Voices from the Dark Years (13 page)

In rural Moissac the first Belgian refugees had been welcomed by the townsfolk until some young Flemings got into fights with local youths after expressing pro-German sentiments. The massive influx that followed threatened to swamp the town altogether: by 1 July an additional 16,000 refugees
⁶
had arrived needing lodging and food and clothing and, at times, as many as 40,000 people, including 15,000 military, were also passing through. For most of June, Moissac was among the most important
villes-refuges
in all France. Only at the end of July did life return to something like normal.

In Brittany at Ponthivy a German-sponsored puppet Breton separatist government briefly surfaced before foundering for lack of support. Later Corsican and Basque separatists would be encouraged by the Germans as a way of fragmenting national sentiment, but Goebbels’ main priority was to drive an unbridgeable rift between France and Britain. On the evening of 3 July came news from Mers el-Kebir that fulfilled his wildest dreams.

Back on 23 June, with the Armistice already signed, a Royal Navy vessel – probably the same one on which Freeman and Cooper escaped, with the supernumerary commander and admiral on board – had brought to Admiral Darlan in Bordeaux a message from A.V. Alexander and Admiral Pound which did not refer to their recent meeting, but ‘reminded’ Darlan that the ‘condition imposed’ by Great Britain for an armistice was that the French navy should previously have steamed to English ports in order to ‘continue the struggle’ against Germany.
⁷
At the time – and until 28 June – French vessels that had taken refuge in British ports were permitted to steam away unhindered as belonging to a neutral nation. So there was no reason for Darlan or anyone else on the French side to suspect that the British Admiralty was about to implement an operation planned months before and codenamed Catapult, although later dubbed ‘Operation Boomerang’ by Admiral Cunningham, the British Commander-in-Chief Alexandria, because of its disastrous consequences.

It was the greatest gift Churchill could have given to Goebbels. Like all great propaganda coups, it was so simple that anyone could understand it. On 3 July 1940 a British battle fleet appeared without warning off the great natural harbour of Mers el-Kebir in the Bay of Oran, Algeria. Without giving any warning, the British vessels shelled the French fleet moored there, before the French had time to get steam up. With no power to rotate their gun turrets, ships were sunk and thousands of sailors killed.

It wasn’t
quite
like that, but the differences were only of detail.

On 24 June Admiral Sir Dudley North, based in Gibraltar, had paid a visit on HMS
Douglas
to the French naval base at Mers el-Kebir outside Oran. His object was to convince Admiral Marcel Gensoul commanding the base to throw in his lot with the Royal Navy. Although a great anglophile, Gensoul reminded North that he took his orders from Darlan and Pétain, who had already given him and the other fleet commanders orders on 28 May to scuttle their ships, were there any danger of them falling into the hands of the Germans or Italians. At 3 p.m. on 2 July, still wary of the Axis powers getting their hands on the French battle fleet moored at Mers el-Kebir, the British Admiralty ordered Admiral Somerville in Gibraltar to implement Operation Catapult. Under his command Force H arrived off Mers el-Kebir in the pre-dawn mist next day. For the first time since Waterloo, British weapons were then trained upon French servicemen.

In the harbour, Gensoul’s staff was carrying on with the demilitarisation of all vessels in compliance with the Armistice agreement. Ships’ boilers were cold. Reservists with homes in North Africa had already been demobilised. Naval planes had mostly been disarmed. In the coastal batteries, all shells had been sent back to the magazines and breech-blocks removed and locked away. The day was going to be hot, so the remainder of the French crews on board the ships in the harbour – reservists and regulars from metropolitan France – were looking forward to a day of sports and recreation.

At 6 a.m. the destroyer HMS
Foxhound
was sighted offshore through the mist. At 6.15 a.m. it signalled, ‘British Admiralty is sending Captain Holland to confer with you. Stop. Permission to enter, please.’

Now commanding the aircraft carrier
Ark Royal
, Holland had been Naval Attaché to the Paris embassy. Until 8 April he had been a liaison officer with the French Admiralty. However, it was Admiral Gensoul’s duty not to compromise French neutrality. Despite his personal liking for Holland, he had to be as wary of British naval vessels and personnel as he would have been of Italian or German ones.

He decided therefore to send aboard
Foxhound
his aide-de-camp Lieutenant Dufay, who was both a fluent English-speaker and a close friend of Holland. At 7.15 a.m. the launch from Gensoul’s flagship
Dunkerque
pulled alongside the gangway of the British destroyer. When Holland attempted to board it, Dufay informed him that Gensoul refused to receive him.

Back on board
Dunkerque
at 7.45 a.m., Dufay found his admiral reading a signal received from
Foxhound
which read:

The Admiralty is sending Capt Holland to confer with you in the hope that his proposals will permit the gallant and glorious French navy to remain on our side. In this case, your vessels will remain under your control and you need have no care for the future. A British squadron is standing out to sea to bid you welcome.

With the mist clearing, it was at that moment the lookouts aboard
Dunkerque
made out the silhouettes of the cruiser
Hood
, the battleships
Resolution
,
Valiant
and
Ark Royal
, whose torpedo-carrying Swordfish were already in the air. From
Hood
came the flashing of an Aldis signal lamp: ‘We hope that our proposals are acceptable and that you will be on our side.’

Enough men in the French crews could read Morse for them to be aware what the British were up to. Reservists packed their kitbags and demanded to be let ashore, rather than be press-ganged into the Royal Navy, while officers attempted to calm them with assurances that there was no question of this.

Fretting at the loss of time, Holland authorised
Foxhound
to rejoin station and headed for
Dunkerque
in the destroyer’s launch, determined to find some compromise. Intercepted by Dufay in the admiral’s barge between the anti-torpedo net and the jetty with the news that Gensoul still refused to receive him, he handed to his friend the sealed letter whose contents he had hoped to soften orally.

At 8.30 a.m. Admiral Gensoul was reading the ultimatum from the War Cabinet in London that gave him the choice between three impossible courses of action:

(1) to sail with the British ships and fight until victory over the Germans and Italians;

(2) to sail with skeleton crews to a British port, the crews to be repatriated as soon as possible;

(3) if he believed himself obliged to stipulate that his vessels might not be used against the Germans and Italians because that would compromise France’s neutrality, to sail under escort with skeleton crews to a French port in the Antilles such as Martinique where the ships could be demilitarised or handed over to the (neutral) USA and the crews repatriated.

The sting was in the tail. Should Gensoul reject all three courses of action, he was given six hours to scuttle all the vessels under his command. Failing this, Admiral Somerville was charged ‘to take all necessary measures to see that your ships do not fall into German or Italian hands’.
⁸

At 9 a.m. Gensoul ordered all ships to make steam and prepare for action. Ashore, crews of the coastal batteries began feverishly to re-arm their weapons and ground crews started checking and rearming aircraft. Aboard his launch at the torpedo net, Holland watched all these preparations with mounting concern, which Gensoul’s reply brought to him by Dufay did nothing to allay.

It was short and to the point:

(1) the assurances given by Adm Gensoul to Adm Sir Dudley North will be respected. In no circumstances will French vessels fall intact into the hands of the Germans or Italians;

(2) in view of the form and content of the ultimatum that has been given to Adm Gensoul, the French vessels will defend themselves with force.

Holland admitted that the ultimatum was a clumsy attempt at bullying a neutral force. The War Cabinet should have expressed the
hope
that the French would come over to the British side. When he argued that disarmed ships left in port with maintenance crews aboard could be taken by surprise by the Germans or Italians before they could be scuttled, Dufay assured him that the sea-cocks were manned night and day and scuttling entailed no delay awaiting further orders from the French Admiralty.

Aware that his cause was lost, Holland wrote a note to Admiral Gensoul setting out his point of view. Thirty minutes later, Captain Danbé brought him Gensoul’s second reply. It contained the words: ‘The first shot fired against us will result in the whole fleet turning against Great Britain – a result diametrically opposed to that sought by British Admiralty.’
⁹

Thanking Danbé, Holland said that his reply in the circumstances would have been no different. A few minutes later, at 9.50 a.m.,
Foxhound
signalled the French: ‘Regret to inform you that I have orders not to allow you to leave the port unless the terms of His Majesty’s government are accepted.’

The confrontation was by now inevitable. In the full light of a day, already so hot that touching metal was painful, Somerville could see black smoke pumping out of the funnels of the French fleet. He gave orders for Swordfish from
Ark Royal
to mine the harbour entrance. Although in compliance with his orders from London, the step meant that the first three suggested courses of action in his ultimatum were now impossible – a point that was not lost on Admiral Gensoul.

Aboard the British ships at action stations, men sweated under a brazen sky without the slightest breeze, waiting to fire on fellow sailors. During the past winter, many of them had sailed in convoy across the Atlantic with
Dunkerque
and other vessels in the harbour. Aboard
Hood
, Admiral Somerville signalled London that he was ready to commence firing. Disgusted with the whole operation imposed on him, he also asked Holland whether there was anything else that could be done and, at his suggestion ordered
Foxhound
back within visual signalling range. From its bridge flashed the message to
Dunkerque
: ‘If you accept the proposals, hoist a square flag on the main mast. If not, I open fire at 1300 hours. Your port is mined.’

Gensoul acknowledged that he would be prepared to parley. At 1.15 p.m., with still no shot fired on either side, he signalled back that he was in communication with his government, had no intention of leaving harbour and was prepared to receive a spokesman to seek an honourable solution. The signal ended: ‘Do not take the irreparable step.’

At 3.15 p.m. Holland, wearing no decorations other than the Légion d’Honneur, stepped aboard
Dunkerque
with two other Royal Navy officers. The French now had steam up and all gun turrets were pointing in the direction of Force H. Shown Darlan’s message to all ships dated 28 May, Holland murmured, ‘If only we had known about this.’

Softening on his side also, Gensoul seemed prepared to consider disarming and sailing to the Antilles or the USA, but freely, without Royal Navy personnel on board or under armed escort. Holland signalled this apparent breakthrough to Somerville, who replied that this was unacceptable.

Although neither side knew it at the time, the local negotiations had been pre-empted. Gensoul’s signals to the French Admiralty had gone to its temporary HQ at Nérac in Gironde, just to the east of the Demarcation Line. There, Admiral Leluc attempted to contact Darlan, who was in Clermont-Ferrand and could not be reached. But Leluc was not idle. Gensoul was now instructed to inform the British that
all
French warships in the Mediterranean were steaming to his rescue. Intercepted in London, where the prime minister and former First Lord of the Admiralty was determined to do things his way, the result was an instruction to Somerville to end the business rapidly or face French reinforcements.

At sea, sailors traditionally saved the lives of fellow mariners. To fire on an enemy, whether or not he had opened fire, was one thing. But to fire on vessels of a country with which Britain had been allied until shortly before, and with which she was not at war, was a breach of international law. Despite his personal repugnance, Somerville signalled
Dunkerque
: ‘If none of the proposals is accepted by 1730 BST – I repeat by 1730 – I shall have to sink your ships.’