Scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon, 27 November 1942

[colombamike]

Scuttling of the French Fleet at Toulon, 27 november 1942, after the invasion of the south of France by german troops.

[nigelweysom]

i have recently read about this so it was nice to see some pictures , do you have any more information ?
Nigel

[colombamike]

i have recently read about this so it was nice to see some pictures , do you have any more information ?
Nigel

yes, a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_French_fleet_in_Toulon

and a map with the position of all french ships in the harbour the day of the scuttling

[nigelweysom]

one has to wonder how things might have been if the French fleet had sailed to England and joined us ?
Nigel

[colombamike]

one has to wonder how things might have been if the French fleet had sailed to England and joined us ?
Nigel


If the French fleet would be and joined the allies, it would be left Toulon for the ports of Algiers and Oran and Mers El Kebir. after 1 or 2 months, while modern ships would have gone to the U.S. to be upgraded. The older ships have been upgraded rapidly (in more austere version) in the North African ports

[astraltrader]

It would IMO have made surprisingly little impact to our war effort.
Whilst it would have eased the pressure on the RN in certain areas, I dont see that it would have affected the bigger picture.
The destroyers and escorts would probably have been the most use to us...

[nigelweysom]

of course all what if questions are conjecture, and we can never know for sure exactly what would have happened , just as we cannot know what would have happened if the French fleet had not been scuttled, i do believe that England was very concerned that the Germans might get hold of the French fleet ,and if this concern was valid then there may well have been an advantage to the allies
Nigel

[Blaydon]

I think that is the bigger question, Not what the french fleet in Allied hands would have brought us but, what a French fleet in Axis hands would have cost us.
The Germans with sudden access to a large and relatively modern fleet to add to their own small but modern fleet posed a significant threat. Those two plus the Italian fleet may have been too much to handle for say the Med fleet and losing the med would have been very costly.

The home fleet would have been hamstrung as it needed to keep most of its vessels in home waters to counter possible german excursions, the threat of half of a French fleet plus the Italian fleet roaming the Med and the other half of the french fleet sortieing from Biscay and west african ports combined with the threat of major German units on the move from germany and Norway would have been to much to handle.

That was I think the driving force behind the tragic and regretable actions against the French fleet in her african ports and perhaps communications to and influence exerted in this case.

[colombamike]

I think that is the bigger question, Not what the french fleet in Allied hands would have brought us but, what a French fleet in Axis hands would have cost us. The Germans with sudden access to a large and relatively modern fleet to add to their own small but modern fleet posed a significant threat. Those two plus the Italian fleet may have been too much to handle for say the Med fleet and losing the med would have been very costly.

Sorry for my bad english, i am french:D

If the Germans had captured intact whole French fleet, this would have been NOT of great advantage.
By late 1942, the main effort of the German Navy is focused on the u-boat. Not on larger vessels. If the Germans had captured intact french warships, they could not put crews on french battleships and cruisers BECAUSE GERMAN FLEET LACKED MANPOWER ........ in the end.....only a handful of small vessels would have been usefull for german (1/2 destroyers, 2/3 torpedo boat, some coastal patrol ships, auxiliary...)

Almost the same for the Italians, since late 1942, the Italian fleet, albeit with large numbers, is not really a threat to the allies, BECAUSE ITALIAN FLEET HAVE NOT ENOUGH FUEL FOR THEIR VESSEL.......... in the end....only the equivalent of a probable "squadron" of french ships (2/3 cruiseurs, 3/4 destroyers, 3/4 torpedo boat) were usefull for italian fleet.

[Blaydon]

That is great use of hindsight but I am considering what the situation was then. The allies were not aware of how starved for fuel the Italians were or how short of manpower the Kriegsmarine were thay had to err on the side of caution. This meant they had to consider the possibility of those vessels fully manned and fueled being used against them.

The facts about fuel shortage and manpower issues were only realised later so you are operating on information they did not have.

[MMM]

Maybe as Marine Engineer I have perversioned look at problem but I think French Fleet possession either Allies or German would have only POLITICAL MEANING.
I think the most of poeple don't realise the problems with such a ammount of "alien" ships in their navy:eek:
If Allies had French Navy who could equipe the ships with ammunition, SPARE PARTS and sufficient number of repaire yards and repairing capacities for such a number in-metric-system-built ships. Long time ago, being accustommed to Metric system I spent few months on British built ship built on Imperial system: it was a terrible experience. By contrary it also could take place for RN personel. Why? because we are supposing possession of French Navy with crews. But most of them didn't want fight anymore.
This could be resolved if French Navy joined Allies with all their arsenals, magasines and experienced yard workers.
And what would happen if Germans get French Fleet?
They would probably have the same problems, maybe a bit less but still the same. Even if got arsenals and yard workers they would lack experienced personel, fuel and theater where to use it.

And my own conclusion:
scuttling of French Navy would probably naver take place if British Navy did not conduct "Catapult" operation.
It was one of biggest mistakes and it stiffened Vichy Gouvernment stand which led to half war between Britain and its former Ally.
It is my private opinion but only reason of British action was fact that after fall of France and number of Britain defeats Churchill need ANY SUCCESS to improve public feeling. As Britain wasn't able to do anything spectacular against Germans somebody weaker had to get a kick.:o
It worked in July 1940 but in further prospects it failed and brought many future complications.