Eighty-three years ago today, at 5:45 on the morning of July 3, 1940, a solitary Royal Navy destroyer approached the French Navy’s base at Mers-el-Kébir on the coast of Algeria..

A signalman on H.M.S. Foxhound, flashed a message by lamp in the direction of French Admiral Marcel-Bruno Gensoul, aboard his flagship, the Dunkerque.

“The British Admiralty has sent Captain Holland to confer with you.”

Captain Cedric Holland had formerly served as the Royal Navy’s attaché to its French counterpart in Paris. Holland was fluent in French, and counted a number of French officers as good friends. France had signed an armistice agreement with Germany just eleven days before, and Britain and France were no longer allies. Holland’s difficult mission that morning was to persuade Admiral Gensoul to either unite the 12 ships in his Force de Raid with the Royal Navy, sail them to Britain, the U.S., or far-off neutral ports, or to scuttle his ships to prevent them from falling into the hands of Adolph Hitler.

Gensoul obstinately refused to meet with Holland – in part because Britain had sent a mere Captain to confer with him.

Shortly after nine that morning, Admiral Gensoul’s ire was further inflamed when 16 additional British warships appeared on the near horizon. Force H, under the command of Admiral James Somerville, included the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, and the majestic battlecruiser H.M.S. Hood, the pride of the Royal Navy.

The next eight hours were filled with frustration, tortured pleas, bluffs, and even tears. Somerville threatened to sink Gensoul's ships if the French Admiral refused Britain's "fair offers."

In London, as details of the impasse trickled to Winston Churchill and his circle of advisors, General Edward Louis Spears, who knew Cedric Holland from his time as Naval Attaché in Paris, imagined the British Captain’s anguish. “I knew that as the afternoon wore on that Holland must have felt as if he had been put in charge of a firing squad and asked to shoot his best friend.”

Admiral Somerville’s order to open fire on the sitting French ships at 5:54 in the evening was followed by 10 minutes of carnage, three days of additional casualties and recriminations, an emotional address to the House of Commons by Winston Churchill, and 83 years of controversy.

*French ships under attack in the harbor at Mers-el-Kebir*

This is the core of the book that I’m writing (with quite a bit more to the story).

Happy July 3. Thanks for reading.

Bill

PS: I’ve written about Cedric Holland, Admiral Somerville, and General Spears in additional detail in past newsletters

PPS: If we’re connected on social media, you’ve probably all ready seen this. In case we’re not, my two amazing kids – Brittany and Billy – surprised me on Father’s Day by stashing copies of Everybody Knows a Salesman Can’t Write a Book in Little Free Libraries across Pittsburgh and Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.