Friends Against Friends

In the night of July 2-3 at various ports in England and Scotland, armed parties of British officers & men quietly boarded all major French ships berthed with the Home Fleet, mostly at Portsmouth and Plymouth. These included two elderly battleships (Paris and Courbet), two light cruisers, eight destroyers, several submarines. At the same time, the officers of some 200 minesweepers, sub-chasers and other small craft were notified that they were in custody. To reach the submarine Surcouf, world's biggest (2,880 tons), the boarding party had to cross the deck of a larger French ship. The Surcouf's watch heard, gave an alarm, started a lead-spitting scuffle. A French officer and a British seaman were killed.

Thus the alliance between the Republic of France and Great Britain against Germany, born 36 years ago in lofty words and twice sealed with blood in Flanders, rushed toward its nightmare end, with friend killing friend and the old enemy a sardonic spectator.

The Frenchmen on the captured ships were given their choice of enlisting under the British colors at British pay (38-c- per day), or of being sent home. Thousands signed up at once, many asking British citizenship as well as service.

At Alexandria, Egypt, the procedure was less dramatic but equally effective. There lay the French battleship Lorraine, the heavy cruisers Tourville and Duquesne, two other cruisers and several smaller ships. Their commanders were simply told that they would not be allowed to obey the Petain Government's order to come home, on pain of being sunk by gunfire and torpedoes launched from concealed tubes on shore. While the French digested this ultimatum, over came some Italian bombers on a raid and the French ships joined the British in putting up a hot anti-aircraft barrage. A vote was taken among the French seamen, after which the ships were peacefully surrendered. The British agreed to keep them, immobilized, at Alexandria.

The Decision. Having waited nearly two weeks for the French Navy either to close ranks against the Axis or to place itself beyond Axis reach, the Royal Navy had been ordered to act decisively. Had the French Fleet surrendered, the Axis Navy--of German, Italian and French ships--would have been more than a match for the British Fleet. As her life depended on it, Britain could not allow that to happen.

There had been good reason for Britain to wait for French officers to place themselves and their ships under Britain's orders, as some of them did. Day after he entered old Marshal Petain's captive Cabinet at Bordeaux, compact, snap-eyed little Admiral Franc,ois Darlan, whose grandfather and great-grandfather were French sailors before him (the latter commanded a warship at Trafalgar), issued in code to all commanding officers an order which he told them to regard as his last, since thereafter "I am no longer free." Said Darlan: "This last order is that you shall not surrender your ship." The French officers hesitated not only because their former Commander in Chief, now Minister of Marine in the Petain Government, soon officially ordered them home, but because behind his later order lay a rumored threat to throw all their womenfolk into Nazi concentration camps. Those officers who hesitated longest had begun to be replaced by officers more obedient to Petain when the British took action.

The Finale. The head & front of France's sea power were anchored in the Bay of Oran, 200 miles east of Gibraltar, under the coastal guns of France's Algerian naval base of Mers-el-Kebir and the hill forts around Oran. Lying there were France's four other capital ships: the new 26,500-ton battle cruisers Dunkerque and Strasbourg, powered (31.5 knots) and gunned (eight 13-inchers each) specially to outmatch Germany's pocket battleships; and the modernized 20,000-ton battleships Bretagne and Provence. With these were the 10,000-ton seaplane tender Commandant Teste, several light cruisers, numerous destroyers and submarines.

The task of taking over, if necessary subjugating, this formidable array was entrusted to Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville, the short, spare, ingenious torpedo specialist who collaborated with French Vice Admiral Jean Abrial in the historic evacuation of Dunkirk. Sir James is a Briton who knows his Mediterranean after two years (1915-16) of distinguished service at the Dardanelles and three (1936-38) in command of the destroyer flotillas with the Mediterranean Fleet. He was sent down from the North Sea via Gibraltar with a battle squadron of three capital ships including the superpotent Hood. In his train were the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, three cruisers and a strong complement of destroyers.

Two hours ahead of Admiral Somerville, on a destroyer, went Captain C. S. Holland, lately naval attache at Paris, to present a British ultimatum to the French Commander at Oran, Vice Admiral Marcel Bruno Gensoul. Said this ultimatum:

It is impossible for us now to allow your fine ships to fall into the power of our German or Italian enemies. . . .

We solemnly declare that we shall restore her territory to France. For this purpose, we must make sure that the best ships of the French Navy are not used against us by the common foe.

In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government have instructed me to demand that the French Fleet now at Mers-el-Kebir and Oran shall act in accordance with one of the following alternatives:

A) Sail with us and continue to fight for victory. . . .

B) Sail with reduced crews under our control to a British port. . . .

C) If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensation if they are damaged meanwhile.

Alternatively if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships are not to be used against the Germans or Italians unless they break the armistice conditions, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port in the West Indies. . . .

If you refuse these fair offers, I must with profound regret, require you to sink your ships within six hours. Failing the above, I have the orders of the Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German or Italian hands.

Early on July 3 Captain Holland sought audience with Admiral Gensoul. He was refused. He sent in the ultimatum. While the Admiral presumably conveyed its contents to the captive French Government, which bade him defy it, Captain Holland passed the time of day with Gensoul's subordinate officers. Having been brigaded with the British before now, these gentle men knew that their visitors--lying hull down over the horizon of the cobalt sea in battle formation--meant business. As the sun dropped westward and Admiral Gensoul remained adamant, Captain Holland took sorrowful, friendly leave of his for mer comrades-in-arms. There was nothing any of them could do about it.

As the six-hour deadline approached, Admiral Somerville took the precaution of having planes from the Ark Royal sow a string of magnetic mines across the wide mouth of Oran Bay. When he had arrived, the French ships were lying-to with low steam, but now they were getting it up fast. Just before 6 p.m., with darkness only three hours off, some started to leave their anchorages, make a run for it. Admiral Somerville opened fire.

As 15-inch projectiles from the Hood and her consorts hurtled inshore from the horizon, French shore guns replied. But the French battleships were handicapped by lack of steam to operate their heaviest gun turrets. Like a killer whale caught in the shallows, the Dunkerque was squarely hit, set afire, sent aground. As the Provence and Bretagne started out of the bay, shells fired one and a mine and gunfire destroyed the other. Down went the Commandant Teste, down the flotilla leader Mogador and another destroyer.

Behind the flaming wreckage of these ships and behind smoke screens quickly laid down by fleeing French destroyers, the Strasbourg made good her dash for the open sea. But planes from the Ark Royal snarled after her, badly damaged her (they thought) with a torpedo before she, five cruisers and several destroyers vanished into the dusk toward Toulon.

This sea battle between allies of a fort night before was, with bitter irony, the direst of World War II. Upwards of 1,000 French seamen & officers were killed, wounded or missing. The British admitted only one man killed, one officer wounded, one seaplane's crew missing, but Spanish observers at Algeciras two days later reported seeing 30 British corpses taken ashore at Gibraltar from battle-scarred cruisers when the Hood and its squadron returned.

Tears welled from the eyes of Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill when he reported "this melancholy action" to the House of Commons. It was the first big sea fight between Britain and France since 1806, when Vice Admiral Sir John Thomas Duckworth met a French Fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Corentin Urbain Leissegues off Dominica in the West Indies, and destroyed four out of five battleships, captured the other one.

Said Lord Beaverbrook's London Evening Standard: "By brave decision in the most fearful and harrowing moment in our history, he [Winston Churchill] has delivered a blow for our cause which will resound round the world and down the ages. . . . We still retain our old loyal ally, the sea...."

Gangster? The press of Rome and Berlin instantly revealed how sorely the Axis felt the British blows at Oran Bay. Italy, whose Fleet (in Mr. Churchill's words) "kept prudently out of the way," screamed: "... Gangster Churchill!. . .The most criminal act conceived in centuries! . . . Bestial ferocity!..." German newspapers called Churchill "the greatest criminal in all history," suggested he be hanged in front of Nelson's statue in Trafalgar Square.

In its anger at the Oran episode, the Petain Government broke off diplomatic relations with Great Britain, virtually declared war. Germany permitted the rearming of two French air squadrons, which joined German and Italian fliers in vengeance bombing raids on Gibraltar, where they claimed damaging a warship (but did not injure General Viscount Gort and Information Minister Alfred Duff Cooper, who flew there to inspect the defenses). Fresh anger was aroused when British dive-bombers revisited Oran after three days and scored six hits on the crippled Dunkerque to polish her off. France seized all British ships in the Gulf of Tonkin off French Indo-China. At Martinique lay the French cruiser Jeanne d'Arc and the aircraft carrier Beam, loaded with new U. S. planes too late to defend France. British warships patrolled off the island.

The world's fourth fleet had, in the space of a few hours, been knocked out of action to the following extent: 84% of its battleship strength, 48% of cruiser strength, all aircraft carriers, at least 16% of destroyers, 14% of submarines, at least 50% of sub-chasers and other light craft.

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