Apart from a few somehow modern planes, the majority of the Dutch LVA consisted of old bi-planes. One example of them was the Fokker C.X reconnaissance plane, also used as a light bomber. It was quite difficult to stay alive in the German-dominated sky of may 10th 1940 and the following short story showed how this was usually accomplished. This particular C.X was attacked by a Bf110 near Sassenheim.
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We learned our lesson in the morning, so we le the German fly straight to us until the moment we thought he was going to shoot. At that moment we made a short 90° turn, so that the Messerschmitt passed us at high speed and his colorful tracer rounds disappeared in nowhere. The bell-tower of the church in Sassenheim showed to be an excellent orientation point and we kept on flying around it in short circles while the German was orbiting around us in a wide elliptical way. The flower breeders in Sassenheim were leaning on their shovels and looked at the show, while the tracers flew around their heads. After 15 minutes, the German pilot had enough and disappeared. Never will I forget that the whole tower in Sassenheim is made of solid bricks.
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The funny thing is, the old LVA biplanes never suffered as much casualties as the more modern D.XXI, G.I and T.V squadrons.
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"I'm no hero. Soldiers on the ground, they are heroes. In an aircraft you can always evade the bullets."
-Jan Linzel, Dutch fighter pilot
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