Thirty-nine small ships were captured, most of them sabotaged and disarmed. 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. The odds were already heavy … Some French submarines took to the deep sea to the shuttle while some vessels escaped to North Africa. An alternative view is that Darlan was an opportunist and switched sides for self-advancement, thus becoming titular controller of French North Africa. La Marine Française (French Navy) is still called “La Royale” to this day (“Royal” (navy)) according to its pre-revolutionary traditions. By June 10, 1940, the French Army was shattered, but the French Navy was amazingly intact. Some of the major ships were ablaze for several days, and oil polluted the harbour so badly that it would not be possible to swim there for two years. This set the stage for the attack on Mers el Kebir, which was deemed unfortunate but necessary for British security. General Charles de Gaulle heavily criticised the Vichy admirals for not ordering the fleet to flee to Algiers. During the interwar years, the French had tried to maintain general parity in naval strengh with the Royal Italian Navy, which was considered to be the primary adversary in the event of a general European conflict. Cornered in confined waters and with limited fields of fire because of neighboring vessels, the French warships fired back as best they could. At 4:15 pm, Holland was piped over the side of the French flagship and ushered into Gensoul’s cabin. Casabianca left her moorings, snuck out of the harbour and dove at 5:40 a.m., escaping to Algiers. Around 5:15 pm, as Gensoul was deciding to reject the British ultimatum, he received a signal from Admiral Somerville stating that Force H would sink his ships unless he accepted the terms by 5:30. About this Item: United States Naval Institute, Annapolis, MD, USA, 1959. Similar scenes occurred with the destroyers and submarines. “I think they are weakening,” he signaled to the Admiralty. This was true.”, Churchill noted, “The genius of France enabled her people to comprehend the whole significance of Oran, and in her agony to draw new hope and strength from this additional bitter pang.”, He was touched by a story about the aftermath of the July 3 destruction of the French squadron. Three days later, early on July 6, 1940, Swordfish planes from Ark Royal flew back to Mers el Kebir to finish off the grounded Dunkerque. Facing both the German and Italian navies, it was stretched thinly in the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Far East, and the Mediterranean Sea. Commanded by Captain R.F.J. “Those ministers who, the week before, had given their whole hearts to France and offered common nationhood, resolved that all necessary measures should be taken,” said the prime minister. © Though based at the British bastion guarding the western entrance to the strategic Mediterranean, Force H was to be an independent operational command. Its strength included seven battleships, 19 cruisers, 71 destroyers and 76 submarines. .. Most of the remaining French Fleet had been scuttled at Toulon on November 27, 1942, following the Allied invasion of North Africa, to prevent its seizure by Germany after the Nazi takeover of Vichy France. The navy had not let the ships fall into enemy hands." 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. After the Fall of France and the Armistice of 1940, France was divided in two zones, one occupied by the Germans, and the "Free Zone", administered by the Vichy regime. The ships formed the main French naval squadron in the Mediterranean. He took a “friendly” leave-taking from Dunkerque as he made his way back to HMS Foxhound. “Many hundreds volunteered to join us. Topics Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Galloping Gertie, Operation Catapult, Newsreel, suspension bridge, French Fleet, Oran, Royal Navy, Battleship Richelieu, Vichy, WWII, World War II, Tacoma, Washington. However, there were scuffles during the transfer of the destroyer Mistral and the 3,250-ton submarine Surcouf. She sank, blocking the drydock. The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir (Battle of Mers-el-Kébir) on 3 July 1940, during the Second World War, was a British naval attack on French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir, at Oran, on the coast of French Algeria. 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