John Schettler: Golem 7

The four big ships were moored side by side at the northernmost segment of the harbor, their bows pointed landward, an oversight that would soon prove most uncomfortable for the admiral. It meant that all the guns on his battlecruisers, being forward mounted, were pointing away from the sea, and half the guns on his battleships were equally disposed landward. Directly opposite them, closer to the shore, were a line of cruisers and smaller destroyers that comprised the remainder of his battle fleet. The sailors were restless in the muggy heat of the day, nervously manning their stations as the hours crept by.

A proud and experienced admiral, Gensoul had bristled when the British dispatched a mere captain to conclude negotiations, and he refused to see the man. Cedric Holland came in on the destroyer Foxhound and anchored a mile from the outer quay. He had been sent because he was fluent in French, not to snub or diminish the French Admiral. But pride goeth before the fall, and Gensoul was much irked by these developments. He ordered the man to return to his ship and leave the harbor, but the upstart British captain boarded a whale boat and rowed forcefully for the French Admiral’s flagship, the Dunquerque . There he waited, pleading to see the Admiral and hoping to convince him to negotiate and reach an honorable decision.

Instead Gensoul ordered a staff officer, Lieutenant Dufay, to take the British captain a message stating that his ships would not be surrendered and that any attempt at forcing the issue would be met with equal force. It was bad enough that his nation had been swiftly defeated by the German blitzkrieg, and now the humiliation of being ordered about by former allies was salt in the still bleeding wounds. The British were here for one reason, he knew. They wanted his ships! Their ultimatum had proposed several alternatives that each seemed fair enough on the surface. Either sail with the British in open alliance, or sail with them to a neutral port to be demilitarized. A third option was to simply scuttle his ships where they sat, removing them as a threat to British interests. Gensoul would have nothing to do with any of these propositions, and he said as much. His loyalty was to his nation, defeated as she was, and it was his to command and preserve the French navy here if he could.

Even as he waited, Gensoul learned that the British had already begun operations to seize French ships in their own waters, those which had fled to England after the disastrous yet miraculous British retreat at Dunquerque. And he also had a secret cable informing him that reinforcements for his battle fleet were getting up steam at other North African ports and preparing to join with him. Perhaps the British were aware of this threat, he thought, but it would make no difference. No reinforcement could reach him in time. The two sides, allies just weeks ago, now seemed implacable enemies, neither one willing to stand down in the confrontation that was looming as the sun fell on that fateful day. Gensoul was playing for time, and waiting for darkness to carry the negotiations over to another day. He was hoping the British would not make good on their threats, but in so doing he was betting against the wrong man.

Out beyond the far quays of the harbor, the British Admiral Somerville was holding station just offshore with a fleet of powerful ships in Force H. He had been sent to this place by direct order of the Prime Minister, and he too was impatiently waiting the outcome of negotiations aimed at neutralizing the French fleet and thus preventing its use by either Germany or Italy. By mid day, when it seemed the French were digging in and refusing to negotiate, Somerville ordered five Swordfish planes off the carrier Ark Royal to begin laying magnetic mines at the harbor entrance to deter the French from trying to make steam and leave. An experienced seaman, he could detect signs that they were firing up their boilers and making preparations to get underway, and he knew what he would soon be forced to do about it.

For Somerville, the assignment was most unwelcome, and it was one he had opposed in direct argument when it was first proposed. “Operation Catapult,” as it was named, seemed a distasteful and risky proposition to him. It would surely enflame the occupied French and curtail their much needed cooperation, particularly if he was forced to actually carry out the order before him now. The other side, led by the stalwart Winston Churchill, had prevailed. What if the French were allowed to retain their fleet and at some future time the Germans threatened to burn Paris unless they surrendered those ships to the Axis? It was purely hypothetical, Somerville knew, and he said as much, arguing that neither Germany nor Italy could produce enough trained sailors to even crew a third of the French fleet! But his arguments, and those of Admiral Cunningham as well, were not enough.

He read the last cable with great misgivings: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with, but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.”

The Admiralty wanted him to settle the matter quickly, yet Somerville had a feeling of profound disquiet in his gut as he read the page. It was more than the stain of honor that would come from firing on a former ally, and more than the disheartening loss of his strongly held argument on the matter. He had the strangest feeling that his next actions would conjure up some great doom that would cascade through the ages, yet he could not see what it was. The feeling of presentiment hung like a shroud over his thoughts, and it was with great reluctance that he sent his final ultimatum to the French Admiral Gensoul: “Comply or I will be forced to sink your ships.”

Captain Holland was back on the destroyer Foxhound in short order, his eyes wet with tears as he made one final salute to the French flag. Two old allies, long comrades in arms against their mutual German enemy, were about to fire on one another.

At 5:45 pm that evening, Somerville gave the order to commence hostilities. He had three big ships with him, HMS Hood , the pride of the fleet, and two other battleships, the Resolution and Valiant . Together they turned and presented a combined broadside of twenty four 15 inch guns. Only eight French 12 inch guns could easily return fire, as their big ships were pointed the wrong way. Shore batteries would join in the action, but it would not be enough to seriously threaten the powerful British battle fleet. Ironically, when his flagship Hood opened fire, it was to be the very first time her guns had fired in anger.

Somerville watched from the bridge, a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach as he soon saw the French ships struck by fire and steel. The smell of the cordite was bitter in his mouth when he witnessed the old battleship Bretagne capsize and sink. Dunquerque strained against her moorings until they snapped, but she had already taken hits to damage her forward guns. Only the fast battlecruiser Strasbourg was able to make steam and navigate swiftly out of the harbor mouth, carefully avoiding the mines there. She fled with a gaggle of French destroyers, making it safely to Toulon when Somerville declined to chase her.

Something had happened on that muggy July evening that he could not quite comprehend, yet Somerville, and others who took part in the action, would carry the odd feeling in the back of their heads for years thereafter. Something snapped just now, he thought. He could feel it, sense it, yet he could not see what it was. The words of Tennyson’s Locksley hall echoed in his mind as the action concluded: “ Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.”