I'm reading that the Luftwaffe lost a staggering amount of Ju-52s transport aircraft during the Invasion of France and the Low Countries; numbers suggest around 50 to 75% of the total force were lost. That seems staggering when I can only assume that the Germans had the element of surprise and (I assume) better fighter cover. By comparison, as far as I can tell, the number of C-47s lost during D-Day were a fraction of the numbers lost 4 years prior.
Were the losses due to inadequacies around the aircraft themselves? Or perhaps poor tactics on the part of the Luftwaffe? Or was it simply the defenders were stronger than expected?
Hold on, the Luftwaffe did not lose many JU-52's during Fall Gelb, the 7th Flieger Division did. They lost 125 Ju-52 with a further 50 or so damaged which is staggering, a full 50% of their strength. However, the problem was not inadequate fighter cover, loss of the element of surprise or poor tactics, it was AA-fire and bombing that did them in for the most part. The Ju-52 is old, slow and unarmored, essentially obsolete before the war started, added to this, the prefered method for insertion of Paratroopers is not always parachute but actually landing the plane and disembarking. It actually has quite a few advantages over parachuting and has been used before and after.
So what happened? Well, the Germans planned to use a division to capture The Hague, the 22. Luftlande-Division. Their objective was to capture three airfields around The Hague, cut of the main roads, if possible capture Queen Wilhelmina and all of this was to serve to make the Dutch surrender. Quite an ambitious plan. The paratroopers managed to capture the airfields but had many planes damaged or shot down during the landings. Keep in mind that these were air landings, not parachut insertions.
The attacks quickly stalled and in most cases the paratroopers were unable to go beyond the airfield. Damaged aircraft coupled with bomb damage to the runways meant that many Ju-52s were unable to take off again. At this point the Dutch airforce bombed several of the airfields and absolutely wrecked the damaged or grounded Ju-52's. Then the dutch army got their shit together and counter-attacked. Artillery fire destroyed even more Ju-52's and the fighting to retake the airfields destroyed the rest.