translated)
3. Signal Squadron - Aircraft In action -  French Bombers of World War II in Action
4. http://bioold.science.ku.dk/drnash/model/spain/didnt.html

Martin 167F - Vichy French users

After the Franco-German armistice, l'Armée de l'Air de Vichy (Vichy France's Air Force) had some squadrons equiped with the Martin 167F, serving mainly in the reconnaissance role.
Those airplanes were notably used against the allies in the North African campaign, at the strait of Gibraltar. When Operation Torch was launched, some aerial combat against the Martin 167F equipped units took place, mainly against the Grumman Martlet (the name that the Fleet Air Arm gave to the Grumman F4F Wildcat). However the French bombers were outnumbered by the Allied's air forces and they suffered heavy casualties as they were easy targets thanks to their identification red-yellow stripes. Some of them served with the Aéronavale, the French Navy's air arm.

Sources:
1. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_167 (translated)
2. AJ-Press - Monografie Lotnicze 96 - Martin 167 Maryland (translated)