Marcel Bloch escapes France in 1940.

[Lascaris]

For something a little different. Marcel Bloch is found outside France at the time France falls in 1940 for one reason or other. He does not get back to Vichy occupied France and joins Free France.

On a personal level its certainly better for Dassault to be, he barely survived Buchenwald OTL. Its not either that the Western allies are exactly short of talented aircraft engineers. Yet a man of Bloch's talents is not exactly likely to be sitting idle in London between 1940 and the end of the war. He'll be designing/helping design and bring to production "something" most likely multiple somethings either in Britain or the United States.

Then come 1944 he's back in France, in even closer connection to the technological developments that took lace during the war. And perhaps a little less averse to common projects than he was in OTL.

Thoughts?

 

[GTX]

In this scenario, would he have changed his name post war I wonder?

 

[Archibald]

There are many examples of lesser-known French aerospace engineers going in exile during WWII. I checked a boatload of them for France Fights On. Felix Amiot got one hell of a baroque fate. Dewoitine is best known - and both ignoble and completely unfair at the same time.
The two major roadblocks are
- the language bareer
- the imperial unit bareer
More generally, it is hard, even for the best of the best, to find a home place in a foreign country aerospace industry.
Bloch was saved by the communists, a huge irony that escaped nobody, not even himself. Communists resistants helped saving his life in Buchenwald, and he was such a good man, Marcel Dassault, even as a right wing grand patron he threw money at the PCF, year after year until the end of his life, in 1986.

Marcel Bloch had an elder brother in the French military and La Résistance, Darius Paul Bloch, who took the name Chardesseau (not sure of the exact spelling and meaning) which later become Dassault.

 

[Michel Van]

I play with That in very Nasty way

in "Kaiserreich a TimeLine"
The German Empire manage just to Win WW1 and France suffers under Treaty of Potsdam in 1920s
Marcel Block has hard time, issue with Treaty over Aircraft production and rise of antisemitism in France after the War
after several attacks on his family and new French Communist Government nationalized his company.

Marcel Bloch has enough of this and leave France, move to German Empire to work at Ernst Heinkel Flugzeugwerke AG
He change his name to Marcel Stürmer, in 1950s he develop most advance Fighter of his time the "Blitz"
later years he is one of Top manager at Heinkel while he is label as "the Mozart of Aviation design" by germans aircraft engineers.

 

[dan_inbox]

Marcel Bloch had an elder brother in the French military and La Résistance, Darius Paul Bloch, who took the name Chardesseau (not sure of the exact spelling and meaning) which later become Dassault.

Général de corps d'armée Darius Bloch joined the résistance and took the nom de guerre "Charre d'assault", which was a pun: Char d'assault means tank, and "charre" meant joke at that time. Now charre is obsolete and survives only a little in the locution "arrête tes charres", stop kidding me. Nowadays Bloch's pseudo is mostly misunderstood and mis-reported as "chardasso" by later-born people who miss the pun.

Marcel Bloch took the name Dassault from his brother's warname after his repatriation from Buchenwald, when he was treated by Catholic nuns (for a near-deadly typhus IIRC) who convinced him to convert and "take a Christian name". Darius and Marcel took the name Dassault in 1949.

 

[Lascaris]

There are many examples of lesser-known French aerospace engineers going in exile during WWII. I checked a boatload of them for France Fights On. Felix Amiot got one hell of a baroque fate. Dewoitine is best known - and both ignoble and completely unfair at the same time.
The two major roadblocks are
- the language bareer
- the imperial unit bareer
More generally, it is hard, even for the best of the best, to find a home place in a foreign country aerospace industry.
Bloch was saved by the communists, a huge irony that escaped nobody, not even himself. Communists resistants helped saving his life in Buchenwald, and he was such a good man, Marcel Dassault, even as a right wing grand patron he threw money at the PCF, year after year until the end of his life, in 1986.

Marcel Bloch had an elder brother in the French military and La Résistance, Darius Paul Bloch, who took the name Chardesseau (not sure of the exact spelling and meaning) which later become Dassault.

Purely on technical grounds his MB.157 would be offering a solution to beating FW190... assuming he was able to spirit away the blueprints if not the prototype itself in his escape from France, which is contingent on the circumstances of his escape and it can be adapted to a US engine which is probably doable.

Of course this leaves the minor issue of getting either the RAF or the US interested in the plane and actually getting it in production. Which seems... difficult.

 

[riggerrob]

WI Marcel Bloche emigrated to Quebec and worked for Fairchild of Canada or Canadian Vickers in Montreal? That would solve half of his communications problems.
Though snobbish British and Scottish engineers would have difficulty believing that a mere Frenchman had anything to contribute.

 

[FFX]

There are many examples of lesser-known French aerospace engineers going in exile during WWII. I checked a boatload of them for France Fights On. Felix Amiot got one hell of a baroque fate. Dewoitine is best known - and both ignoble and completely unfair at the same time.
The two major roadblocks are
- the language bareer
- the imperial unit bareer
More generally, it is hard, even for the best of the best, to find a home place in a foreign country aerospace industry.
Bloch was saved by the communists, a huge irony that escaped nobody, not even himself. Communists resistants helped saving his life in Buchenwald, and he was such a good man, Marcel Dassault, even as a right wing grand patron he threw money at the PCF, year after year until the end of his life, in 1986.

Marcel Bloch had an elder brother in the French military and La Résistance, Darius Paul Bloch, who took the name Chardesseau (not sure of the exact spelling and meaning) which later become Dassault.

Chardesseau =char d'assaut?