There, Admiral Somerville was to open negotiations with Admiral Marcel Gensoul, commander of the French squadron. Scuttle!" The crew opened the holes caused by British torpedo attacks to sink the ship, and demolition charges destroyed her vital machinery. Similar scenes occurred with the destroyers and submarines. By June 10, 1940, the French Army was shattered, but the French Navy was amazingly intact. “At this point,” recorded Holland, “it was observed that the battleships were furling awnings and raising steam.”. Though based at the British bastion guarding the western entrance to the strategic Mediterranean, Force H was to be an independent operational command. At 6:04 pm, Admiral Somerville ordered a cease-fire in to give the French sailors an opportunity to leave their ships in the smoking harbor. Action stations was sounded, but there was little bustle among the crews, Holland noted. The British battlewagon increased speed to 25 knots in an attempt to challenge Strasbourg, but then veered away to avoid a torpedo attack by the French destroyers. In the annals of military history magazines, this is one of those moments. 810 Squadron aboard HMS Ark Royal reported from an altitude of 7,000 feet that Hood’s first salvo had exploded in a line across Commandante Teste, Bretagne, and the quarterdeck of Strasbourg. They achieved only one hit but distorted a propeller shaft and flooded three compartments. The supply ship’s cargo of depth charges exploded, ripping open the side of Dunkerque. These Are The Worst Admirals Of All-Time Who Sunk To Rock Bottom ... Francois Darlan is considered to be one of the most controversial Admiral during World War II as he controlled the fleet and the French Navy in 1939. Several other vessels had been driven aground and required salvage. “There was in fact no security for us at all,” he said. Gensoul would refuse initially to meet with Somerville’s emissary, and the negotiations were conducted in writing. At 5:25 a.m., German tanks finally rolled through, and Strasbourg immediately transmitted the order "Scuttle! Scuttle! He was promoted to admiral of the fleet in May 1945 and died in 1949. It was a situation that Churchill and his ministers could not permit, so it was decided that the French Fleet must be put permanently out of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler’s reach. The Germans eventually seized three disarmed destroyers, four badly damaged submarines, three civilian ships, and the remains of two battleships of no value, the semi-dreadnought Condorcet and the disarmed former Jean Bart, renamed Océan in 1936. The cruiser Jean de Vienne, in drydock, was boarded by German troops, who disarmed the demolition charges, but the open sea valves flooded the ship. Following Italy's entry into the Second World War on 10 June 1940, and France's surrender on 22 June, British Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham's Mediterranean Fleet at Alexandria in Egypt was outnumbered and surrounded by a largely hostile shore. Jan 18, 2016 - HMS Hood was a noted battlescruiser that entered service with the Royal Navy in 1920 and was later sunk by the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. Shortly after the Germans attacked France on May 10, 1940, most of the vessels in French ports sailed to other harbors. French forces were commanded by Admiral Jean de Laborde (chief of the "High Seas Fleet", composed of the 38 most modern and powerful warships) and Admiral André Marquis (préfet maritime, commanding a total of 135 ships, either in armistice custody or under repair). Now, as the day grew hotter, Admiral Somerville could only steam back and forth outside Mers el Kebir and Oran, waiting anxiously for Captain Holland to signal back reports on the progress of his negotiations with the French. Code-named Operation Catapult, its mission was a painful and distasteful one—to neutralize or destroy the French Fleet in the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, a direct hit blew off the stern of the large destroyer Mogador, killing 42 men. A decorated veteran of the ill-fated Dardanelles campaign in World War I, Somerville had been invalided out of the Royal Navy with tuberculosis in 1938. Holland, a former naval attaché in Paris, had gone ahead aboard the destroyer HMS Foxhound to rendezvous with Admiral Gensoul’s flag lieutenant outside the Mers el Kebir defensive boom. Times when the very landscape appears to shift. The population of Toulon was in the main favourable to the Allies; the soldiers and officers were hostile to the Italians, seen as "illegitimate victors" and duplicitous, and defiant of the Germans. The British bombardment of the base killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleshipand damaged five ot… Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, commander of the Kriegsmarine, believed that French Navy officers would fulfil their armistice duty not to let the ships fall in the hands of a foreign nation. “In a village near Toulon dwelt two peasant families, each of whom had lost their sailor son by British fire at Oran,” related the prime minister. The Allies were concerned that the fleet, which included some of the most advanced warships of the time, might fall into enemy hands and so the British destroyed the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940 and at the B… He flew his flag in HMS Hood, which between the wars had been revered as the most powerful ship afloat and the symbol of British naval might. The ship's captain, Moreau, ordered the scuttling charges in the main turrets to be lit with shortened fuses and when they exploded and fires took hold, Moreau ordered the final evacuation. It was the first clash of battle fleets in World War II, but hardly the kind of engagement expected by Admiralty planners in the prewar years; the enemy was not the German, Italian, or Japanese fleets. Captain Holland was met at 8:10 am by Gensoul’s barge bearing his flag lieutenant, “an old friend of mine,” the British officer reported. The attack was part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralise or destroy French ships to prevent them falling into German hands in the aftermath of the Allied defeat in the Battle of France. On July 18, all French merchant ships in the Suez Canal were seized. The initial commander of Force H, Admiral Somerville, was knighted in 1941 and appointed commander in chief of the Royal Navy’s hastily created Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in February 1942. When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. Commanded by Captain R.F.J. “Many hundreds volunteered to join us. In the nearby port of Oran were seven destroyers and four submarines. A remarkable history, including the tragedy of Mers-el-Kabir, where much of the fleet was fired on and sunk by the British, with the loss of over 1000 French sailors. When the armistice between France and Germany was put into force on June 25, 1940, the fate of the powerful French Navy—the fourth largest in the world—was of critical importance to the British. “At all costs, at all risks, in one way or another, we must make sure that the navy of France did not fall into wrong hands, and then perhaps bring us and others to ruin.”, The solution devised by Churchill and the Admiralty was the hasty creation of a powerful squadron to fill the vacuum left by the French Navy in the Mediterranean, and, if necessary, destroy it. The settlement was that Toulon should remain a "stronghold" under Vichy control and defended against the Allies and "French enemies of the government of the Marechal". by radio, visual signals and dispatch boat. However, there were scuffles during the transfer of the destroyer Mistral and the 3,250-ton submarine Surcouf. There are moments in military history that forever alter the flow of human events. Somerville awaited news from Captain Holland, who was now convinced “we had won through and he [Gensoul] would accept one or other of the proposals.” But Holland was unaware of what London had omitted to pass on to Somerville. Churchill reminded the French of their treaty – that neither could surrender without the other’s agreement. Orders to implement the plan were given on 19 November. But there’s NEVER been anything like THIS before. In private, Auphan tried to persuade Laborde to set sail and join with the Allies; Laborde refused to obey anything short of a formal order of the government and Auphan resigned shortly after. He believed that the Compiegne armistice could be voided at any time. The Operation was initiated by the Germans on 19 November 1942, to be completed by 27 November. The scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon was orchestrated by Vichy France on 27 November 1942 to prevent Nazi German forces from taking it over. WWII Quarterly, the hardcover journal of the Second World War that is not available in bookstores or on newsstands, and can only be obtained and collected through a personal subscription through the mail. Officers of the battleship Provence and the seaplane carrier Commandant Teste managed to delay German officers with small talk until their ships were completely sunk. It changed the world more than any other single event in history. The admiral was angry and indignant and had come to believe that the British might actually use force against his squadron. But the Royal Navy’s actions had made clear to the world—and in particular to America, which recognized the Vichy regime—that Britain, on the apparent brink of defeat, was determined to win the battle of the Mediterranean and secure eventual victory. Thirty-nine small ships were captured, most of them sabotaged and disarmed. The French fleet had been in the XVIIth and even more at the time of the seven years war (under louis XV) arguably on par with the Royal Navy at least in terms of numbers. Somerville, who had decided against a night action, reported later that his Operation Catapult instructions “did not make sufficient provision for dealing with any French ships that might attempt to leave harbor.”. On 15 November, Laborde met with Marshal Philippe Pétain and Auphan. German troops forcibly boarded the cruiser Dupleix, put her crew out of the way, and closed her open sea valves. The Allies were concerned that the fleet, which included some of the most advanced warships of the time, might fall into German hands and the British attacked the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940 and at the Battle of Dakar on 23 September 1940. By a fateful, tragic irony, Force H was attacking the Royal Navy’s 18th- and 19th-century foe and 20th-century ally. An alternative view is that Darlan was an opportunist and switched sides for self-advancement, thus becoming titular controller of French North Africa. In the fighting at the Naval Battle of Casablanca, Hewitt lost four troopships and around 150 landing craft, as well as sustained damage to several ships in his fleet. Led by Vice Admiral Sir Neville Syfret and then Vice Admiral Algernon U. Willis after Somerville departed early in 1942, the task force took part in the dramatic pursuit and destruction of the 42,000-ton German battleship Bismarck, the invasions of Madagascar, northwest Africa, and southern Europe, and provided the main escort for vital convoys to Malta. It seemed to Captain Holland that the French could not believe that they were about to be the targets of British gunners. By this time, more than 1,250 seamen lay dead, 977 of them in Bretagne. Her eight 15-inch guns thundered at a range of 17,500 yards, closely followed by those of Resolution and Valiant. 2021 - 2020 Its strength included seven battleships, 19 cruisers, 71 destroyers and 76 submarines. When the smoke cleared, Bretagne was no longer visible to the Swordfish crew, but they observed a fire aft on the seaplane carrier. Hood’s target, a Dunkerque-class battleship anchored abeam to the harbor mole, was indistinct. Set sail! German naval forces were cruising off the harbor to engage any ships attempting to flee, and laid naval mines. Its fuel and ammunition were surrendered to the Royal Navy. Hardcover. Raeder was led to believe that the German aim was to use anti-British sentiment amongst the French sailors to have them side with the Italians, while Hitler was really preparing to seize the fleet. After the remnants of the French Army were required by the Germans to disband, French sailors had to man coast defence artillery and anti-aircraft guns themselves, which made it impossible swiftly to gather the crews and have the ships quickly under way. On July 7, the British turned their attention to the French naval base at distant Dakar in West Africa, where the battleship Richelieu, cruiser Primauguet, a sloop, and destroyers were anchored. The British had largely eliminated the French Navy as a strategic factor in the war, and it was, said Prime Minister Churchill, “the turning point in our fortunes.” Inevitably, the clash at Mers el Kebir created lingering tension and bitterness between the two nations, even as Free French soldiers, sailors, and airmen were rallying to General Charles de Gaulle and the Allied cause. At Alexandria, meanwhile, Admiral Cunningham was able to persuade the French squadron there to disarm, avoiding more bloodshed. From the start, this seemed an audaciously peculiar choice. Both families requested that the Union Jack should lie upon the coffins side by side with the Tricolor, and their wishes were respectfully observed. The cruisers Jean de Vienne and La Galissonnière were renamed FR11 and FR12, respectively, but their repair was prevented by Allied bombing and their use would have been unlikely, given the Italians' chronic shortage of fuel. French crews evacuated, and scuttling parties started preparing demolition charges and opening sea valves on the ships. His replacement, Admiral Gabriel Auphan, guessed correctly that the Germans were aiming to seize the large fleet at Toulon, and ordered them to be scuttled. However, the demolition charges were detonated, and the ship burned for twenty days. Strasbourg was a total loss. Half an hour later, Somerville was signaled that if he thought the French ships were preparing to leave the harbor, he “should inform them that if they moved, he would open fire.” The Force H commander then signaled to Holland and asked if he thought there was now any alternative to bombarding the French squadron. The tension mounted as the situation came to a head. The officer of the watch aboard the battleship Bretagne saluted him smartly. Iris reached Barcelona. Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his government dreaded the prospect of the French Fleet falling into enemy hands while Britain stood alone against the Axis powers. He blanched at the prospect of killing French sailors, who were comrades in arms of the Royal Navy. The ships included the battleships Courbet and Paris, the supply ship Pollux, destroyers, minelayers, minesweepers, submarines, submarine chasers, motor torpedo boats, tugs, trawlers, sloops, and harbor craft. 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