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Pilot Accidentally Lands in Enemy Airfield and Other Historic Mistakes

Khalid Elhassan October 5, 2020 31 min

Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger - Focke-Wulf — Fw 190 dogfighting a Spitfire over the English Channel. Pintrest

15. France’s 1940 Oops Moment

France was traumatized by World War I, and by the massive devastation suffered by the parts of the country that had been fought over. So the French devised a plan to avoid repetition: construct a powerful and well-nigh impregnable line of fortifications along the border with Germany. Designated the Maginot Line, the fortifications were intended to secure the Franco-German border to the south. In the meantime, the bulk of the mobile French army was stationed in the north.

Cross section of a Maginot Line segment. Fine Art America

If war broke out, the Maginot Line would hold the Germans in the south. While that was going on, the mobile French army in the north would advance into Belgium as soon as the Germans attacked, to fight as far forward and outside of France as possible. In one of history’s greatest oops moments, the French were about to discover that their plan was not nearly as good as they had imagined it to be.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.