French Text

This book tells the story of the two squadrons 1/5 and 2/5, which made up the Groupe de Chasse 1/5 during the Campaign for France. A large part has been devoted to the accounts of the pilots and mechanics, and what they lived through together.

The Groupe was credited with one hundred and eleven probable and confirmed kills by the Armee de l'Air which used a different tally system from both the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, one which often better represented what really happened.

Engaged in September 1939, the GC 1/5 regularly confronted the German Air Force; because of its location, its missions, the relative quality of its machines, the strength, precision and rigor of its officers. and the discipline and expertise of its pilots and mechanics, it was the French unit which shot down the largest number of enemy aircraft. Moreover, of the twenty-six best French tallies obtained between 1939 and 1940, fifteen belonged to pilots from the GC 1/5, each scoring more than six confirmed kills.