Evening star., 1940-07-07


tense. A. P. Photo.
and the Italians. b. To sail with re-
duced crew to British port.
If conditions are refused the request
continued, we must require you to sink
your ships within six hours.
Snurch''ls The anguish which this
ANGUISH process has caused to the
e.. British Admiralty can be
imagined. When finallyS tho sSnch
admiral refused to comply (Admiral Sir
James, somerville was ordered to COM
plete the operation before darkness. He
opened fire at 5:58 on the powerful
French feet, protected by shore bat
teries Gin the Mers El-Kebir fortress .
THE British attack was accompanied
by heavy attacks from aircraft from the
Ark Royal. BY 7:20 battle cruiser of
the Strasbourg class was damaged and
ashore. A battleship of the Bretagne
class was sunk and another heavily dam
aged. Two French destroyers and an
airplane carrier were sunk or burning.
One battle cruiser, either the Strasbourg
or the Dunkerque, succeeded in sailing
out of the harbor pursued by aircraft.
She was hit by one torpedo, but was
joined by other French vessels, all of
which reached Toulon F'rench European
naval base) before they could be over
taken.
"The Dunkerque will, at any rate, be
out of action for many months to come"
Even if the Ally had become enemy,
Mr.. Churchill spoke well of their valor.
''The French ships fought with the char
acteristic courage of the French Navy"
AS for Britains enemy in the Mediter-
ranean, the Prime Minister said: "The
Italian fleet kept prudently out of the
way"
So the French suffered the greatest
defeat at sea since Lord Nelson beat them
at Trafalgar in 1905. The British had
found way of insisting that the French
uphold the pre-truce agreement Eng
land says the nation had to keep the
fleet out of German hands.
Within 36 hours after the battle of
Oran, the Petain government German
puppet, seated at Vichy,
bA OhC O1A ACldblOllS Will GilSs
Protest land in the name of France,
denouncing the naval en-
gagement, carried out by Admiral Som
erville and directed by radio from the
Admiralty in London, as "treachery"
What the future relations between France
and England could be, none foresaw.
Foreign Minister Baudoin, at Vichy, pub
Hp1u hloY,ood prifoip
render to Germany, asked the press to
assure the United States of Frances con-
tinued friendship, and denounced the
warfare at Oran: "Mr. Churchill is guilty
OF an act of aggression which is without
precedent in the history of the world,
because the French warships at Oran
were demobilized and without steam to
maneuver for battle" Next day French
planes bombed the British port of Glib
raltar and two British cruisers blockaded
French West Indian island of Martinique.
For the British, the naval battle in
triplicate represented but one phase of
the effort to confound the Germans In
their plans for invasion. The Germans,
for their part, steadily pushed these plans
forward. On Monday, for the first time,
the German Army set foot on British
soil by occupying two of the British
Channel Islands, close to the French
coast, Guernsey and Jersey. Guernsey
is 80 miles from the British port of Plym-
outh. The Germans claimed they tor
pedoed British cruiser of the Orion
class and shot down 18 British planes
attacking mon military targets in North
ern, western and Southern Germany"
The Germans announced the cost of
the western war against the Neither
lands, Belgium, Luxembourg
Losses on and France was 27,074
West Front killed, Ill ,o34 wounded and
1884 missing. An estimate
Of the French losses were 100000.
The extent Of the German under-sea
warfare widened, and London reported
the loss of 8S,259 tons of shipping to
German and Italian torpedoes during
the week ending June a. Berlin claimed