Hello, I have been working on a unit history of the 2/5th Queens in France 1940. On 20 May 1940 Abbeville and Bellancourt were bombed. The soldiers were convinced the aircraft were marked in Belgian colours and even made an investigation which concluded this was true. The file reference is from the National Archives: WO167/3819 I have been looking into this. I can't work out how this could be true. I have looked at images of both air forces and see not similarities and can't find any other mention of this from any other unit. Has anyone else come across this claim at all?
Prewar Fairy Aviation Co (Belgium) manufactured Battles under licence at Ghent for the Belgium Air Force.Manufacturing was ongoing at the start of the war...it could have been one of these...was the aircraft type identified? (A number of Fairy Aviation Co (Belgium) employees from Ghent were caught up in the Lancastria evacuation tragedy of 17 June 1940 at St Nazaire)
World War 2 - Belgian Air Force, May/June 1940 By the time of the Belgian surrender on 28 May, just a handful of reconnaissance planes remained operational, covering the last battles along the Lys River. Both British and French air activity was fairly heavy over Belgium, supporting the large forces they had put into the country. TD Belgian Air Force, May 1940 - Luftwaffe and Allied Air Forces Discussion Forum
as it may have happened in France I have below the link for aircraft that 'crashed/shot down' on French soil [although its difficult to know the border lines at the time] so it could be in Belgium on the 20th May 1940 Recherche crash avion 39-45 - France-Crashes 39-45 TD
Hmm - thoguht you might see all the crashes but the details have gone from that link - if you type in the date 20/05/1940 then you have all the aircraft on that day in the various regions in NE France along the Belgium border - if thats where the soldiers were who reported the incident TD
That is great thank you. Seems no Belgian Planes that day crashed, but there is a possibility of a French one. This will take some digging. Thank you all.