Dewoitine D.500

The Dewoitine D.500 was an all-metal, open-cockpit, fixed-undercarriage monoplane fighter aircraft, used by the French Air Force in the 1930s. Introduced in 1936 the aircraft was armed with a 20 mm cannon firing through the propeller hub - instead of two nose-mounted machine guns. The D.500 also served in the Spanish Civil War.

Dewoitine D.500 in The War That Came Early
The Dewoitine made up the bulk of the French Air Force when the German's invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938. Some where shipped south to army the Republicans, but when the German Army charged into the Low Countries they where kept in France for air defence.

Although hopelessly outmatched by the 109, the D.500's where more than capable of taking out bombers, and Dive bombers, as Hans-Ulrich Rudel discovered when a Dewoitine shot down his Stuka.