Breguet 521 - Operational History

Operational History

After the first flight in September 1933, 37 aircraft were produced, which served with five squadrons of the French Navy from 1935 until 1940. Two squadrons remained in service with the Vichy Navy after the armistice, at Berre in Southern France and Karouba in Tunisia, with six aircraft each. The German Luftwaffe purchased a number of Bizertes for its Seenotdienst (Air-Sea Rescue service in 1940, which (in addition to the three undelivered Bizertes) it used to equip a squadron based at Brest on the French Atlantic coast. When Vichy France was occupied by the Germans following the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, the remaining Vichy Bizertes were taken over by the Luftwaffe, allowing further Seenotdienst units to be established at Biscarrosse and Berre. Following the Allied Invasion of Southern France in August 1944, one of the Luftwaffe Bizertes was discovered by French forces and used for communications duties until spares ran out.

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