| The French Navy battleship Provence (foreground), battleship Strasbourg (center) and battleship Bretagne seen in the exploding (background) during the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir. The Battle of Mers-el-Kébir on July 3, 1940, was a British naval attack on French Navy ships at their naval base near Oran, on the coast of French colonial Algeria. The attack was the main part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralize or destroy French ships to prevent them from falling into German hands after the Allied defeat in the Battle of France. The French Navy, as part of the armistice, had declared neutrality in the conflict between the United Kingdom and Germany, and thus was a nonbelligerent after the Battle of France the week before, when the United Kingdom was allied to France. The British bombardment of the base killed 1,297 French sailors, sank the battleship Bretagne and damaged 5 other ships, for a British loss of 5 aircraft shot down and 2 crewmen killed. The attack by air and sea was conducted by the Royal Navy, after France had signed armistices with Germany and Italy, coming into effect on June 25. Of particular significance to the British were the 5 battleships of the Bretagne and Richelieu classes and the 2 fast battleships of the Dunkirk class, the 2nd largest force of capital ships in Europe after the Royal Navy. The British War Cabinet feared that the ships would fall into Axis hands. Commander of the French Navy, Admiral of the Fleet François Darlan (August 7, 1881 – December 24, 1942), assured the British that, even after the French armistices with Germany and Italy, the fleet would remain under French control. United Kingdom Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill (November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965) and the War Cabinet judged that the risk was too great. Darlan repeatedly refused British requests to place the fleet in British custody or move it to the French West Indies, out of German reach. The British attack was condemned in France as an attack on a neutral nation and resentment festered for years over what was considered betrayal by a former ally. The French thought that their assurances were honorable and should have been sufficient. Marshal Philippe Pétain (April 24, 1856 – July 23, 1951), who was appointed the Prime Minister of France on June 16, severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on July 8. French aircraft retaliated by bombing Gibraltar and French ships exchanged fire several times with British ships, before a tacit truce was observed in the western Mediterranean. The remaining units of the French Fleet did not take to sea in formation, and were left to rust at the pier at French bases. On November 27, 1942, after the beginning of Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa, the French Navy foiled Case Anton, a German and Italian operation to capture its ships at Toulon, by scuttling them. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0398.jpg |
| Image Size | 400.63 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2400 x 1636 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | July 3, 1940 |
| Location | |
| City | Mers el-Kébir |
| State or Province | Oran |
| Country | Algieria |
| Archive | Marine Nationale |
| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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