This is the Bloch MB-152 which was the best fighter employed by the Greek Air Force against the Italians and Germans. It was a French design and incorporated a Gnome-Rhone air cooled engine of about 1100 hp. The engine didn't have all the 'bugs' worked out of it at the time of the Italian invasion and suffered from overheating issues on occasion.

The aircraft had four 7.5 mm machine guns, retractable gear and respectable speed and endurance. It was competitive with the best Italian fighter aircraft, though not as maneuverable as most. Against the Germans it was outclassed by the Messcherschmitt 109.

Still, the Greek pilots using it managed to knock down a fair amount of Italian and some German bombers and fighters. Unfortunately for the Greeks, they only had one squadron of these fighters.

Another view of the Greek Bloch 152. The Greeks had tried to purchase American F4F Wildcat fighters prior to the start of the war-and had actually paid for about 20 of them. But the US kept the cash and-feeling that Greece was a "lost cause" to the Germans-rerouted the fighters to Britain!

The Greek Air Force also looked at the Russian Polikarpov I-16 design, but decided the French Bloch was a good selection with more reliable spares deliveries and technical support. Probably a correct decision.

This aircraft appears to incorporate both machine guns as well as 20 mm cannon. The Bloch used both a 4 x 7.5 mm machine gun mix as well as half-and-half machine guns with cannon, depending on the mission. This is an actual Greek aircraft, so the Greeks apparently armed their aircraft for the mission at hand as well!

Another aircraft used by the Greek Air Force was the Polish PZL24. It employed a inverted gull-wing layout with fixed landing gear. It had the same Gnome-Rhone engine as the MB-152 fighter.

These aircraft were generally outclassed by the latest Italian designs in air-to-air combat. But they were used extensively for ground attack missions, reconnaisance and the like. Against the Italian CR-42 biplane, they were evenly matched and the better pilot won the day. But against Macchi 200, 202 and 205 fighters the Greek pilot was in for a tough fight. Superior maneuverability of the PZL24 gave the Greek a fighting chance, but he had to be a good pilot to win.

Against the German aircraft they were cannon fodder. Relegated to ground attack only.

They carried 4 machine guns and could have a glass cockpit canopy added in cold weather.

Probably the best bomber employed by the Greek Air Force was the British Bristol Blenheim Light Bomber. It was similar in capability to the American A-20 Havoc light bomber. It had a crew of three-Pilot, bombardier/navigator and rear gunner. It could carry up to four 500 Kg bombs or a greater amount of smaller size bombs.

It was mainly used by the Greeks to bomb Italian supply yards and lines of communication in the north. Some escaped to Alexandria, Egypt when Crete fell and formed the core of a Free Greek Squadron in the British Air Force.

Another Light Bomber used by the HAF was the Potez 633, a French design. It employed two 800 HP Gnome-Rhone radial engines and could carry 400 Kg's of bombs. Had a crew of thee-Pilot, Navigator/Radio Operator and Rear Gunner. Only 11 were delivered to Greece though they had bought 24-the other 13 were embargoed when France fell to the Germans.

In this rare picture, a British Air Sergeant and a Greek mechanic stand in front of a HAF Potez 633.

The HAF also had a few Avro Anson light bombers. Here is a rare pic of one which escaped to Alexandria-along with 4 other Ansons and a few Blenheims and Potez bombers.

These bombers were outmoded at the start of the war and really too light and unprotected to be used for first line combat. Accordingly, they were mostly used in the reconnaisance role over the Adriatic sea-identifying naval targets for the Greek navy to attack.

Very complete info about our AF in WWII. I never new much about it, this helps alot. Great post!

:damn: :drink2: Have we learned nothing??

Greece had paid for 139 new aircraft just prior to the war-and never received them. The F4F's were just part of that order. I don't know what the other aircraft were. Just think of what we could have done with the rest of those aircraft-especially against the Germans. :angry:

Stupid yanks,we paid for the planes and they did give them to us :damn: :wall:

With 139 planes we would gave Germany a serious ass wiping

Not all of those 139 aircraft were from US companies, but certainly the 30 Grumman F4F's Greece had ordered would have been a big help.

Still, the Greeks have to take a lot of the blame. They waited far too long to upgrade their military while other nations were rearming. Certainly money had a lot to do with it and the Greeks had little, but most of the nations who fought in WW2 borrowed heavily to rebuild their militaries. The Greeks did as well, but they waited too long to start.

In fairness to America, they probably made the correct choice. By the time the F4F's could have been delivered the war in Greece had been lost. Instead, those planes went to the English who continued the war against the Nazi's and Italians.

And, after WW2 to make amends the US sold Greek shipping firms American 'Liberty' and 'Victory' cargo ships for very low rates to help rebuild the Hellenic maritime shipping industry. Guys like Onassis and Niarchos really benefitted from those deals. So, it's not like the Greeks never were compensated for their expenditures.

Landos, you're putting me on an emotional roller coaster :rolleyes: First you make me pissed at the Hot Dogs, then you make me feel good about them! :dump:

But all things together, we got screwed for our efforts after the victory especialy re. N. Epirus

For all the Greeks did in WW2, they never got fair compensation. Greece was the only nation outside of Britain in early 1941 fighting the Nazi's and the Italians. The Albanians rolled, the Bulgarians accomodated, the Serbians got steamrolled in a few days, the Rumanians essentially did Germany's bidding, Czechoslovakia crumbled, Hungary joined the Axis powers, Austria goosestepped, the Swiss made money-like always, the Dutch caved in a few days, the Belgians sat this one out, the French got blitzkrieged and the Spaniards made buddy-buddy. Only Greece on the continent stood and said, "Oxi!", at least in the Spring, 1941. The Poles did the same thing in 1940.

And let it be noted that Metaxas said Greece was going to make it's stand REGARDLESS of what the Brits did or did not do. The Greeks were unprepared, but not unwilling. We stood and faught and today we are taken for granted by the US. The Turks sold the Nazi's vital war minerals that kept the German war machine going an extra year (according to Albert Speer) and today they are America's "strategic ally". Go figure. How many American boys lost their life the last year of the war in Europe?

Another pic of the Hellenic PZL P-24 fighter.

Another pic of the Bloch fighter used by Greeks against the Italians and Germans. This one obviously in a non-standard landing configuration.

Just wondering on the exact chronology of when Greece wanted these planes.

If Greece had these planes before the "attempted" Italian invasion perhaps the Italians would of thought twice about invading.If so Greece may have missed the war and the civil war! :(

Greece was very late to rearm for WW2. They only started buying modern weapons in 1939 and 1940.

I believe the F4F's were ordered in early 1940 for delivery late in the year and early 1941. By then, Greece was at war and the US instead provided those aircraft to the Brits.

US compensated Greece after the war by selling Greek shipping firms-including Onassis and Niarchos-Liberty ships are bargain basement prices to help rebuild the Greek merchant shipping industry.

The order for the F4f-3A Wildcat was placed at May 8 1940. The first plane left the production line at March 18 1941 and the production was also end in March. They were shiped and reached Gibraltat at April 4 (!) 1941 were they were confiscated by the Royal Navy.

Well, we shouldn't get down on the Brits. The swiped our F4F's, but they compensated us by giving the Greek Air Force second hand Gloster Gladiators!

:help:

Dont forget.
We went for the F4f-3 AFTER They kept our ordered Spitfires AND part of the payment! :dump:

The Brits have a long history of piracy, especially against Hellenes. They are not to be trusted. Ever.

I called stupidity.
They, and the French, could have stop Hitler at the "Sudetenland incident" But they didn't had the courage.

Maybe the EVA was outmatched against the Axis in terms of numbers of aircraft and aircraft quality, but Greek pilots had skill and shot down lots of Axis aircraft. I believe that the numbers are as follows:

The total air-to-air kill ratio was 113-19 in favor of the EVA. Understand this: The EVA had only 29 active fighters at the start of the Italian invasion in November, 1940. This is because the two fighters in service, the P24 from Poland, and the MB 151 from France, were both from two countries that made early exits from the war, and spare parts dried up quickly. The EVA's ground crews were cannibalizing spare parts from aircraft to keep smaller numbers airworthy. It is amazing that they were able to keep 29 available.

Also, only 6 MB 151 were delivered before France was knocked out of the war. Only 24 of the 36 P24s were flyable by November, 1940.

So with only 29 fighters, plus the arrival of Gloster Gladiators from Britain to replace attritted aircraft in 21 Mira, the EVA's four fighter squadrons 21,22, 23, and 24 Miras, shot down 113 Axis aircraft while never having more than 40 pilots and 29 aircraft on line through the German invasion in April, '41. They lost only 19 in air-to-air combat, the rest being destroyed in strafing attacks or lost in accidents or to lack of spare parts.

Those Axis aircraft shot down include: (I may be a bit off on numbers since I don't have my files with we when I write this)

51 fighters, including several Macchi MC 200s, about 35 CR 42s and G50s, 3-4 Bf 109s.

Over 50 bombers, mostly the Cant Z1007, of which over 20 were shot down. Several SM 79s and SM 81s, and a few Ju87 Stuka dive bombers, too.

The highest scoring EVA squadron was 22 and 23, when they combined their pilots and aircraft (in December, I think), which shot down 72 aircraft, including 35 fighters and 37 bombers). 21 Mira shot down about 25-30 aircraft, mostly bombers. They started with the P24, but then the P24s were all given to the 22/23 Mira and 21 Mira received the Gloster Gladiator. 24 Mira had the MB 151, only 5 of which were ever airworthy, and they shot down about 10 aircraft, again, mostly bombers.

The EVA had over 20 pilots that show down at least 1 Axis aircraft, and at least 6 pilots were aces, each having shot down 5 or 6 Axis aicraft. They only name I can remember is Mitralexis, who shot down 6 himself.

They made quite a show for having such a small force. There's a lot to be proud of there!

For those who don't know, EVA means Elleniki Vassiliki Aeroporia, or Royal Hellenic Air Force.

OYK1

OYK, I have never read statistics like that. They certainly show a one-sided record. Can you state your references for those numbers? I'd like to follow up with more research-this is an interest of mine.

I borrowed this post from another forum. Kornet was the poster:


The Greek air force meets the Axis

One pilot's brave exploits set the tone for Greece's six-month struggleagainst the Axis

ON THE MORNING of 2 November 1940, the Royal Hellenic Air Force's 22 Pursuit Mira (squadron) based at Thessaloniki scrambled to meet an incoming Italian air raid. None of the squadron's eight front-line pilots knew quite what to expect. None had any combat experience or even combat training. Just five days before, Greece had been plunged into World War II. Italian land forces were advancing over the Albanian border. Their bombers were already pounding Greece's cities.

Among those who climbed nervously into the cockpits of their Polish-built PZL-24 fighters was Pilot Officer (Second Lieutenant) Marinos Mitralexis. That morning it fell to 22 Mira to tangle with the Regia Aeronautica's three-engined CantZ-1007 bombers of 50 Gruppo near Thessaloniki.

Mitralexis got in a machinegun burst at one bomber, sending it weaving erratically around the sky. He didn't know it, but his first fire had killed the Italian pilot, Lieutenant Pasqualetto, and the rest of the crew were trying to keep the lumbering bomber aloft. Mitralexis fired again but missed and soon ran out of ammunition, cursing his bad luck.

Mitralexis' wingman, Sergeant (later Wing Commander) Constantine Lambropoulos, described what happened next: "I was pretty close to Mitralexis and saw him fly his plane straight into the Italian. It was the most magnificent thing I've ever seen."

In one of those gestures often seen in war that defy rational analysis, Mitralexis aimed the nose of his PZL right into the CantZ's tail, smashing the rudder and sending the plane out of control. By some miracle, the bomber made a level landing near the village of Gerakarou, and the four dazed survivors staggered out.

They met a daunting sight. A mob of peasants was descending on them, knives and pickaxes in hand, seemingly determined to finish them off. They heard a shout and saw a diminutive Greek air force officer in flying gear drawing his pistol and warning the villagers away. This was none other than Mitralexis, who had nursed his PZL to earth with nothing worse than a bent propeller. He shepherded the four grateful Italians, now prisoners, to his base on foot.

All Greece thrilled to the exploit. Mitralexis was promoted to Flying Officer (First Lieutenant) and decorated. Artists' impressions, some verging on the fanciful, filled the newspapers and magazines. The midair collision even appeared on a postage stamp.

Constantine Hatzilakos was one of those whose morale rocketed. As an air cadet at the Tatoi air force academy, he and his classmates itched to get into action. With the first air raids they had been ordered to wear their tin hats and man the base's anti-aircraft defences. They had been taught to fly on docile British-made Avro Tutor biplanes, and couldn't wait to grab the controls of the glamorous PZL.

"The PZL's engine made a ferocious noise passing overhead," recalls Hatzilakos, now 88, and a retired air marshal. "It could even do aerobatics and gave our morale a huge boost."

The Tatoi academy was deluged by applicants.

The Royal Hellenic Air Force (RHAF) certainly needed all the morale it could whip up. Rarely has an air force gone into battle as aerially outgunned as the Greeks were in 1940. Whereas the ground forces on the Albanian front (contrary to what is generally believed in Greece) were about equally matched, the RHAF could field just 52 battle-worthy fighters and 27 medium bombers. The Regia Aeronautica, by contrast, had more than 380 fighters and bombers available for Greek operations, their crews' dogfighting skills honed in the Spanish Civil War.

The Greek mainstay was the PZL-24, a strange gull-winged plane made in Poland featuring a rugged structure and twin 20mm Oerikon cannons. There were also some French-built Bloch MB250s and Potez 633 twin-engined bombers, but they did not play much of a part in the fighting. More effective in Greece's bomber force were the British-built Bristol Blenheim IVs of 31 Mira, which hammered some Italian bases in Albania, inflicting considerable casualties.

The Italians had the cream of their aircraft industry in the air. Besides the CantZs, there were Savoia-Marchetti SM79 Sparviero bombers and SM81s, also three-engined and bristling with defences. Escorting them were Fiat CR32 and CR42 biplanes and sleek and deadly all-metal Fiat G50 Freccia monoplanes. They could roam practically at will over the northwest Greek mountains. Among the Italian bomber pilots were the Duce's sons, Bruno and Vittorio, and the foreign minister himself, Count Galeazzo Ciano, captaining CantZs of 47 Stormo that bombed the port of Thessaloniki, causing dozens of casualties.

Greece's pilots hadn't time to think about the heavy odds against them in the first days of hostilities. On the same day that Mitralexis did his death-defying feat, 22 Mira was scrambled a second time to meet 27 Italian bombers escorted by 18 fighters. Sergeant Lambropoulos, flying a venerable British Gloster Gladiator I biplane, was rattled by the size of the attacking force. Nonetheless, he made a beeline for a formation of five Fiats and sent one spinning down. But he found himself in the fight of his life. "Just when I thought all was lost," he wrote, "I tried a repeat of what I'd seen Mitralexis do that morning."

But the wheeling Fiat was a harder target than the straight-flying CantZ. "I stalled, and the Fiats were all around me firing. I got hit on my right side, right arm and right leg. My plane caught fire and I lost consciousness, reviving to find myself in a spin. With all my remaining strength, I pulled the Gladiator back on an even keel, then turned it upside down to bale out more easily."

But the battered fighter wouldn't give up its pilot. The lace on Lambropoulos' left flying boot got caught in the Gladiator's seat frame and he couldn't get out. The plane resumed its vertical dive, the pilot pinned against the fuselage outside the cockpit and unable to move. He was saved, ironically, by a shell that exploded in the cockpit. Shrapnel sliced through the bootlace, miraculously leaving his foot unhurt. "Barefoot but free, I found myself outside the plane. A few moments later, before my parachute could open, my plane broke into a thousand pieces."

Even then he was not out of danger. The Fiats kept on firing at Lambropoulos as he drifted down. They didn't hit him, but his parachute was holed in 52 places.

The first real aerial battle of the Albanian campaign occurred on 30 October 1940, when five Fiat CR42s of 393 Squadriglia jumped a lone Greek Henschel Hs-126 observation plane, slow and vulnerable. The pilot, Pilot Officer Evanghelos Giannaris, didn't have a chance. He was the first Greek airman to die in World War II.

The RHAF's mission was to provide air cover for the Greek 8th Division that was bearing the brunt of the Italian land incursion. The crack Julia Alpine division, in mountain fighting, had created a salient near Metsovo and was on the way to outflanking the Greek defence from the east. No one knew where the Julia was, until an ancient Breguet 19 of 2 Army Cooperation Mira, flown by Pilot Officer Dimitris Karakitsos with Sergeant Ioannis Katsoulas as observer, stumbled on its leading columns. Their report enabled the Greek army to entrap the Julia division and effectively knock it out of the fight.

By then the snow was setting in, and the RHAF performed feats of ingenuity to keep their overworked planes in the air. Supplies and spare parts were running low, fuel was scarce and combat attrition was telling. By January 1941 the RHAF was down to just 28 fighters and a mere seven bombers, despite strong reinforcements from Britain's Royal Air Force.

In March, Flying Officer George Stavraetos of 31 Mira set off in his Potez 633 to bomb enemy artillery positions. After laying a clutch of 500-pound bombs, he flew smack into a formation of new Macchi MC200 fighters. His navigator/observer, Flying Officer Nikos Volonakis, reported: "We were corkscrewing wildly away when we felt violent hits on the wings and fuselage."

The Potez's port engine caught fire and the whole plane juddered. Stavraetos turned to his navigator. "Jump, Nikos, jump," he said. "There's nothing more we can do." As Volonakis baled out, the plane went into a flat spin.

"I saw the skipper jump from the plane which was now completely aflame," he wrote. "But his parachute didn't open. My God!" He saw nothing more as he floated into cloud. Stavraetos' body was found in the snow, his parachute unopened. He had a large wound in his chest, suggesting that he had been hit and unable to pull the ripcord.

In early 1941 it was clear the end was closing in. The Germans invaded Greece in April. On April 20, a few RHAF and RAF units battled the Luftwaffe above Athens just before the city's fall. RAF Squadron Leader John Pattle went up in his Hurricane, fighting off fatigue and a fever, and downed no fewer than 23 German planes before being shot down and killed himself.

At least 37 Greek aircraft were downed in Greece's six-month struggle against the Axis. Greek sources place Italian losses in the same period at 105 confirmed. Greek pilots carried out a total of 23,200 combat flying hours. 51 Greek aircrew died in action.

Mitralexis and the majority of surviving RHAF officers managed to escape occupied Greece and head for North Africa to join the free Greek forces fighting alongside the British in Hurricanes and Spitfires. Three years after the war, he was killed when an Airspeed Oxford he was riding in crashed into the sea on a flight between Rhodes and Athens.

Landos,

Since I posted that information, I did some follow-up research and found some conflicts with the data as well. First of all, the source for the numbers of EVA air to air victories came from a Czech (I believe) researcher named Jan Safarik who posted his data on a website. I don't have the website handy but will try to get it to you. He posted every Axis aircraft shot down or damaged by EVA pilots, with the EVA pilot's name(where available). Another website claimed that EVA pilots shot down 64 Axis aircraft (these confirmed through data collected from Italian and German records) plus numerous other aircraft damaged in air to air action.

Perhaps the listings include kills where two or more pilots shot down a bomber, or other multi-aircraft engagements. Regardless, at least 64 kills have been confirmed through records as being credited to EVA pilots from November 1, 1940 through the end of April, 1941. Most of the air battles took place in November-December, 1940 and in April, 1941, with few sorties flown between those dates.

EVA aces include the following:

Mitralexis: 6 victories
Agryropoulos: 6 victories
several more with 3-4 victories, and over 20 pilots with at least one victory.

And the loss of 19 aircraft shot down in air to air battles has been confirmed through EVA records, as at the start of the campaign, the EVA had only about 29 fighters available; most were grounded due to spare parts shortages. So a 64-19 victory rate is pretty impressive, considering the small size, the difficulty in keeping aircraft airworthy, the small number of pilots (about 40-45), and the majority of the fighters (P.24) having no performance advantage over any Axis fighters (only the Italian CR42 was comparable in performance. All other Axis fighters had speed advantages and at least parity in maneuverability to the P.24). The MB 151 were probably the best fighters the EVA had available, but only 6 had been delivered from France before France surrendered in June, 1940, and the reliability of the MB 151 was really low. Only 5 were airworthy at the start of the Italian invasion.

EVA pilots did some damage with the Gloster Gladiators delivered as attrition replacements for the P.24s by Britain. They shot down some 13 Axis aircraft, mostly bombers, with Gladiators, losing 4 in combat.

Even if 64 is the accepted number, 64-19 is a good 3 to 1 ratio. Those 19 aircraft are fighters (P.24s, MB 151, and Gloster Gladiators) I don't know about bombers and recce aircraft. That could account for the 37 losses. And the 105 Italian losses can help account for the claims made by Jan Safarik. It is also acknowledged that Greek pilots showed considerable skill as RAF pilots in north Africa. Perhaps the only foreign pilots that performed as well as Greek pilots in the RAF were Polish pilots.

The real problem was the Gnome-Rhone engine, which tended to overheat. It never got the bugs worked out of it before Germany invaded France and the Greeks acquired only early Block 151 fighters with all the problems still in them.

Still, it was the best fighter the Greeks had. If they'd managed to pick up the 25 of them (approx) they had on order-plus spare engines-they could have done a lot more damage to the Italians in particular.

Against the Messcherschmitt 109 the MB 151 was definitely at a disadvantage. But it would have been effective against the German bombers. Still, Greece would never had had enough of them to make a difference.

Still, regardless of the qualitative and quantitative disadvantages the EVA had against the Axis, they still performed well and showed considerable skill and training, which reflects in the number of Axis aircraft they shot down