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In fact this
aircraft had an interesting past. Roughly I remember that between
flight of first production machine on 31 October 1939 and the
Armistice of 1940, the French AdlA had received 403 of the 437
manufactured machines. But on 10 May 1940 the number of aircraft
in units was just a little better than nothing... Later, German
authorities permitted to the Vichy Régime the continuation of
the type and so the first aircraft built after Armistice was
flown at the end of July 1941 followed by more than 450 machines
until production ceased a few after Germans invaded South of
France in November 1942. They seized 250 to 300 D.520s of which
some were used by Luftwaffe as advanced fighter trainers but
Germany also delivered machines to Romania and Bulgaria, Italy
acquiring 72 machines of which a part was deployed in Central
Italia and participated to the Napoli Defence...
Our C/n 862 was one of the 150 Dewoitine 520s built for Germans
following an agreement, signed on 28 July 1941, establishing that
France had to build 2,275 aircraft of various types for the Reich...
In 1944, after Germans had been ejected from Toulouse where the
type was produced, our aircraft was taken by French Partisans
having fought Nazis on their invaded soil and incorporated with
an indigenous flying unit they had quickly evolved, the so called
'Groupe Doret' (Marcel Doret was the Chief Test Pilot of
Dewoitine and so before war tested the parasol fighters of the
firm and low-wing D.500s, 501s, 510s and 520s... The Group
participated, with its C/n 862 being aircraft N°5, to the Battle
for Royan, a town and its neighbourhood located north of the
Gironde Estuary along the Atlantic Ocean where Germans
frantically resisted to Allies during nine months. The D.520
fighters of this Group, it embodied several types of aircraft
including Junkers Ju 88, were incorporated to GC II/18 'Saintonge'
formed during 1944 which became a few later GC I/8 with the same
French province name. Next the aircraft passed to School Base 704
and went on 17 September 1948 to EPAA 58 at Etampes-Mondésir
before his last stay at Amiens as said with picture 9.
