Invasion Of The Low Countries -and The Little Ships Of Dunkirk

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INVASION OF THE LOW COUNTRIES -AND THE LITTLE SHIPS OF DUNKIRK


WWII* Chapter4
In May 10th 1940, when the much-postponed and frequently amended Fall Gelb (Case Yellow) plan for the invasion of Holland, Belgium and France was put into effect, the land forces of Germany totalled 157 divisions, 49 more than there had been when Poland had been attacked at the beginning of September 1939. Seven were fighting in Norway, one was occupying Denmark, ten were keeping watch between the Carpathians and the Baltic. Three more were still training in Germany. The remaining 136 were committed to the great offensive in the West that was to prove to be France's greatest humiliation.
The Luftwaffe remained dominant in the air, being able to put into action 3,634 front line aircraft, of which 1,016 were fighters and the rest, 1,562, bombers. The latest French fighter aircraft - the sleek, fast Dewoitine 520 and the Bloch 151 - were both too few and too late to be effective in the battle, and most of the fighters of RAF Fighter Command were at home awaiting the inevitable attack on Britain - there were in fact 130 RAF fighters and 160 British bombers in Europe, many of them hopelessly out of date and outclassed by the modern aircraft of the Luftwaffe .
Allied land forces totalled 135 divisions against the 136 fielded by the Germans - 94 French, 10 British, 22 Belgian and 9 Dutch - but, according to military observers of the time, many of the French divisions were made up of poorly trained, ill-disciplined and unwilling conscripts. Thus the balance of power was not as the figures suggest. France had, at that time, mobilised one man in eight. Britain, by contrast, had mobilised one in forty-eight, but her army was more effective, professional in outlook and prepared to fight.


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