Gunfire off Africa

Escorted by the Vichy destroyer Simoun, four French freighters nosed out from Casablanca, French Morocco, into the Atlantic last week, making via the Strait of Gibraltar for Oran, French Algeria. "Stop and submit to search," signaled the British patrol in the Strait, but the Vichy ships ploughed on.

This was not too remarkable, for a few days earlier Vice Premier Admiral Darlan of France had given out a fat sheaf of statistics on steady French cargo traffic through the British blockade in the Mediterranean. While the British had sunk seven French food ships, said Admiral Darlan, they had never sunk, or even stopped, a French ship escorted by war craft. According to the Vice Premier, the Vichy merchant marine had thus far brought through the British blockade, mostly from Africa, 7,000,000 bushels of grain; 363,000 tons of wine; 180,000 tons of peanut oil; 135,000 tons of fruit; 35,000 of sugar, 12,000 of cocoa, 5,000 of meat and 3,000 each of fish and rum. The reason why Britain let all this slip through was doubtless reluctance by Winston Churchill to risk a third bloody clash like those at Dakar and Oran, but the problem of food for France had both London and Vichy on tenterhooks.

In the Strait of Gibraltar the four Vichy freighters and their destroyer kept as much as possible in Spanish waters as they sailed past Britain's fortress. As the convoy entered the Mediterranean the British gave chase but did not open fire. Presently the screech of projectiles began, not from the Vichy destroyer but from coastal batteries in French Algeria. Were they manned by Nazis or by Frenchmen? The British could not be sure, but their ships opened up and shelled the shore batteries. The French convoy put on speed and ducked into Nemours in Algeria. As the British ships put back toward Gibraltar they were bombed by French war planes.

London said the Vichy convoy had been known to carry "important war materials destined for Germany," including a cargo of rubber from Thailand. Vichy said its ships were taking nothing but food (rice, barley, sugar, etc.) from one overseas French port to another, called the British riposte to shellfire an act of "unjustifiable aggression."

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