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13The New York Times, Tuesday, September 24th, 1940
British Ships Attack Dakar in French Africa; De Gaulle and Troops Prepare to Seize City
Fleet Shells Port
8-Hour Attack Comes After Colony Rejects Landing Ultimatum
French Ships Reply
Action Taken to Thwart Nazi Designs on Vital Center, British Say
By Lansing Warren
VICHY, France, September 23. A British fleet opened fire on the port of Dakar, Senegal, at 2:15 PM today on an expiration of an ultimatum demanding a free landing for a British-French expeditionary force led by General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the London Committee for “Free Frenchmen.”
(The bombardment lasted eight hours, The Associated Press reported, but heavy fog prevented a landing last night. The shelling took a toll of at least sixty dead and many injured and caused severe damage in the port and city, The United Press said.)
Announcement of the attack on the French West African port was made by Foreign Minister Paul Baudoin, who said that France was “not so broken that she must endure this from her former ally.” He declared that the Petain government had decided to resist with all its strength. A French naval squadron is at Dakar.
Ultimatum by General
The Cabinet was notified after General de Gaulle had delivered his ultimatum to Pierre Boisson, the French High Commissioner at Dakar, M. Baudoin said, and it instructed him to refuse. Then came the news that the British Navy had started bombarding the colonial capital.
(In London it was declared officially that the expeditionary force had been dispatched to Dakar after discovery of German efforts to seize the colony.)
In making the announcement of the decision to resist, M. Baudion would not say that France and Britain were at war. His answer was that France had been attacked and that she would “return everything she receives.”
The Foreign Minister added that it was “most painful” for him to make the announcement, since the case was even worse than the attack by the British Navy on the French warships near Oran, Algeria, on July 3. Then, he said, there was the excuse that the British could conceive that, despite the terms of the armistice with Germany, French war vessels might be used against them. At Dakar, he declared, there was no such justification.
“This is French territory that is invaded,” the Foreign Minister said. “This is a French city attacked without the slightest excuse.”
Warships Passed Gibraltar
Most of the French warships at Dakar left Toulon, France, two weeks ago and passed through the Strait of Gibraltar unmolested by British guns or warships. The squadron returned to Dakar two days ago on orders of a British naval unit that had prevented its leaving to convoy merchant ships to France. The squadron is composed of the cruisers Georges Leygues, Montcalm and Gloire and the destroyers Le Matin, Le Fantasque and l’Audacieux. Also at Dakar is France’s most modern battleship, the 35,000 ton Richelieu, which was damaged by British naval action there in July.
(Although still undergoing repairs, the Richelieu joined the other warships in replying to the British shelling, The United Press reported. According to the French Government advices, The Associated Press said, the British squadron is composed of two battleships, four cruisers and “several” destroyers in addition to four transports.
The presence of General Charles de Gaulle with the British force caused some surprise here, since he was reported broadcasting in French from England as late as yesterday, but it is presumed he traveled by seaplane.
It was recalled tonight that in the recent modifications of the Petain Cabinet General Maxime Weygand was appointed the government’s delegate in French Africa and received the widest authority over both civil and military administration. However, he suffered injuries in a airplane accident and these delayed his departure for his new post. He was still officially reported in Vichy three days ago, but it was impossible to ascertain his whereabouts tonight.
Intentions Not Clear to Vichy
The exact intentions of General de Gaulle, who is already under the death penalty in France for his leadership of the London committee, remained unclear here tonight. It was not known whether the primary aim was to seize the French warships, to seize French African colonies in the name of Britain or to intensify the blockade, since Dakar is an important port of call for ships from South America. The port is 1,700 miles from Natal, Brazil.
Dakar harbor is protected by Goree Island. By laying booms on both sides of the island the entrance to the harbor can be closed. During the World War a large German submarine appeared off Dakar, but because of the booms it could not enter the harbor. It sent a few sells into the town, firing over Goree Island.
The city has been French for several centuries and the people are loyal to the Petain government.
The communiqué that M. Baudion issued to correspondents dealt severely with General de Gaulle and said that his action would “open the eyes of all Frenchmen.”
“Up to now it might have been supposed that he went under British patronage only to continue resistance against our former enemies,” the statement added, “but instead he leads attacks on his own compatriots.”
The atmosphere in Vichy tonight was extremely grave. Diplomatic relations with Britain were broken after the armistice and the naval battle near Oran, but in recent weeks there has been some effort at improvement. However, the British blockade of unoccupied France has caused widespread resentment and the attack on Dakar is certain to stir universal anger.
Radio Station and Airport Hit
Vichy, France, September 23 (UP). In today’s naval battle the British warships shelled both the European city of Dakar on Cape Vert, where about 3,000 whites, mostly French, live, and the native city in the great curve of the bay behind a double breakwater.
The British naval guns blasted the Dakar radio station, the Governor General’s house at Cape Vert and the Wakam Airport, ten miles northeast of Dakar, where many war planes, in charge of France’s famous speed flier, Colonel Peletier d’Oisy, were stationed.
Naval shells were also said to have smashed upon an important railroad terminal and railroad lines northward to Saint Louis and eastward to Bamako and the Niger Valley.
Off Cape Vert is the island of Goree, on which is an obsolete fortress without modern fortifications.
A few hours before the start of the bombardment the French had protested bitterly against a British radio appeal addressed to sailors of the French Fleet inviting them to revolt against French Admiral Francois Darlan and join the forces of Charles de Gaulle.
At the same time the French announced officially that Dahomey and the former German colony of Togo both had rallied to the Petain regime and refused to go over to Charles de Gaulle. These two areas are important because they are on a parallel between the Spanish Gold Coast and British Nigeria. The French Ivory Coast colony immediately west of the Gold Coast previously had pledged its loyalty to Marshal Henri Philippe Petain.
It was denied officially that any Madagascar ports had gone over to the General de Gaulls or been placed under control of the British Admiralty. It was acknowledged, however, that all of French Equatorial Africa had joined General de Gaulle.
Nazis Foiled, British Hold
Sailing of French Warships Seen as Evidence of Designs
By Robert P. Post
London, September 23. Recent mysterious movements of French warships, which British censors allowed to be published and the more mysterious movements of General Charles de Gaulle, which they did not allow to be made known, were explained tonight when the Ministry of Information announced that, aided by a British force, the commander of the “free Frenchmen” had attacked Dakar.
The British were reticent on the details. The Admiralty said it knew nothing and the Foreign Office was snappish when questions were asked. However, since the Vichy Government made an announcement of the attack the British were compelled to issue some sort of statement.
This said that recent reports showed that the Germans were making persistent efforts to seize control of Dakar and it added that the passage of the French warships through Gibraltar, for which the Germans must have given original consent, was further evidence. Hence, added the statement, General de Gaulle, realizing there were elements at Dakar who were opposed to Vichy, proceeded to Dakar with “free” French forces, arriving there this morning to summon followers to his flag.
“There seems to have been some resistance, but the situation as yet is not fully clear,” the communiqué said.
A British force accompanied General de Gaulle’s forces, it was added.
That is all that was officially available tonight, but despite the lack of details today’s action was one of great significance.
First, it means that the British, for the first time since the war started – if one accepts the minor movement in the seizure of Iceland – have beaten the Germans to it, assuming that the Nazi’s planned to seize Dakar. Of course, the British took the initiative when they attacked the French Fleet near Oran in July, but this is the first time they have beaten the Germans to the draw in important territory. It is important territory, too, for it gives a toehold on a great section of French Equatorial Africa, which has already declared for General de Gaulle.
In so doing the British risked much. When they allowed the French warships to pass Gibraltar recently the British said they were not at war with France. But clearly, by General de Gaulle’s action, they are risking war with a nation that was their ally three months ago.
In the announcement tonight the British played up General de Gaulle and his “free Frenchmen” and played down their own share. But everyone knows General de Gaulle could not have done anything without British support and British approval. He is a proscribed Frenchman with a price on his head. A nation could hardly ask a better excise for declaring war on another nation than the British gave Vichy today.
That the British would risk war with France and all that it implies caused some speculation here over the status of General de Gaulle. The British have gone a good way in the matters of dinners, luncheons and similar efforts to aide General de Gaulle and the several thousand troops he leads. But there had been a good deal of skepticism as to his actual value until France began to show signs of squirming under the Nazi heel.
Now the British and the “free Frenchmen” have been in action together. Furthermore, they are in action, as the Vichy government pointed out, against General de Gaulle’s own countrymen. That is a point that the French are bound to use to the utmost.
Therefore the attack on Dakar is a tremendous gamble in so far as Anglo French relations are concerned. Why was the gamble taken? Is it because the British have evidence that the French people are suffering under German demands? Is it because they believe that the French peasants, in occupied and unoccupied France are beginning to translate German domination into terms of lost cows and confiscated wheat?
Those are questions that the Dakar attack raises. It also raises the question whether the recent swing of French colonies away from Vichy to General de Gaulle has not encouraged the British to take a stronger line in the hope of getting even stronger support. After all, the British still have control of the sea.
Aid To America is Seen
Dakar Viewed in Washington as a Possible Nazi Base
Washington, September 23rd. Because of the strategic position of Dakar, Senegal, in relation to the security of the Western Hemisphere, official Washington was unofficially pleased to learn of the British attack on that port and the intention of Britain to establish a friendly French regime there under General Charles de Gaulle.
Dakar has been regarded in Washington, ever since the German victory over France, as the most likely point from which an eventual Nazi attacked against Latin America could be lauched, lying as it does on the westernmost point of the African bulge toward South America and only about 1,700 miles from Natal, Brazil.
Reports that German technicians and experts had actually landed at this relatively inaccessible French African jumping-off place led to the State Department recently to order a consular observer there. Thus far, officials said today, no reports have been received from him.
With airports already established along the Brazilian coast and German airlines in Brazil having access to them, it was felt that Dakar offered a fine springboard for air as well as possible naval attacks on Brazil in conjunction with Nazi-inspired internal movement in the South American country.
With the British or those French elements acting as their allies in possession of Dakar, the danger of Nazi attacks on the Americas would be greatly diminished, officials privately believe. There has been talk in diplomatic circles of late that the United State Navy would like use of the British port of Freetown, Sierra Leone, commanding Dakar from the south.
Washington, however, looked upon it as one of the tragedies caused by the Nazi conquests and aspirations for world domination that the French, on the same day, were fighting the British at Dakar and the Japanese, who have been markedly unfriendly to the British, in French-Indo China.
OTHER RESOURCES
Time Magazine (excerpt from Winston Churchill's "Their Finest Hour," with details of Operation Menace)
The Attack on Dakar (article, English)
Operation Menace (article, English)
Operation Against Dakar (article, English)
Wiki: Battle of Dakar (in English)
Dakar, September 1940 (excellent, many photos, in French)
The Case of Dakar (excellent, in French)
1940 Radio Report, Battle of Dakar (in French)
French Historian (on the Battle of Dakar, in French)
UK National Archives, War Cabinet, re Operation Menace (see p. 109)
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