The D.520 began life in 1936 as Emile Dewoitine’s personal project to construct a fighter equivalent to the British Spitfire and Hurricane. The prototype flew in October 1938 – the engine overheated and the aircraft was not able to reach 520 km/h as hoped for. The design bureau went back to work on several modifications, notably repositioning the radiator under the fuselage. Further tests were conclusive: the D.520 was now able to reach 550 Km/h. Even if its performance was inferior to those of the Spitfire and Bf-109, it outclassed the latter in maneuverability.

Between April 1939 and May 1940, 2200 D.520s had been ordered (120 destined for the Aeronavale). The best fighter in the French inventory at the time of the German invasion, the D 520 should have been more successful against the Luftwaffe, had it been more widely available. However, due to catastrophically slow progress by an aviation industry totally incapable of these production numbers, only 36 D.520s were in service with GC (Groupe de Chasse) I/3, based at Cannes-Mandelieu when the Germans launched their offensive.

After the French campaign, they were requisitioned by the Vichy forces, fighting against British Hurricanes in 1942 in Syria, one of those being that of the writer Roald Dahl. The Vichy government subsequently put the D.520 back into production but in 1942 the Luftwaffe seized 411 aircraft, distributing them to Italy, Roumania and Bulgaria while retaining a number of them for training purposes. In 1944 Free French forces seized a number of them and put them back into service against the Germans in southern France.

Powered by a Hispano-Suiza 12Y-45 V12 liquid cooled 920 hp engine, with a maximum speed of 329 mph (530 km/h), the D.520 was armed with one 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS404 cannon firing through the spinner and four 7.5mm MAC-34 M39 machine guns in the wings.

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