Battle of Mers-el-Kebir

Attack on Mers El Kébir
Part of the Battle of the Mediterranean of World War II
Battleship Strasbourg under fire.
Date 3 July 1940 Location Off Mers El Kébir, French Algeria, North Africa 35°43′10″N 0°41′20″W / 35.71944°N 0.68889°W / 35.71944; -0.68889Coordinates: 35°43′10″N 0°41′20″W / 35.71944°N 0.68889°W / 35.71944; -0.68889 Result Disabling of the French flotilla of Mers-el-Kébir
Belligerents
United Kingdom	France
Commanders and leaders
James Somerville Dudley Pound	Marcel-Bruno Gensoul François Darlan
Strength
1 aircraft carrier 2 battleships 1 battlecruiser 2 light cruisers 11 destroyers	4 battleships 5 destroyers 1 seaplane tender
Casualties and losses
6 aircraft destroyed 2 dead	1 battleship sunk 2 battleships damaged 3 destroyers damaged 1 destroyer grounded 1 tugboat destroyed 1,297 dead 350 wounded

The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, part of Operation Catapult and also known as the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, was a British naval bombardment of the French Navy (Marine nationale) at its base at Mers El Kébir on the coast of French Algeria on 3 July 1940. The raid resulted in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen, the sinking of a battleship and the damaging of five other ships.

The combined air-and-sea attack was conducted by the Royal Navy in response to the Second Armistice at Compiègne between Germany and France on 22 June, which had seen Britain's sole continental ally replaced by a government administered from Vichy. The Vichy government had inherited the considerable French naval force of the Marine nationale. Of particular significance were the seven battleships of the Bretagne, Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, which was the second largest force of capital ships in Europe after the Royal Navy. Vichy France — created on 10 July 1940, one week after the attack — was seen by the British as a mere puppet state of the Nazi regime. It was feared that they would surrender or loan the ships to the Kriegsmarine or the Regia Marina, which could undo British naval superiority by giving the Axis an advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. Admiral François Darlan, Commander of the French Navy, had already promised the British that the fleet would remain under French control and out of the hands of the Germans.Winston Churchill, still reeling from Dunkirk and stung by the French armistice, determined that the fleet was too dangerous to remain intact, French sovereignty notwithstanding.

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