The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

The second part of Case Red, the attack by Army Group A, was launched
on 9 June. Once again, Hitler was unable to resist interfering with Halder’s
plans, insisting that Army Group A first secure the iron ore basin in
Lorraine, the source of France’s armament industry, before turning on the
bulk of the French forces. What Hitler failed to understand was that by
destroying the French army, there would be no more armament industry.
As it happened, the French now collapsed so quickly that both Halder’s
and Hitler’s aims were achieved at the same time. On 11 June, Churchill
flew to France with Eden, Dill, Ismay, and his representative in France,
Edward Spears, to Weygand’s new headquarters in Briare on the Loire. That
night they met with the Comité de Guerre, Churchill urging them on and
promising twenty and more divisions in 1941. Weygand said they needed
that number in hours, not next year. Later, over a brandy man to man,
Reynaud confessed to Churchill that Pétain believed the time had come to
seek an armistice.
They prepared to leave the following morning, having agreed nothing
but an undertaking to try to organize some kind of redoubt in Brittany. At
the rather desolate airfield at Briare, Hastings Ismay tried to dissuade
Churchill again from committing any more troops to France, but the Prime
Minister would have none of it. Ismay, like so many others, felt the French
had found it all too easy to blame the British for everything that had gone
wrong. He also expressed his belief that Britain would be better off without
the French. Churchill, his spirit and optimism for once deserting him,
replied that in three months’ time, he and Ismay would both be dead.
His prophecy was nearly fulfilled that morning. With nine-tenths cloud,
it was too dangerous to have a fighter escort. Churchill, impatient to return
to London, decided they should fly anyway. As they flew out towards the
coast, they spotted two German aircraft bombing ships below. By enormous
good fortune, the German pilots never looked up.
Thirty-six hours later, Reynaud asked Churchill to fly out again, this
time to Tours, where he had now based the Government. The weather was
bad once again, but the Prime Minister brushed aside concerns and flew
anyway, taking Ismay, Halifax and his close friend Max Beaverbrook with
him. They met in a small prefecture, Reynaud looking ashen and aged in
that brief day and a half. Weygand wanted to surrender, Reynaud told them,
but still hoped he might persuade them to fight on if only the Americans