ABSTRACT
The fears of Fighter Command are reflected in the correspondence between Air Chief Marshal Dowding and the Air Council in September 1939, those of the Air Staff in the refusal to promise more than a small number of squadrons to the French. The probability is that Air Chief Marshal Dowding was formally repeating and expanding for the benefit of the Air Council the views that he had expressed the previous day before the War Cabinet. Pressure from France continued to be exerted on the following day, notably in a telephone message from M. Reynaud in which he acknowledged the squadrons that had already been despatched, but asked for ten more squadrons to be sent, if possible, that same day. The War Cabinet went some way to meet him and instructed the CAS to take preparatory steps for the early despatch of ten fighter squadrons in case they were needed to cover a counter-attack.
