SUMMARY
The change came after the German surprise-capture of the Oslo airfield in
Norway, in April 1940 and although time was desperately short, the cdr Aii-
defence Command managed to convert 'the lessons of Oslo' into the organisation
and the improvement of the airfield defence. Thus the Germans, to their surprise,
met with a generally well-prepared defence during their invasion. General Speidel
states in his study
'In how far the Western powers could have utilised and profited by
the operational knowledge gained from the events in Norway can
remain an open question. But it can be accepted without doubt
that the unexpected resistance met during the airborne operations
against Holland's central defensive position on 10 May 1940 was
based and organised on knowledge gained from the Norway-expe
rience, by the other side'.
Index to the chapters of Volume II:
''The Netherlands Airdefence between 10-ig May 1940', in the series 'History of the
Royal Netherlands Air Force', a project of the Historical Section of the Air Staff
Royal Netherlands Air Force.
The Netherlands Air Force, A.A. artillery, Searchlight Sections and Air Observer
Corps, were unified in Airdefence Command on 1 November 1938. In the
volume an extensive survey is given of the combat actions of all units in Airdefence
Command or detached with other commands during the period 10-19 May 1940.
Chapter I contains a general outline of the organisation, directives and operational
measures effective on 10 May. It further gives a short survey of the types of
equipment in use with the airforce, A.A. artillery, A.A. machine-gun- and
searchlight units. Moreover a short description of RAF and German 'Luftwaffe'
a/c types is given.
Chapters II, III and IV deal with combat actions and other war events on airfields,
air installations and units of respectively the 1st Airforce Regiment, the 2nd
A.F. Regiment and the Air Force Depot (Air Training Command and A.F.
regiment, including 3 Flying Training Schools stationed at the airfields).
Chapter V describes combat actions on the auxilliary airfield Ockenburgh (a few
miles South-west of the capital The Hague) and Valkenburg airfield (under
construction, a few miles North of The Hague)Both airfields were not in use with
the Netherlands Airforce and were captured by German para- and airborne
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