Kai , you may find this interesting. I just learnt there were French volunteers to help Finland, the story is almost forgotten because most of these volunteers were kia Belgium and France in may 1940. During the phoney war, the airmen from 1/54 and 2/54 assault squadrons were bored. They heard some echos about war in Finland and wanted to help, so when one of their officers asked them if there were men who wanted to go to Finland, they all volunteered. Arrangements were made in March 1940 with England and they were allowed to station at Tangmere until Norway and Sweden would allow their Squadron to cross their territories. They waited for more than a week and unfortunately by the time they were allowed to fly to Finland a cease fire was signed. They returned to France. A few weeks later, on May 12th they flew to Belgium witht their brand new Brequets 693, but they were totally outnumbered and massacred by flak and fighters. Almost all these brave men were lost within minutes on the Belgium front. Their leader, Sous Lt Delattre was hit above the target, he nevertheless bombed the target, then emptied his guns by straffing Germans collums and when he realised there was nothing else he could do than crash, he deliberately crashed on the collumn causing a huge explosion. That day only two crews returned to their base. There was still hope, but after having waited for many hours, only one phone call arrived from Bapaume (British base in France) where a third aircraft had belly landed with a deadly wounded navigator and a deaf pilot. All the others were either KIA, MIA or POW .

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