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Background of news –
That French fleet
By Editorial Research Reports
In marching into Unoccupied France, Hitler stressed the need of “protecting” the French fleet. From Africa Adm. Darlan broadcast a “request” that French naval commanders take their vessels to Africa to join the Allies. Final disposition of the fleet still is undecided.
At the outbreak of the present war, the French Navy ranked fourth in size – considerably below the navies of the United States, Great Britain and Japan, somewhat above the Italian Navy. It comprised: Seven battleships, two aircraft carriers, 18 cruisers, 71 destroyers, 76 submarines. The most formidable of the capital ships were the new 26,000-ton battlecruisers Dunkerque and Strasbourg. Under construction or planned were four additional battleships and two aircraft carriers. In this category were the nearly completed 35,000-ton battleships Richelieu and Jean Bart. By the time of the armistice with Germany in June 1940, the former had been placed in commission. The latter is reported now to have been destroyed by Allied fire at Casablanca.
When France was collapsing in 1940, Great Britain suggested, in vain, that the French Navy be dispatched to British ports while the armistice negotiations were being conducted. Under the armistice terms the French fleet was to be immobilized, under German and Italian control. The German and Italian governments pledged themselves not to use the French fleet during the war, nor to make any demands concerning the fleet after the war. But the British government had no faith in the German and Italian pledges.
On July 3, 1940, Great Britain seized French naval vessels in British ports, also at Alexandria in Egypt. Among those taken were three of the older battleships, six cruisers, and the world’s largest submarine, the Surcouf, later lost in action. On the same day a British squadron appeared off Oran, and delivered a six-hour ultimatum requiring the French fleet there to join the British Navy in continuing the war, or to be demilitarized. When the ultimatum was rejected, the British opened fire.
As a result of the action at Oran, one of the two remaining older French battleships was sunk, the other was badly damaged. The Dunkerque, damaged, was run aground; the Strasbourg, also damaged, escaped across the Mediterranean to Toulon. Several days later the Richelieu was damaged by depth charges from a small British boat which penetrated the harbor. The aircraft carrier Bearn was bottled up at Martinique.
How much of the French naval building program went ahead after the armistice is not known. At all events, there can be little doubt that by this time the damage wrought by the British at Oran has been repaired, so that the French Navy still has at least three new capital ships, the Strasbourg, Dunkerque, and Richelieu.
Marshal Petain repeatedly assured the United States that France would not allow her fleet to be used by Germany for combatant purposes, but he might now claim that the American invasion of French territory in Africa has released France from that pledge.
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Six warships sunk by subs, Nazis claim
Berlin, Germany (UP) – (German broadcast recorded in New York)
The German High Command in a special communiqué today asserted that U-boats off the Algerian and Moroccan coasts since last Monday have sunk two British cruisers, four destroyers and 11 merchant ships, totaling 99,100 tons.
One aircraft carrier, one destroyer and one corvette were damaged by torpedoes, the communiqué reported.
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President Roosevelt’s message to the Governor-General of Algeria
November 14, 1942
Your Excellency:
The undeniable evidence which has come to me of the design of the Axis powers, exponents of brutality, force, and aggression, to execute their program of domination and occupation of Algeria requires that you and I cooperate in the defense against the common enemy.
I have not been oblivious to the able resistance which you have extended to the application to Algeria of the cruel terms of the Armistice of June, 1940, and your determination to defend the French Empire on which the covetous eyes of Germany and Italy are fastened.
The intention of the Axis to exploit French North Africa and detach it from France for the profit of the Central Powers undoubtedly is obvious to you.
Now that the insatiable Axis desire culminates in an effort to seize French North Africa, I know that you will stoutly resist by every means at your disposal this latest manifestation of German and Italian cupidity and baseness.
Be assured that the powerful American forces, equipped with the deadliest instruments of modern warfare, which I am dispatching will support you to the limit of their great resources to the end that the Axis may be driven from North Africa and the liberation of France and its Empire from despicable tyranny may begin. These American forces are determined like yourself that liberty and the dignity of man shall not perish from the earth. You know that those American forces have only one aim – which they will achieve – the destruction of our common enemies and that includes the liberation of France.
Long live France! Long live the United States of America!
President Roosevelt’s congratulations to Gen. Eisenhower on the landings in North Africa
November 14, 1942
Both personally and on behalf of the American people I send sincere congratulations to you and every member of your command on the highly successful accomplishment of a most difficult task.
Our occupation of North Africa has caused a wave of reassurance throughout the Nation not only because of the skill and dash with which the first phase of an extremely difficult operation has been executed, but even more because of the evident perfection of the cooperation between the British and American forces.
Give my personal thanks to Admiral Cunningham and the other British leaders for their vital and skillful assistance without which the operation could not have been undertaken.