Battle of Gabon
| Battle of Gabon | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of World War II | |||||||||
 Free French tanks during the Battle of Gabon |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
Naval support: United Kingdom
|
|
||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
 Philippe Leclerc Georges d'Argenlieu John Cunningham
|
Georges Masson † Marcel Tetu (POW) |
||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
| Unknown | Unknown human losses 1 aviso destroyed 1 submarine scuttled |
||||||||
The Battle of Gabon (French: bataille du Gabon), also called the Gabon Campaign (campagne du Gabon) or the Battle of Libreville, occurred in November 1940 during World War II. The battle resulted in the Free French Forces taking the colony of Gabon and its capital, Libreville, from Vichy French forces.
On the evening of 28 August, 1940, Governor Georges Masson pledged Gabon's allegiance to Free France. He met immediate opposition from much of Libreville's French population and from Gabon's influential bishop, Louis Tardy, who favoured Vichy France's conservative policies. Facing pressure, Masson was forced to rescind his pledge. Free French sympathizers were arrested by the colonial administration and imprisoned on board the auxiliary cruiser Cap des Palmes.
On 8 October 1940, General de Gaulle arrived in Douala, in French Cameroon. On 12 October, he authorised plans for the invasion of French Equatorial Africa. De Gaulle also wanted to use French Equatorial Africa as a base to launch attacks into Axis-controlled Libya. For this reason, he personally headed northward to survey the situation in Chad, located on the southern border of Libya.
...
Wikipedia