Other Forces

Fokker G.1 heavy fighter/groundstrike aircraft

The Fokker G.1 was a heavy twin-engine fighter developed by the Dutch Fokker aircraft company in the 1930s. It was comparable in concept at least to the German Me Bf 110. Tests flying suggested that, apart from a heavy fighter role, the G.1 had good prospects of making an effective groundstrike aircraft and dive-bomber. Export versions attracted the interest of a number of countries, including Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Republican Spain but, for various reasons, few had been delivered when WWII broke out, for the Netherlands, on 10 May, 1940. The standard Luftwaffe sweep of enemy airfields at the very beginning of the attack destroyed a number of the limited complement of G.1s available to the Royal Netherlands Air Force. However, the remainder, along with several of the undelivered foreign order aircraft, were mobilised by the Dutch; in the brief, "five day war" they were used mainly as groundstrike aircraft, but were also employed in their fighter role against German bombers and Ju-52 airborne troop carriers. After the Dutch campaign, the Luftwaffe used a number of captured G.1s as trainers for Me Bf 110 pilots into 1942. With its robust construction, good "lift" and significant aerobatic capacities (shown in test flights), the Fokker G.1 seemed to have good potential, if not as a heavy fighter, certainly as a dive-bomber, groundstrike aircraft and coastal defence aircraft. The (temporary) defeat of the Netherlands by Germany after a mere five days, at a time when few G.1s were yet available to the Dutch forces, meant that this potential was never really tested, let alone realised. Best regards, JR.