Читать книгу The French Navy in World War II - Paul Auphan - Страница 20
ОглавлениеFall of the French Atlantic Ports
Day after day the inspiring message had gone out over the radio to a breathless France: “The entrenched camp of Dunkirk still holds fast.” Now it was over. Dunkirk had fallen.
But thanks to the Navies, all had not been lost. And remembering 1914, when a new line of defense had been created, even after days and weeks of suspense, the French wanted to believe that a new front could again be established—this time on the Somme.
But the French Navy could think only of its immediate job—keeping open the seaways, the only means by which France could continue to live. The northern ports had fallen, but the Atlantic and Channel ports still remained.
And the Navy’s prestige had never stood so high. Admiral Abrial’s name was on every lip. The survivors of Dunkirk, returning from England, were loud in their gratitude.
One of the immediate results was that on June 8, 1940, a Government decree placed all the Channel and Atlantic ports under the authority of the Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces in the same manner as the cities on the land front came under the authority of the Army.
The majority of those ports were in desperate situation. Their harbors choked by refugee ships, their roadsteads blocked by enemy magnetic mines, they were in danger of quick strangulation. The French Admiralty immediately sent to each port a qualified senior officer, with the title of “Delegate of the Admiralty,” to coordinate and direct the action of all services, civil or military, concerned with the operation of the port. It was hoped that these Missi dominici11 would clear the waterways and speed up traffic. But they arrived only in time to preside over the evacuation of the operable ships, the scuttling of those not able to get under way, the burning of petroleum stocks, etc.
Messengers of the Lord.
For after the collapse of the Meuse front, nothing could stop the German tide from sweeping over the country and engulfing the ports, one by one, from the rear.
For fifteen days General Weygand had been working diligently to set up a new front on the Somme, but it never existed except as a few isolated fortifications. And on June 5, within 24 hours after the fall of Dunkirk, the enemy attacked again along the entire line from the Argonne to the sea.
Against them the small observation posts on the coast, with batteries hastily strengthened with guns borrowed from the Navy, fought to the last. At the request of the Army, the Léopard, Epervier, and Savorgnan de Brazza laid down a barrage on the roads from inland. The old battleship Paris took firing station off Le Havre, but a direct bomb hit forced her to Brest for repairs.
FALL OF THE CHANNEL AND ATLANTIC PORTS
As at Dunkirk, the danger came from inland. A German armored corps crossed the Somme between Amiens and Abbeville on June 5, and reached the Seine three nights later. On June 9 the German tanks were at Rouen.
Here, Captain de Porzamparc had been assigned as Delegate of the Admiralty. Leaving his disabled destroyer Cyclone at Brest, he arrived at Rouen only in time to witness the destruction of the bridges just ahead of the advancing Germans, to rescue personally some sailors stranded on the opposite shore, and to evacuate anything that could be evacuated. He arrived at Admiralty headquarters, only 85 miles from Rouen, that same day, with the news of the enemy’s approach. Within two days the French Admiralty was forced to withdraw from Maintenon and to move southward, beyond the Loire.
The Germans’ lightning advance cut off all the Allied divisions which were still in upper Normandy. They no longer had any bridges—only ferries, with which to cross the Seine downstream from Rouen.
An attempt was made to rescue them by sea from Le Havre just as had been done at Dunkirk. All the small trawlers of the Pas-de-Calais Flotilla were sent for. Twenty freighters got under way from Brest and Cherbourg. The ferries were manned with armed sailors. The huge oil stocks at Port Jérôme were set on fire, to blacken the skies for days with smoke.
At Le Havre itself, Admiral Platon, who had assumed the command, did his utmost to insure the escape of the exhausted infantrymen. Motor busses were requisitioned to bring them out. But they were still 100 kilometers away, and the Germans moved too fast. On June 10, General Erwin Rommel reached the coast in the vicinity of Fécamp, where a small group of soldiers and of sailors from a minesweeper under repairs held him up for 24 hours.
Out of the five encircled Allied divisions, only a few French units and two motorized British brigades succeeded in reaching Le Havre. The remainder dug in at Saint-Valery-en-Caux, 53 miles up the coast from Le Havre, to await rescue that could only come by sea.
But miracles take place only once. Despite fierce resistance by the French and Scottish troops, the Germans drove forward until their artillery could sweep both the port and the beaches of Saint-Valery with shellfire, ending the Allied hopes. General Rommel announced the capture of 46,000 men.
A few thousand troops were saved by the Navy, however, from the beaches of Veules les Roses, seven kilometers to the east, on the night of June 11. Here the beached patrol vessel Cérons, under pointblank fire from German 88-mm. guns, succeeded in knocking out two of them before herself being blown up by the explosion of her own depth charges. The French armed freighter Granville, arriving next day and unaware that Saint-Valery had fallen, was knocked out by German artillery which let it approach to within 700 meters before opening fire.
But the resistance at Saint-Valery at least permitted the evacuation of Le Havre, with no interference except by the Luftwaffe. The Navy was able to tow away a few sub-chasers under construction at Fécamp and in the shipyards of the lower Seine, and also the submarine Créole, which had been launched at Le Havre on June 8. But the Luftwaffe’s bombs sank half a dozen transports, including the Niobé. This ship, although loaded with ammunition which had been intended for Dunkirk, was evacuating refugees from Le Havre. The ammunition was set off by the bombs, causing the death of 800 soldiers, sailors, workmen, women, and children. Only 11 out of all those aboard were saved.
On June 13, Le Havre and the whole north shore of the Seine estuary were in German hands. On the south bank a few guns sent over from Cherbourg were still manned by survivors from Dunkirk, but upstream from Rouen the river had already been crossed in half a dozen places. The front was nothing more now than a thin line of troops, outnumbered three to one, and with no reserves behind them. Several million refugees were crowding all roads to the south. In order to prevent useless destruction, General Weygand had ordered a general withdrawal and had proclaimed Paris an open city.
Italy now had declared war on France.
Generalissimo Weygand informed the Government that he saw no other solution to the situation than to ask an armistice from the Germans. Churchill heard the news, with tears in his eyes, at Tours on June 13, and admitted the probability involved, yet he interposed no conditions.
Even in the hour of decision the Government ordered the organization of a bridgehead in Brittany which France possibly could hold through the assistance of England and with supplies brought in by sea. General Charles de Gaulle, who since June 9 had been Assistant Secretary of the Army, went to Rennes to study the organization of this “Breton Redoubt,” whose front was to follow the courses of the Couesnon and Vilaine rivers. The defense forces were to consist of a few regiments assembled from within the area, plus a Canadian division which was even then disembarking at Brest, and General Béthouart’s troops just back from Norway. But the project was entirely visionary for several reasons: lack of planes, lack of antiaircraft guns to defend the ports, and, above all, lack of time. To organize a worthwhile defense would take a month—some of De Gaulle’s generals and engineers said three months. And the Germans would be there in less than a week.
Admiral Darlan, in Admiralty headquarters now at Montbazon, near Tours, knew the bitter truth. Every evening since the beginning of the German offensive, liaison officers from the Supreme General Headquarters of the Army had brought the latest information on the situation. This Admiral Darlan had promptly passed along to his subordinates, so that while many authorities in France and overseas were poorly informed, the Navy’s principal commanders usually were fully and accurately informed. This sense of sharing in the problem would be a tremendous psychological factor in maintaining the Navy’s cohesion in times to come.
“In case we should be surprised by the rapidity of events” the Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces, acting on his own initiative on June 14, drafted a set of directives to take effect “in the case of an unfortunate armistice.” These directives, which called for the Fleet to sail for Great Britain or for French colonial ports, were coded in advance in order that they could be sent out immediately upon receipt of orders from the Government.
Those orders from the Government never came. But the frame of mind of the Admiralty can be clearly deduced from the two important messages it sent to the western naval bases on June 15. The first suspended further drydocking of any ships; it ordered a speedup in repairs to the Fleet, and the loading of spare parts and ammunition reserves on requisitioned cargo ships; and it directed all men-of-war to be ready to get under way at a moment’s notice. The second message concerned the two powerful battleships still under construction: the Richelieu, which was undergoing trials at Brest, and the Jean Bart, which was still on the building ways at Saint-Nazaire. In case of being threatened by the German advance, these two ships were to be sent to England in accordance with arrangements which had been concluded by Admiral Odend’hal with the British Admiralty. The outline for these arrangements had been taken to Admiral Odend’hal at Dover by Captain Auphan just three weeks earlier.
The next day, June 16, the French Admiralty received definite information that two German armored divisions had just gotten under way in a drive toward the Cotentin Peninsula and Brittany. In that direction lay both Cherbourg and Brest.
Cherbourg, the headquarters of a naval district, was where Admiral Abrial had set up his command post after the evacuation of Dunkirk. It, like most other such ports, had sent the majority of its small guns to Paris or to the banks of the Seine for antitank defense. The result was that it had little left now in the way of mobile artillery. As for defenders, there were a few second-rate battalions. Other than these there were only noncombatant specialists—mechanics, yeomen, stewards, air technicians, and the like—men more used to handling a typewriter or a kit of tools than a machinegun or a rifle.
On the evening of June 17 the German tanks arrived at the Carentan lines. These are natural defense lines which, as far back as the Hundred Years’ War, have been relied upon to defend the approaches to the Cotentin Peninsula. Here Vice Admiral Jules Le Bigot, Commandant of the District and a veteran of the famous Marine Brigade of 1914, had attempted to establish defense lines. But on account of the many other tasks assigned to Cherbourg, he was never able to do so.
On June 17 the radio announced that a new Government, now headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, had asked the Germans for an armistice. But Admiral Darlan directed that the fight must continue with fierce energy as long as the negotiations were not concluded. Consequently the sailors opened fire on Rommel’s advance guard and held them the whole night. The next morning the drive on Cherbourg continued, but under fierce harassing fire from men-of-war which Admiral Abrial had positioned on each side of the Cotentin Peninsula.22 A few defensive positions in the outskirts of the city also held up the enemy advance so that it was not until the afternoon of the 19th that Cherbourg finally was taken.
The firing ships on the east coast were the old battleship Courbet, escorted by two 600-ton torpedo boats and one antiaircraft sloop; on the west coast, the Léopard, Savorgnan de Brazza, and two torpedo boats. The effectiveness of their fire was attested by French prisoners whom Rommel had placed at the head of his column.
The forty hours thus gained, however, had insured the evacuation of the last British troops there as well as all the French ships in the harbor. A submarine, not quite ready for launching, was dynamited on the ways. All of the coastal batteries were blown up, as were the forts on the main breakwater, which did not surrender until the 20th. Nothing of any use whatsoever was left for the Germans.
Determined to share the fate of his men, Admiral Abrial refused all opportunities of escape and let himself be taken prisoner, along with Admiral Le Bigot and the Cherbourg garrison.
Brest, situated at the very tip of Finistère—“the end of the earth”—could not believe that it was threatened. Despite numerous attacks in its long history it had never been overrun since Brittany had become a part of France in the Middle Ages. Powerful forts defended the roadstead and its approaches. Unfortunately none of these forts faced inland. Worse still, a telegram from the French Admiralty, warning against parachutists landing on the beaches, had resulted in wide dispersion of all the light guns which had not already been sent off to defend Paris.
Brest was the headquarters of a naval district and the command post of Admiral de Laborde, Commander in Chief of the Naval Forces of the West. The Admiral, a vigorous, quick-tempered officer, was very popular in the Navy, especially among those not in a position to encounter his formidable wrath. Up to now the duties of Admiral, West, had been concerned purely with nautical affairs—escort and convoy duty, antisubmarine warfare in the Atlantic, and launching the expeditions to Norway and Finland.
At the beginning of June, Brest had become crowded with French troops escaping from Dunkirk or returning from Norway, as well as British troops en route to the east—100,000 men in all, in four weeks. It was the duty of Admiral, West, to protect this heavy traffic and to keep open the sea-lanes which fed France from the Atlantic. The last thing he had time to think about was what was going on inland.
The Commandant of the Naval District and Governor of Brest counted on the Breton Redoubt to stop the enemy, at least for several days. He was confirmed in this impression by the passage through Brest, on June 15, of General de Gaulle, who was on his way to London on a mission. General de Gaulle gave out no information regarding his trip, and the authorities at Brest naturally imagined that he was going to work with the British on an interallied organization for that famous redoubt.33
General de Gaulle’s actual mission was to obtain ships from the British to evacuate as many French troops as possible to Africa.
The first note of alarm that reached Admiral de Laborde was a message from the French Admiralty on June 16. The message directed Admiral, West, to load onto Admiral Cadart’s auxiliary cruisers, then in port, all of the gold of the Bank of France, as well as the reserves of the Banks of Belgium and Poland. These gold reserves, which had been collected at Brest and Lorient, were to be sent to safety in French West Africa.44
It is perhaps thanks to the French Admiralty that the gold of the Bank of France remained on French territory. In early June, 1940, Paul Reynaud, President of the French Council, had negotiated with the American Ambassador at Paris for the evacuation of 200 tons of French gold to the United States. American warships were to take this gold aboard at Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Concerned over the risks of such a transfer in an open roadstead, the French Admiralty loaded this gold on the French auxiliary cruiser Ville d’Oran at Pauillac on May 29, and transported it to Casablanca, where on June 10 it was transferred to the U.S. cruiser Vincennes. This was the only transfer of gold to a foreign country for the sake of security, all the rest of the gold reserves being entrusted to French overseas possessions. It was thus that approximately 1,000 tons of gold were transported to Dakar, in French West Africa, without the loss of a penny.
In addition to this worry, Admiral, West, had the problem of the British troops who were falling back to Atlantic ports, abandoning their weapons and supplies, and making ready to take English transports back home.
Admiral, West, wondered whether the requested armistice would be effected before the worst occurred.
He had not long to worry. At 1100 on June 18 the telephone rang in the office of Vice Admiral Marcel Traub, the Naval District Commandant. The call was from General René Altmayer, at Rennes, who wished to speak with Admiral de Laborde. The General reported that he was already a prisoner, but the Germans had carelessly forgotten to cut his telephone wire. The important part of the message, however, was that a German motorized division was passing through the city unopposed—and that there were no French troops between Rennes and Brest.
A glance at the map showed that the Germans could be in Brest before 9 o’clock that evening. It was useless to expect any real defense at the close-in lines which General Jean Charbonneau had been trying to develop over the wishes of the civil authorities. There were just ten hours left. Ten hours in which to clear from the port 83 men-of-war and 48 French merchantmen, plus 10 English and 18 Dutch, Belgian, and Norwegian. Ten hours in which to get 159 ships to sea, either under their own power or under tow—or else to scuttle them. Ten hours in which to wreck the workshops, blow up the gates of the locks, set fire to the petroleum stocks—destroy everything that could be of use to the enemy if left behind.
Such a task usually requires detailed preparation. In this case the measures to be taken were totally unexpected by those who were to carry them out—a complete surprise. Several years later, when Admiral de Laborde was being tried for scuttling the Fleet at Toulon, and was asked why he had failed to answer the call to arms of General de Gaulle from London on that June 18, his answer was quite understandable, “That day, I had other things to do besides listening to the British Broadcasting Corporation.”
Seventy-four out of the 83 warships in port were able to get away to sea. The Paris, being repaired after damages suffered at Le Havre, was rushed out of drydock. The precious Richelieu was one of the first to leave; it departed at 1600, with all of the midshipmen of the French Naval Academy on board. The large submarine Surcouf, undergoing machinery overhaul, got under way with one diving rudder jammed hard over and with only her electric motors for power. Some ships departed at the end of a tow line.
Only nine ships had to be destroyed to save them from falling into German hands. Among these were four submarines and the redoubtable Cyclone, which had escaped from Dunkirk with her bow blown off, only to be destroyed now by her crew at the Brest navy yard. The sloop Vauquois struck a German magnetic mine off the town of Le Conquet as she reached the seaward end of the Brest channel, and was blown up.
Of the merchantmen in port, all escaped except one, which had to be scuttled. Of the others only one was sunk by enemy action on the way out. Before sailing, three of the transports took aboard, at the last moment, 6,000 men of General Béthouart’s brigade who had just returned from Narvik a few days earlier.
After a heroic but utterly ridiculous defense of a small, untenable defensive position at Landerneau, the city of Brest capitulated in the evening of June 19. When German Vice Admiral von Arnaud de la Périère, the commander of U-35 in World War I, arrived to take over the command, he found nothing afloat but an old six-stack cruiser which had been used by the Air Training Command, and a few old wooden lighters belonging to the apprentice seamen’s school which it had not been thought worthwhile to scuttle.
Winston Churchill was considerably in error when, in his memoirs, he wrote that at the time of the German invasion, “Not one French warship moved in order to place itself out of reach of the German troops.” 55
French edition, Book II, Volume I, page 228.
Following Cherbourg and Brest, all of the other French Atlantic ports were engulfed in that same German tide. And in every case, despite the Government’s request for an armistice, and despite a hasty proclamation declaring all cities of more than 20,000 to be “open cities,” the French naval authorities had orders to defend the military ports—something which they resolutely tried to do, regardless of how limited were their means of defense.
For instance, at the repair and construction center of Lorient, there were 15 warships and 35 sweepers or patrol craft. All put to sea on June 18, except three which had to be scuttled. Admiral Hervé de Penfentenyo de Kervéréguin, the naval commandant of the port, remained behind to hold the Germans off for three more days of heroic but hopeless resistance—an act which won the respect of even the Germans themselves.
At Saint-Nazaire, the measures taken by Admiral André Rioult permitted the British transports to evacuate 40,000 British soldiers and 2,500 men of the Polish division. Despite heavy enemy bombing, the multitude of merchant ships crowded into the harbor and roadstead were gotten safely away—including three precious cargo ships which had just arrived from America with full loads of airplanes.
The most spectacular escape, however, was that of the battleship Jean Bart, commanded by Captain Pierre Ronarc’h. That escape is now legendary. The uncompleted ship, with workmen’s scaffolds still covering the decks, was afloat in an open basin separated from the ship channel by an earthern dike. This dike had to be dredged out before the ship could reach open water.
In normal years there would have been ample time to complete the dredging before the ship’s scheduled departure in October. But without waiting for orders the commanding officer had begun dredging on May 25, when the military situation had begun to turn worse. From then on it was a race against time.
But even with the dike dredged away, it would be necessary to get the ship out on the high tides between June 18 and 22, or else to wait weeks for the next ones. And there could be no waiting. The high tide of the night of June 18 was selected for the departure. But within that short time it would be possible to dredge only to a depth of 8.1 meters, which meant that the ship would have to go out almost completely stripped—no water, no provisions, no fuel oil, and only one of her 380-mm. turrets in place. Also, there would be no time to dredge the channel any wider than 50 meters; the Jean Bart herself was 35 meters wide. By extraordinary exertions the dredging was completed by 2 o’clock on the morning of the 19th.
One boiler in the fireroom had been ready since June 11, but only two of the four propellers were in place. The turbine drives for these two propellers had been hurriedly installed, but the engines had not yet been turned over under their own power. Not a gun aboard was in condition to fire, so a few antiaircraft machineguns, a few 37-mm. guns, and two 90-mm. twin mounts were hurriedly swung aboard and bolted down.
Already, it was learned, the Germans were at Rennes; they would reach Saint-Nazaire the next day. If the Jean Bart did not leave that very night, there would be nothing left to do but blow her up.
At 0330, the time of high tide, the operation began. There was no power on the main engines, or on the rudder, or the windlass, or the after winches. Everything had to be done by hand—with capstan bars aboard and pushing tugs outboard. The ship managed to get clear of the basin without too much difficulty, but in the darkness she missed a buoy in the too narrow channel and ran aground. It took six tugs to pull her off again. Then at 0440, just as the Jean Bart was clearing the entrance to the Loire, the Luftwaffe appeared. The ship sustained but one hit, and that caused only minor damage. Then after the German air attack was over, the French fighter planes, which had been scheduled to give air cover, belatedly arrived—and were warmly greeted by the Jean Bart’s gunners. Luckily only one Morane fighter was hit, and no lives were lost.
Then, little by little everything straightened out. Luck was with the ship. The main engines began to turn over; there was steam for the auxiliaries, and electric power for the steering; the oil tankers were on time at the refueling rendezvous; and two German submarines, which had been lying in wait, never made contact.
The Jean Bart was saved. Even though she had no steering compass, she could follow the destroyer Hardi, on which Admiral de Laborde had hoisted his flag. At 1700 on June 22, the Jean Bart steamed into Casablanca harbor, in French Morocco, having made the whole trip at an average speed of 21 knots.
Meanwhile, back in France, as the enemy advanced south along the coast, the French shipping fled constantly before them, until no ports were left. The large fishing trawlers had pushed straight on toward the Mediterranean. At Rochefort and La Pallice and in the Charente River 36 ships out of 40 escaped. At the Rochefort Air Base Rear Admiral Jean Lartigue, Chief of Naval Aviation, was killed while directing the shift of naval air groups to Hourtin and Marignane.66
Airfields near Bordeaux and Marseilles, respectively.
At Bordeaux the Admiralty Delegate, Rear Admiral Gaston Barnouin, had held that post only since June 13. Convoys of 10 to 15 ships were still arriving from the Atlantic. From June 23 on, the port at the mouth of the Gironde was under attack from three directions—bombing from the air, magnetic mines in the sea, and German artillery fire from Royan, on the north shore of the estuary. The port itself, from the docks to the suburbs, was a human ant hill of civilian refugees and military evacuees, most of the latter being supply service troops.
The Navy had been asked to provide passage for 30,000 young recruits to North Africa, but at the last moment the Army was unable to muster the recruits. The Navy was next asked to evacuate important stockpiles as well as several thousand specialists, principally from the Air Force.
On June 13 the French Admiralty had given orders for 8 large passenger liners, with suitable escort, to be made ready at the mouth of the Gironde, but by June 20, only 4 were available—the Mexique having been lost to magnetic mines at Verdon and the Champlain at La Pallice.
The morale among merchant marine sailors was very low. No one wanted to be “the last man killed in the war.” Some crews deserted their ships in order to be with their families ashore if the Germans came. Two passenger liners loaded with military personnel refused to get under way. The crew of a third one, taken firmly in hand by the Admiralty Delegate, carried off all the personnel of the Hourtin Air Base under direct fire from the Germans. The fourth ship—the Massilia—was assigned to carry those members of Parliament who wished to leave for North Africa; it required the captain’s best arguments to persuade the crew to evacuate men whom many among them regarded as fugitives from their duty in France. One freighter loaded with valuable war material got under way with naval officers replacing the usual ship’s officers, but it was too late to cross the bar and the ship had to be scuttled to prevent the Germans capturing her. In all, some 30 transports, sweepers, or patrol vessels left the Gironde, the majority of them heading for Casablanca.77 The last shipment of gold was sent to North Africa on the cruiser Primauguet and on a few of the patrol vessels.
A few ships, however, headed for England under pressure of the British destroyers cruising off the Gironde. Among them was the freighter Fort Médine, which was of particular interest since it carried the archives of the Gnome and Rhône aircraft engine factory. The British liaison officer at Bordeaux had received orders to do his utmost to persuade the freighter captain to sail for England, and, if necessary, to bribe him. (A British Admiralty dispatch, 1937 of 22 June, specified 100 pounds sterling.)
As a cheerful change from these depressing incidents of defeat there was the exploit of the destroyer Lansquenet. Like the Jean Bart, she was uncompleted when the order came to evacuate. She was first floated on June 17, without ever having turned her engines over. She received her turrets that afternoon, was towed to the supply and oil docks, got under way under her own power on June 23, and cleared the mouth of the Gironde under fire of the arriving German guns.
Why, it is often asked, did all of these ships head for French Africa, and not, as had been planned several days before, for England?
The answer is that the situation had radically changed since the military collapse of France.
On May 28, when the evacuation of Dunkirk had scarcely begun, in strictest confidence Admiral Darlan had given a personal, handwritten memorandum to his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Le Luc. The memorandum began with these words: “In case military events lead to an armistice, the conditions of which would be set by the Germans, and if these conditions include the surrender of the Fleet, I have no intention of carrying out that order.” Then followed a list of detailed instructions which were to govern in that case.
Certainly no sailor could have been found in France who would have turned over the Fleet intact to the Germans. But, fearing a moment of weakness on the part of the Government, Darlan was taking no chances. In fact, only the day before, the French Admiralty had inquired into the possibility of completing the Jean Bart and the Richelieu in an English navy yard.
But if no surrender were required, or if the dishonor of a capitulation were not imposed on the Navy, the latter had no reason not to remain faithful and obedient to the legal government of France, as required by every commissioned officer’s oath.
On June 14, Darlan, believing that the Government intended to continue the war from overseas, had plans prepared so that the Fleet could proceed to some English or French colonial port and continue to fight from there. But not one single person in the Reynaud Government—where César Campinchi was Minister of the Navy and General de Gaulle the Assistant Secretary of the Army—gave orders to execute those plans.
On the contrary, the group in power, faced with the tragic reality of defeat, resigned and was succeeded in an orderly manner by another Government, which then asked for an armistice.
An armistice is not a peace treaty concluding a war; it is merely a truce, a cessation of hostilities. And one could not ask for a cessation of hostilities on land yet still continue the fighting at sea. The new Government, of which Darlan was a member, had taken the firm position that no armistice would be concluded if it involved surrendering the Fleet to the Germans. All that remained for Darlan to do was to regroup the ships in the ports remaining to France, and to continue the fight as directed until he received orders to the contrary. The interests of the Fleet could not be considered ahead of the interests of France.88
On the evening of June 18, Admiral Darlan had telegraphed this message to his principal subordinates: “The President of the Council reminds all combatants that no armistice has yet been concluded, and their duty remains to resist to the utmost. In case of necessity, all ships and planes will withdraw to North Africa. Combatant ships and planes unable to reach there, and running the risk of falling into enemy hands after a fight, must either destroy or scuttle themselves.”
It was a bitter pill for the Navy. Driven out of the Atlantic bases without having any real opportunity to fight, it had only the satisfaction of not having left the enemy anything usable. Yet its morale was high. The eagerness with which it availed itself of the last days of the war to defy the enemy fleet in the Mediterranean bears witness to that fact.
1 Messengers of the Lord.
2 The firing ships on the east coast were the old battleship Courbet, escorted by two 600-ton torpedo boats and one antiaircraft sloop; on the west coast, the Léopard, Savorgnan de Brazza, and two torpedo boats. The effectiveness of their fire was attested by French prisoners whom Rommel had placed at the head of his column.
3 General de Gaulle’s actual mission was to obtain ships from the British to evacuate as many French troops as possible to Africa.
4 It is perhaps thanks to the French Admiralty that the gold of the Bank of France remained on French territory. In early June, 1940, Paul Reynaud, President of the French Council, had negotiated with the American Ambassador at Paris for the evacuation of 200 tons of French gold to the United States. American warships were to take this gold aboard at Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Concerned over the risks of such a transfer in an open roadstead, the French Admiralty loaded this gold on the French auxiliary cruiser Ville d’Oran at Pauillac on May 29, and transported it to Casabianca, where on June 10 it was transferred to the U.S. cruiser Vincennes.
This was the only transfer of gold to a foreign country for the sake of security, all the rest of the gold reserves being entrusted to French overseas possessions. It was thus that approximately 1,000 tons of gold were transported to Dakar, in French West Africa, without the loss of a penny.
5 French edition, Book II, Volume I, page 228.
6 Airfields near Bordeaux and Marseilles, respectively.
7 A few ships, however, headed for England under pressure of the British destroyers cruising off the Gironde. Among them was the freighter Fort Médine, which was of particular interest since it carried the archives of the Gnome and Rhône aircraft engine factory. The British liaison officer at Bordeaux had received orders to do his utmost to persuade the freighter captain to sail for England, and, if necessary, to bribe him. (A British Admiralty dispatch, 1937 of 22 June, specified 100 pounds sterling.)
8 On the evening of June 18, Admiral Darlan had telegraphed this message to his principal subordinates: “The President of the Council reminds all combatants that no armistice has yet been concluded, and their duty remains to resist to the utmost. In case of necessity, all ships and planes will withdraw to North Africa. Combatant ships and planes unable to reach there, and running the risk of falling into enemy hands after a fight, must either destroy or scuttle themselves.”
