Description

The Fokker D.21 was not one of the large fighter aircraft of the Second World War, but for three small neutral countries this aircraft was the most numerous fighter when they were attacked by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939 and 1940. This makes the D.21 numerically and historically the most important Dutch aircraft from that crucial period: more important than the famous Fokker G-1, the striking twin-engine fighter that was ultimately only used in the Netherlands, and which did no better in the May days of 1940 than the D.21, which demanded less manpower and resources. In Finnish service, the D.21 even made it to a footnote in world history, only to continue fighting as an old front-line soldier until 1944 in a hopeless war in the forests of East Karelia.

The D.21 is therefore a not unimportant aircraft, but there are certainly not a whole bookcase full of books about this Fokker. Meritorious smaller publications deal with the Dutch and Finnish D.21s, but for a comprehensive description of this aircraft from the first sketches in 1935 to the last flights in 1947, the Dutch reader has had to fall back on a volume from the Dutch Aircraft Encyclopedia by Hugo Hooftman, a series that enjoys an almost legendary status among enthusiasts, but which is outdated in text and images.