July 3, 1940. After only 54 days into office, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered his Navy to take control of French ships, or destroy them if the French refused to relinquish control. What led to this unprecedented and controversial attack was a dramatic series of events that saw France being overrun by the Nazis in a matter of weeks, Roosevelt fearing that Britain would fall just as quickly, and Churchill needing a way to prove otherwise.
THIRTEEN’s Secrets of the Dead explores the dark side of Britain’s fight against the Nazis in Churchill’s Deadly Decision, premiering nationally on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 at 8 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). With eye-witness accounts and testimonies from British and French sailors who were involved in the attack, recently unclassified documents between Churchill and Roosevelt, and actual notes from British War Cabinet meetings, the film takes viewers through the harrowing chain of events that led up to the attack, and into the crucial hours during which it actually took place. Actor Liev Schreiber (Taking Woodstock and X-Men Origins: Wolverine) narrates.
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“This is one of the long-forgotten stories of World War II, and one that was ultimately integral to America’s involvement into the war,” says Jared Lipworth, executive producer of Secrets of the Dead. “It solidified the relationship between Churchill and Roosevelt, but was also a classic example of the difficult—and deadly—moral decisions that leaders often have to make during wartime.”
The situation began when the French, despite assurances to their British allies that they would never capitulate to the Nazis without British approval, signed an armistice with the Germans. As part of that deal, the French agreed to recall their Navy to French ports, where the ships would remain for the duration of the war. Churchill, worried that one of the world’s great navies would end up in German hands, asked the French to turn the ships over to the British instead. The French refused, but Admiral Darlan, commander of the French fleet, swore that he would sink his own ships if the Germans ever tried to take control.
Meanwhile, Churchill had been trying to convince Roosevelt to give the British 50 old American warships, which they could use to defend themselves against the inevitable Nazi attack on the United Kingdom. But Roosevelt, fearing that the green British Prime Minister didn’t have the backbone to stand up to the Germans, worried that his ships would just end up in German hands when Britain fell.
Backed into a corner and not trusting the French admiral to live up to his promise, Churchill took matters into his own hands. He launched Operation Catapult to capture the French Fleet before it returned to French waters. A number of the most powerful French battleships were docked at a naval base in the French-Algiers port of Mers-el-Kebir. Churchill issued the French an ultimatum: Give up the vessels to the British, sail them to Allied ports, or face attack from the Royal Navy.
The French stalled, hoping for the arrival of reinforcements. The deadline passed, and the British attacked with devastating force, destroying a number of French ships and killing 1,300 French sailors—more than the number of French soldiers killed by the Germans at that point in the war.
France declared the action a horrific act of mass murder. Germany used it to release anti-Britain propaganda in Europe. Britain stood firmly by its leader and supported Churchill’s decision. But most importantly, Roosevelt saw the attack as a confirmation of British resolve, and soon supplied Britain with the 50 destroyers it so desperately needed.
Secrets of the Dead: Churchill’s Deadly Decision was produced by Furnace Limited for THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG, Channel 4, National Geographic Channel UK, ABC Australia, and ZDF. Richard Bond is writer/director. Phil Craig is executive producer for Furnace. At THIRTEEN, Jared Lipworth is executive producer. William R. Grant is executive-in-charge.
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Good show, but I noticed one annoying anarchism. Two shots representing 1940 events in Canada show large images of the maple leaf flag. This flag did not exist in 1940. It was not adopted until 1965. It’s hard to take a history show seriously when it contains such a glaring mistake.
With hindsight, Churchill made the right decision imo, desperate but necessary. If the French and British were true allies things really should have went differently. After all if the French naval Commander was just going to “scuttle” the fleet as he promised why not get those weapons into British hands instead? Where the ships could be used against the Nazi’s? In other words the French were going to blow-up their fleet instead of handing it over to their “ally.” Why do that? It might have been pride such as when the some French ships in the Mediterranean sought reinforcements to actually fight the British, knowing all the while the Nazis had successfully invaded France and were offering terms for armistice. It was also a case of poor communications, the French naval Commanders nn-responsiveness and then the tone of Churchill’s short and terse telegraphs with an “ultimatum” that threatened force. Such suggestions would make proud French commanders more stubborn; and the French defiant to the use of force. A better emissary or diplomat would have explained it to the French Commander in more agreeable terms, —-don’t destroy your fleet take it to Britain so your ally can fight the force that invaded your nation. Britain is not trying to plunder the French fleet but rather to co-opt their naval power. Instead, the French naval commander simply wanted to destroy the ships and sink them so the Nazis couldn’t utilize them. The Nazi’s had defeated and occupied most of France so why would the French naval captains think that the British warships came out to protect them in the Mediterranean when it was already over?
The plan of action taken by Churchill was not so much a war crime, or a crime against an ally, but a gross miscommunication between two allies that apparently still harbored distrust from the past and refused to help each other more, much like the U.S. and it’s early skepticism in just waiting for our “ally” Britain to fall next (And although it is counterfactual an interesting hypothetical is similar, does the US navy go over and grab the British fleet, even if they resisted too, rather than letting it fall into Nazi hands?) Right or wrong, everyone at that point was more interested in self-preservation than obligations of alliances or liberations. There isn’t any ethical black and white judgment in such a desperate and unprecedented situation but in hindsight, knowing the outcomes, it is much easier to subjectively “judge.” Of course the French sailors did not deserve to die at the hands of an ally, but the clock was ticking and some of their commanders could not bear the thought of giving-in to such a sternly worded ultimatum.
Churchill basically was operating under the premise of denying the enemy the opportunity of aquiring a military ‘asset’.The effectiveness of the French Naval ships wasn’t in question but rather the impact they would have on the British as they faced an extremley well-organized German military machine. With this kind of operation, Churchill had to be absolutely sure and thus have the luxury of peace of mind as opposed to making assumptions. Since time was of the essence, it only made perfect sense to have the French fleet destroyed while moving foward with their plans to counter the Nazi threat.
The massive loss of life though unfortunate and unecessary, squarely lies on the shoulder of Adm.Darlan. The French should however not be be hasty to blame Churchill for war crimes but also consider Darlan’s lapse in judgement that ultimately led to the deaths of 1,300 French sailors.
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If the French didn’t want to be attacked, they should have surrendered the ships. They had no problem surrendering to the Germans as fast as humanly possible, but somehow turning their ships over to their allies proved a conundrum. Well, we know why. They were pretty happy collaborating with the left-wing fascists and exporting their Jews to the death camps.
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