On 1 July 1940, Vice Admiral James Somerville, the recently appointed commander of the Royal Navy’s Force H, received his first orders from the Admiral of the Fleet, Sir Dudley Pound. Somerville later reflected that the task he had been assigned was “the biggest political blunder of modern times and [it] will rouse the whole world against us . . . we all feel thoroughly ashamed.”
The Allies were in a state of shock in the early summer of 1940. After the hiatus of the so-called Phony War, Denmark, Norway, the Low Countries, and finally France had been systematically and swiftly overrun by German forces. Britain and its empire now stood largely alone, saved by the English Channel and the Expeditionary Force’s desperate evacuation from Dunkirk.
Premium
Subscriber-Only Content
Don't miss out.
Subscribe to Naval History today.
Sources:
Charles River Editors, Operation Catapult: The History of the Controversial British Campaign Against the Vichy French Navy During World War II (Amazon: CreateSpace, 2018).
John Jordan and Robert Dumas, French Battleships, 1922–1956 (Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing, 2009).
Allen Packwood, How Churchill Waged War: The Most Challenging Decisions of the Second World War (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2018).
Mark Simner, “Operation Catapult: A Most Disagreeable Task,” marksimner.me.uk/operation-catapult-a-most-disagreeable-task/.
Brooke C. Stoddard, “Operation Catapult: The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir,” Warfare History Network.
