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On November the 27th, 1942, the pride of the French fleet sank in a matter of hours in the port of Tulong. It was not an enemy attack. The French sank their own ships. The battleship Strasbourg the Cruisers Colbert, Algeria and Duplex. Over 85 of the 173 ships in the harbor went down. contradictions. It forced its navy to commit that most desperate of acts, scutling its ships. The scutling at Toulon was a direct consequence of the debacle of the French army. The fur, satisfied with his rapid victory, shared his intentions with Mussolini to occupy France at a minimum price and to handle the French army with
care so that some of them wouldn't take up arms again. It all hung on the signing of the armist at Retond on June 22, 1940. they want to points. France should be able to keep an army, the empire and remain in control of its fleet. They still hoped they could negotiate with Hitler. Contrary to their expectations, no negotiation was possible at Return. The arm disagreement imposed the division of the territory and drastic conditions on the French thought saved the most important thing. France could keep its army and relieved its reported India. General Wine. General Van. Yes, my general, if I have my general, it's done.
Yes, General, it's done. specified that the Germans couldn't use the French ships. In return, they had to be disarmed and placed under German control. This much coveted fleet was one of the finest in the country's history. It had been entirely rebuilt since the 1920s. On the eve of World War I, France's colonial power was at its peak and the fleet played a key role in bringing the empire's farfung territories. Under the colors that flew jindice on the avenger, the French fleet in 1939 brought together all the elements of a naval force that is among the most powerful in the world.
Despite its splendor, the fleet wasn't able to prevent the debuck. Even though it fought well, it fought very little. Other than in Navic alongside the British. And during the bombing of Genoa in June 1940, the great French warships weren't sent into battle. And on board these ultra modern ships, the organization and discipline remain traditional. Send. We didn't have the right to vote at the time. It was forbidden. We swore we would not belong to any political party whatsoever. I, I did the bugle calls on the Strasbourg with the bugle in the station where there was the loudspeaker to announce many things to the crew.
In the morning at 6am, the bar was shaken and the bugle sounded, 5 minutes after the march, the bugle sounded, saying all the hammocks should be taken down, 5 minutes later at 6:10 we rang to have breakfast, coffee It didn't stop the clang from morning to night and all the buildings were the same. At the head of this fleet from 1937 was François Darlon. He was not liked in a large part of the navy because he was a politician, which is relatively unappreciated in the maritime community, but also because he had his own teams. We belonged to Darl's teams
where, at that time, we made a career, or we didn't belong to them. caught in a strangle hold between the promise made and the armistice which put most of the fleet under German control. Darl found a way out. He sent his secret officer instructions to scutle the ships. He thought he found a way to save face, but he had actually triggered a time bomb. France kept an unoccupied zone protected by an army of 100,000 men. It held on to its empire and the means of communicating with it, its warships. For the French military, the war was over. For the British, it continued.
Churchill, who no longer believed the French, decided to neutralize the ships within range before they went back to France. It was a catapult operation. About 15 days later or maybe 3 weeks all the warships well we were taken to Toulon or Strasbourg to a cinema I think it was the casino I think to show us the Merced Kir film. We could really see the shell which is lying in the dig and then we saw the Bretagne when it hit a block I think it hit all the munition the boat it was disoriented we swam them in the sea we had to leave for the pairing too late Froz deberately point out that the British offered admiral Jan three possibilities to scuttle the ships, fight alongside the British or rally a neutral port.
A few days later, the navy leads its dead to the resting place. The long fun procession, preceded by the clergy, reaches the Merel cemetery. Men, whether admirals, officers or sailors, simply mourn their loved ones; we will remember Admiral Jeansoule before the freshly opened graves The chief finds the words to console the seas. The sailors, meanwhile are searching among the coffins for that of their best comrade in arms.
I call on all French military personnel from the army, navy and air force to come and join us. I invite all young men and men of tree-carrying age to enlist in this. They must return to British territory immediately. regime warships arrived from to protect on 23 came with the whole world was deeply outraged by the ignoble aggression committed by the English on Dakar, an aggression led by ex-General de Gaulle, traitor to the fatherland, which failed thanks to the heroic resistance of the French troops. After this revolting act, we finally received the filmed report of the fighting that took place
and more closely with Germany and Vishi sailors played a very important role. In 1941 Admiral Darlon was not only vice president of the council but also minister of foreign affairs. Many admirals and the navy were indeed very present in the Vichi regime, especially because it had not, I would say, lost the war. ed by the Germans. The prisoners of war from the Navy were all released. Adolf Hitler agreed to suspend the arm's agreement. Key ships were assembled in length and kept armed.
This new unit was known as the force of high seas. The elite of the French Navy was brought together in the port. But like the rest of the Armistus Army, they didn't see active service. This served Hitler's interests because meanwhile, in the Atlantic, a battle was raging between Germanats and Britishs. I was thoroughly questioned at the Pyrotheia of Toulon. And there were maritime gendarmes guarding us, and we were cleaning the shell casings, and they were telling us, "Guys, you have to enlist. You'll see, you'll see the colonies, you can go to Africa." And that's when it came to me getting involved.
I was on board the Strasbourg as a simple sailor and there we were asked what you wanted to do like that. I said, well, I don't care, but there are gunnery courses. They enrolled me in a gunnery course that lasted about 2 months. Afterwards, they assigned me to a piece of artillery. He told me, "There you go, that's where the fighting position is, you come to that place." So. On board the ships, the sailors were given training without knowing who the real enemy was. We were no longer at war. We have no army left, nothing left. And yes, there's more to Toulo than just the fleet. we used to play a lot of cards and we gambled away packs of cigarettes. And that's where
I lost 800 cigarettes. As soon as we went out at 5000 wide, we were entitled to campus freedom. That means the tobacco shop. Each ship had its own orchestra, and ours was just hollow instruments. For what? Because we used to put packs of cigarettes in it on the floor. We would go downstairs and go to the baker's or pastry shop to buy ourselves a cake with cigarettes. Yeah. We were doing our little shopping. So when we were at school, we had permission for the day or afternoon. We were returning to Toulon. Everything we were going to do, we were in Toulon. So.
We were proud of our outfit. So. We used to see sailors in town that we don't see anymore today. So. And I had opened the cinema. They went to the cinema from 10am until 10pm and when we went to the cinema, we only saw red pom-poms. There were no civilians with us. He was just sailors. And besides, there was the red-light district, which no longer exists. Do you know what the red-light district is? The mess you guys [laughs] huh, there was that. So there were often fights with the mountain hunters. There were fights. So we also patrolled, we did the evening patrol, we picked up the drunks and brought them to the patrol car. remained commander-inchief of the armed forces. The war was at a turning point.
After days and nights of fighting, the free French forces won their first big victory at Birakem. The Germans were in difficulty on the eastern front. They were stuck in Stalingrad. And on the other side of the Atlantic, the US joined the war. When the Americans decided to land in North Africa on November the 8th, 1942, they didn't know what the attitude of the French would be. fine, we don't want to harm you. We assure you that once the threat from Germany and Italy is well away from you, we will leave your territory immediately. When we took the American landing in Algiers in Algeria we were satisfied happy we said it starts there soon one day it will be for
François happened to be present as he was with his son who was the Americans put pressure on him. If they managed to persuade the commander chief of's forces to come over to their side, the fighting would stop immediately. Darl wanted to be sure that the landing was important enough to alter the course of the war. He also tried to gain the approval of Vishi's military leaders who were just as ward of the Germans as of the British. They thought France should ally itself with the stronger side. Some thought days French troops received contradictory orders and stood up to the Americans. In the fighting, over 1,300 French and almost 500 Americans were killed. On November 10th, Darles, but he didn't want to give up the asset of the fleet.
We had filled up on maout, filled up on living supplies, the boat was ready to sail. all the ships of the squadron. We've never been without oil, never. We resupplied at BL, which was for 2 months at sea. So, the ship's captain, Count Jean, was a rather peculiar character who should normally have been retired when it happened. He was very deeply affected by the Merel Kebir affair and was a kind of lord with a lot of authority, and who, deep down, didn't accept much dissent. He was a legalist, in other words, there were political leaders in Vichi who gave the orders and he executed them.
In 42, French political leaders and in particular many French military personnel, especially the AMU, had not yet grasped the magnitude of what was happening, while the Americans had entered the war on the Eastern Front and were encountering great difficulties in Russia. Everything was changing, and November 8th should have enlightened them. French soldiers and air in the previously unoccupied zone left their camps and abandoned their weapons without destroying Thousands of vehicles, hundreds of cannons, and over 1,00 planes were seized by the occupying forces. The unoccupied zone and the French soldiers who protected it were no more. The army was over. The illusions of the armice hung.
The fleet could have left Toulon within 24 or 48 hours of the German invasion of the free zone. If he had wanted to leave, they could have left, but there was no desire to leave. Admiral Marquis was the maritime prefect of Toulon. That is to say, he was not at all responsible for the fleet, he was responsible for the supply of the fleet, the security of the base and therefore of the entrenched camp. Marquy was the camp that had been cut off. monitored and expelled. With the Germans at the gates of Toulon, the inevitable question was should they stay or set?
All that remained of Ishi's crushed dreams was the fleet isolated in the harbor. Marquis and Labord thought that they could save their forces by giving Hitler their word of honor that they wouldn't fight against the Axis Alliance. I found myself in the middle of the sailors who were saying to the officers, we're not going to stay here now, the Germans have crossed the line, they're going to come, they'd better leave and all that. A lot of guys were saying Algeria, Algeria. Among them were many Ajacians, and the Aljacians were afraid that if the Germans came, they would be conscripted into the German army.
We addressed our respective leaders to say, "But we want to leave, why are we waiting here? What are we waiting for?" So they came to us, they consulted all the senior officers, they said "We ca n't leave, we're here, we're waiting because we don't know what to do." So, they refused to leave. word of honor in particular circumstances On all the boats, there was a sabotage team that was planned but also there were six good men who were charged with planting the explosives, blowing up the boat, finally sinking it. H, it was during the night that we were called, either during the night or at 9 pm perhaps, to go and make the preparations for scuttling the boat. So naturally I didn't wear the gas because that was what it
consisted of: putting firecrackers on the hull and gas on top so that the explosion would happen in the sea on the seaward side, puncturing the hull. But it was done properly. In other words, we wanted the boat to sink straight down We talked amongst ourselves. We delegated the quarter of Matchf Henri, who was the oldest of the torpedo boats, and Gravier, who was the youngest of the gunner's mates, to the inn, saying that the entire crew, without exception, did not want to scuttle themselves and, on the contrary, wanted to continue the fight. The answer was rather evasive; it was not categorical. He said, "Don't worry, trust me and obey." in our opinion, in his mind, he had already decided to leave.
Mediterranean. They were ready to stand up to an allied landing. On November the 18th, the Germans demanded that the last French troop still remaining leave the entrenched camp for a long time. Around the town, an increase in the German army's activities was observed. Despite that, Marquis and Labard stuck to their guns. For them, the threat could only come from the sea, so all defenses were aimed in that direction. On November 26th, good evening, I was on duty and as usual, we put the rafts in place to allow the passage of a so-called troop and then at 9:10 am, we go to bed. troops of the panzer and SS division were already on their way to it was called operation lila at security post officer leert heard the noise of armored vehicles.
It was 4:00. They belonged to the seventh Panzer division coming from the west. Leber tried to raise the alarm. Seeing that the lines were down, he decided to send a police motorcyclist. At the same time, the SS division Dasich arrived from the east, passing the post at Lavelette, 6 km from the town. Wake up, I've come from Valletta. The Germans are in Valletta. The pockets are there. I came, I saw the Germans before they invaded the arsenal; they had taken possession of all the forts that overlooked the whole area. So all the anti-aircraft batteries, and so on, had already been taken care of by the Germans.
At 4:30, the Germans arrived at Foralg, where Admiral Mary had set up his headquarters as maritime chief of police. Hello! Admiral Robin is online. We need to wake up Admiral La Borde. Hurry, the Germans are coming. Around 5 a.m., we hear murmurs about airline prices. Oh! And we thought I had a plane that was just passing through, flying all the way. Oh no, it was the planes that dropped flares and it was inside the building where I was, I said we were going to get light before 5am, the night was clear. It was good, it was better than we expected. Then we heard gunshots, then we saw rockets, and then there were more and more, and then, and then, as I was saying, we could barely breathe, we were looking for fresh air.
He was told to wait until 4:30 sharp before waking Laval and handing him a letter, announcing that contrary to his promises, the fur had given the order to seize the fleet. Laval, who knew of the secret scutling orders, rushed to Vishi to stop the catastrophe going ahead. is it that Luke transmitted's order to avoid any Authority never We were panicking, the microphones we were talking about boarding, it was boarding, evacuated, evacuated, it was evacuated, and then it started to explode from all sides. There were the rioters. So the vandals break the wheels. If the Germans had boarded, they would have closed the valves. The boat couldn't sink.
I went down to the machine and I was ready. I had my blowtorch in my hand and I was ready to give the reducer a good whack with the blowtorch. An abominable thing. Well done, we ordered the flooding of the holds because as there is a lot of ammunition and powder in the holds, we simply pressed a button and the boat sank very slowly. So, don't stop p it lasted for 3 days day and night without stopping and as the weather was overcast that day, he wanted to see the smoke because the boats were catching fire. There was also some maize that caught fire, it was impossible. And then we saw panzers coming towards the main gate, driving at a fairly high speed, and when they arrived in front of the return to make a stop, that's when
we started firing a little, but it didn't last long because all the boats jumped and boarded, and that was the end of the battle. a submarine, is like a car. You press the starter button, it starts. We don't need to heat it beforehand. When we left the platform, the Germans shot at us. with machine guns they were 30m from us we saw them, they were there we were first to present ourselves at the place of Saintendrier closed by nets operated by a tug which did not want to open for us because there was no superior order B the commander II went all the way to the bow touched the tug saying the superior orders
there I give them to you. And we, we went through just enough to get through and we dove in. Then we could hear the ears of mines scraping the hull. We expected it to blow up any second now, and it did. We see the door coming, opening, German, helmet pushed down to his forehead, machine gun in hand, he has bands of bands, machine gun, grenades, crossed hands. said Raust the last one he makes the entrance Raust vi outside we took what we could and there were already soldiers who were on the platform soldiers and who were trying to climb but they did not climb they could not climb yet. We were the ones who went down. We went downstairs, where there were able-
bodied people, with all sorts of stuff. We were able to go downstairs and as we went along he made us line up against a wall. I found myself with a comrade in the arsenal. We could hear the sound of explosions from all the boats being blown up and we didn't move. We were there waiting for the end of all this reorganization that had taken place. We could see the boats as we passed by, we could see the boats that were half sunk, the flags that were touching the water. It breaks your heart.
What did they do to us to make us go out to the Castignho gate? At the Cast gate, I was able to give a draft of paper to a person who was there and who sent to my parents that I was in good health, that what remained of me was the vulture ribbon. What will become of us? Everyone is asking the question. Uh, the Germans brought us back to the depot, what are we going to do with us? That's where we learned from the officers who were in the depot that we were going to be put on leave to go home still believed in the idea of neutrality and refused to join the allies. We are aware that we have disobeyed. We disobeyed not the government, but we disobeyed Pétin, Val, in short, the whole government. So we were rebels.
This hero bed by de created a legend for himself which for years overshadowed the other protagonists of the scuting those who obeyed orders. One can refuse to carry out an order that is contrary to the laws of war, that is contrary to human rights. The first thing you can do is resign, say "Listen to me, I won't do that." Well, after the decision to disobey, and disobey, it implies for military leaders that you are able to impose your decision on those under your orders to make them make a different decision. Well, that's always a case-by- case situation, but at that point,
you get out of that, I would say, legal relationship between political power and military responsibility. And at that point, well, history will judge whether you were right or wrong. At the moment when our ships were about to be seized by the enemy, the national reflex kicked in, with the crews and staffs taking up arms. France heard the cannon of Toulon. was at losing fleet in his memoir he said he was overcome with anger and sorrow at this tragedy after the war the admirals were judged very severely by the high courmiral de la was sentenced to death in 1947 at his trial he declared I was only ever pro France for officers of the army.
Jean de became a French resistance fighter whereas until 1942 was a general in Vish's army. The Vishi sailors lost their ships and despite their efforts they were excluded from the great liberation saga. For the navy the scuting of the fleet became subject. It gave me chills. I felt a shiver run through me. I said, but we're not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. What do you want us to say when we're 20? We were just following orders, that's all. Do n't try to understand. We were told to do this, so we did that. It was good or it wasn't good. Then the boat has a soul. I had stayed on the boat for 5 years, well, I loved
my boat and I didn't want to scuttle it. It's a bit of a relief to tell you this because sometimes it's a burden to say you did abominable things or I didn't do anything abominable because what I was supposed to do I didn't do. Yes, because we didn't see it, but even we inside could hear the explosions, and I'm telling you, there were still 85 boats that exploded in Toulon. So, it was making noise and at that moment, we cried like children.
