page_title: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
section_title: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
hierarchical_section_title: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir / Operation Catapult / Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
context_page_description: The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940, during the Second World War, was a British naval attack on French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir, at Oran, on the coast of French Algeria. The attack was part of Operation Catapult, a British plan to neutralise or destroy French ships to prevent them falling into German hands in the aftermath of the Allied defeat in the Battle of France. The British bombardment of the base killed 1,297 French servicemen, sank a battleship and damaged five other ships, for a British loss of five aircraft shot down and two 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 25 June. Of particular significance to the British were the five battleships of the Bretagne and Richelieu classes and the two fast battleships of the Dunkerque class, the second largest force of capital ships in Europe after the Royal Navy. The British War Cabinet feared that the ships would fall into Axis hands.
context_section_description: The British force comprised the battlecruiser HMS Hood, the battleships HMS Valiant and Resolution, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and an escort of cruisers and destroyers. The British had the advantage of being able to manoeuvre, while the French fleet was anchored in a narrow harbour and its crews did not expect an attack. The main armament of Dunkerque and Strasbourg was grouped on their bows and could not immediately be brought to bear. The British capital ships had 15 in (381 mm) guns and fired a heavier broadside than the French battleships. On 3 July, before negotiations were formally terminated, British Fairey Swordfish planes escorted by Blackburn Skuas from Ark Royal dropped magnetic mines in the harbour exit. The force was intercepted by French Curtiss H-75 fighters and a Skua was shot down into the sea with the loss of its two crew, the only British fatalities in the action. French warships were ordered from Algiers and Toulon as reinforcements but did not reach Mers-El-Kebir in time. At 5:54 p.m., Churchill ordered the British ships to open fire and the British commenced from 17,500 yd (9.9 mi; 16.0 km). The third British salvo scored hits and a magazine aboard Bretagne exploded, the ship sinking with 977 of her crew at 6:09 p.m. After thirty salvoes, the French ships stopped firing; the British force altered course to avoid return fire from the French coastal forts but Provence, Dunkerque, the destroyer Mogador and two other destroyers were damaged and run aground by their crews. 
  Strasbourg, three destroyers and one gunboat managed to avoid the magnetic mines and escape to the open sea under attack from a flight of bomb-armed Swordfish from Ark Royal. The French ships responded with anti-aircraft fire and shot down two Swordfish, the crews being rescued by the destroyer HMS Wrestler. As the bombing had little effect, at 6:43 p.m. Somerville ordered his forces to pursue and the light cruisers HMS Arethusa and Enterprise engaged a French gunboat. At 8:20 p.m. Somerville called off the pursuit, feeling that his ships were ill-deployed for a night engagement. After another ineffective Swordfish attack at 8:55 p.m., Strasbourg reached Toulon on 4 July. The French aviso (gunboat) Rigault de Genouilly, en route to Oran, met Force H at 7:33 p.m. and sailed towards Hood, only to be fired on by Arethusa and Enterprise at 12,000 and 18,000 yd (5.9 and 8.9 nmi; 6.8 and 10.2 mi; 11 and 16 km) respectively, along with several 15 in (380 mm) shells from Hood, against which the French ship fired nineteen 5.45 in (138 mm) shells before being hit by Enterprise. On the next day, the British submarine HMS Pandora encountered the ship off the Algerian coast, mistook it for a cruiser and sank it. The French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) made reprisal raids on Gibraltar, including a half-hearted night attack on 5 July, when many bombs landed in the sea.
caption: Diagram of the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir