'Phoney War'
Between the outbreak of war in 1939 and the Battle of France in May 1940, there existed a strange period of inactivity on both sides. The French Army sat on the Maginot Line, a massive defensive line on the German border, to defend against German attack. The British Expeditionary Force spent much of the period training. Neither side made an aggressive move – leading to the nickname of ‘the Phoney War’ being adopted. The Allies prepared for the coming battle, and also dropped propaganda leaflets on German towns.
Pilot Officer Ian Anstey recalled his arrival in France in November 1939, at his Fairey Battle light bomber unit near Rheims and some of the routine of the ‘Phoney War’:
Pilot Officer Ian Anstey
“I was sent to 218 Squadron situated at Auberive where I found another NZer Ian Richmond. We were billeted in Auberive village about one mile from the aerodrome. The Mess was a storeroom over the local grocery come restaurant shop. I slept in the attic of a farmer’s house on the outskirts of the village.
From 29/11/39 to 12/5/40 we spent our time in operational training flights and censoring other ranks’ letters. Life on the whole was rather dull and monotonous, an anti-climax after the declaration of war…
…also during this period the Squadron carried out a night leaflet raid over Germany – I was in isolation at the time, recovering from a bout of German measles – but the rather amusing sequel to the raid was that two nights later the Germans returned our visit and besides dropping a large number of German propaganda leaflets they also returned a few hundred of our own leaflets which we had dropped on them.” 2003/056.A-D
Despite the inactivity, enemy contact occurred and on 2 March 1940, Pilot Officer John Stewart Mitchell of Wellington attacked a German bomber whilst out on patrol and was shot down and killed in his Hurricane fighter. He was the first New Zealander to be lost in the campaign.
