The Splendid and the Vile

by Erik Larson

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  THAT DAY, AS A herald of the invasion that seemed soon to come, the Germans seized and occupied Guernsey, a British dependency in the Channel Islands off the coast of Normandy, less than two hundred air miles from Chequers. It was a minor action—the Germans held the island with only 469 soldiers—but troubling all the same.

  CHAPTER 18

  Resignation No. 1

  AS IF WAR AND INVASION were not enough to think about, that same day, Sunday, June 30, Churchill’s close friend and counselor and industrial miracle worker, Lord Beaverbrook, submitted his resignation.

  The letter began with the happy reminder that in the seven weeks since Beaverbrook had become minister of aircraft production, the output of aircraft had increased at a near-inconceivable rate: The RAF now had at its disposal 1,040 aircraft ready for service, compared with 45 when he took over—though how he derived these numbers would soon become a matter of dispute. He had done what he set out to do; it was time for him to go. His conflict with the Air Ministry had become so profound as to impede his ability to perform.

  “It is now imperative that the Ministry of Aircraft Production should pass into the keeping of a man in touch and sympathy with the Air Ministry and the Air Marshals,” he wrote. He blamed himself, declaring he was not suited to working with Air Ministry officials. “I am certain that another man could take up the responsibilities with hope and expectation of that measure of support and sympathy which has been denied to me.”

  He asked to be relieved of his duties as soon as his successor had been fully briefed on his ministry’s ongoing operations and projects.

  “I am convinced,” he wrote, “that my work is finished and my task is over.”

  John Colville guessed that Beaverbrook’s true motive was a wish to quit “at the peak of his success, before new difficulties arise.” Colville considered this an unworthy reason. “It is like trying to stop playing cards immediately after a run of luck,” he wrote in his diary.

  Churchill, clearly annoyed, sent Beaverbrook his reply the following day, Monday, July 1. Instead of addressing him as Max, or simply Beaverbrook, he began his letter with a frosty “Dear Minister of Aircraft Production.”

  “I have received your letter of June 30, and hasten to say that at a moment like this when an invasion is reported to be imminent there can be no question of any Ministerial resignations being accepted. I require you, therefore, to dismiss this matter from your mind, and to continue the magnificent work you are doing on which to a large extent our safety depends.”

  In the meantime, Churchill told him, “I am patiently studying how to meet your needs in respect of control of the over-lapping parts of your Department and that of the Air Ministry, and also to assuage the unfortunate differences which have arisen.”

  A partly chastened Beaverbrook replied immediately. “I will certainly not neglect my duties here in the face of invasion. But it is imperative—and all the more so because of this threat of armed attack upon our shores—that the process of turning over this Ministry should take place as soon as possible.”

  He again aired his frustrations: “I cannot get information which I require about supplies or equipment. I cannot get permission to carry out operations essential to strengthening our reserves to the uttermost in readiness for the day of invasion.

  “It is not possible for me to go on because a breach has taken place in the last five weeks through the pressure I have been compelled to put upon reluctant officers.”

  This breach, he wrote, “cannot be healed.”

  But he no longer threatened immediate resignation.

  Churchill was relieved. Beaverbrook’s departure at this time would have left an unfillable absence in the skein of counsel and succor that surrounded the prime minister. This would become apparent late that night when, with the threat of resignation for now stifled, Churchill felt compelled to summon Beaverbrook to 10 Downing Street to address a matter of greatest urgency.

  CHAPTER 19

  Force H

  THE NIGHT WAS EXCEPTIONALLY DARK, with almost no moon; a brisk wind shook the windows at 10 Downing. Churchill needed the counsel of a friend—a decisive, clear-eyed friend.

  It was just after midnight when he called Beaverbrook to the Cabinet Room. There was no doubt that Beaverbrook would still be awake and alert. As minister of aircraft production, he kept the same hours as Churchill, prodding and cajoling his staff to find ways to get Britain’s aircraft factories to accelerate production. Beaverbrook’s brief insurrection had been a schoolboy’s pout aimed at eliciting Churchill’s support against the Air Ministry, rather than a serious attempt at abandoning his job.

  Already present for the meeting were Churchill’s top two Admiralty men, First Lord A. V. Alexander and his operations chief, First Sea Lord Sir Dudley Pound. There was tension in the room. The matter of what to do about the French fleet had come down to a yes or no question—whether or not to attempt to seize the fleet to keep it out of Hitler’s hands. The Royal Navy was poised to execute a newly devised plan for “the simultaneous seizure, control, or effective disablement of all the accessible French fleet,” meaning any ships in such English ports as Plymouth and Southampton, as well as those moored at French bases in Dakar, Alexandria, and Mers el-Kébir, in Algeria. One element of the plan, code-named Operation Catapult, focused on the most important base, Mers el-Kébir, and a smaller annex three miles away at Oran, where some of the French navy’s most powerful ships lay at anchor, among them two modern battle cruisers, two battleships, and twenty-one other ships and submarines.

  Time was short. These ships could sail any day, and once under the control of Germany, would shift the balance of power at sea, especially in the Mediterranean. No one expected for a moment that Hitler would adhere to his promise to leave the French fleet idle for the duration of the war. An ominous development seemed to confirm the Admiralty’s fears: British intelligence learned that the Germans now possessed and were using French naval codes.

  Once Operation Catapult got underway, Churchill knew, its commander might have to use force if the French did not willingly relinquish or disable their ships. The man placed in charge was Vice Admiral Sir J. F. Somerville, who earlier had met with his superiors in London to discuss the plan. For Somerville, the idea of firing on the French was deeply unsettling. Britain and France had been allies; together they had declared war against Germany, and their troops had fought side by side, enduring thousands of casualties in the vain attempt to stop Hitler’s onslaught. And then there was the fact that the officers and crew on the French ships were fellow navy men. Sailors of all nations, even when at war, felt a strong kinship to one another, as brothers for whom the sea, with all its rigors and dangers, was a common opponent. They recognized a duty to rescue anyone cast adrift, whether by mishap, storm, or warfare. On Monday afternoon, Somerville had telegraphed the Admiralty, urging “that the use of force should be avoided at all costs.”

  He was prepared, however, to carry out his orders to the fullest, and he possessed the wherewithal to do so. The Admiralty had placed under his command a persuasive battle fleet, code-named Force H, consisting of seventeen ships, including a battle cruiser, HMS Hood, and an aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal. By Monday night, when Churchill summoned Beaverbrook, the force was already gathered at Gibraltar, ready to sail for Mers el-Kébir.

  All Admiral Somerville needed now was a final order.

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  AT 10 DOWNING STREET that blustery night, First Sea Lord Pound declared himself in favor of attacking the French ships. First Lord Alexander at first expressed uncertainty, but he soon sided with Pound. Churchill was still tormented. He called the matter “a hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned.” He needed Beaverbrook’s clarity.

  And true to form, Beaverbrook showed no hesitation. He urg
ed attack. There could be no doubt, he argued, that Hitler would appropriate the French ships, even if their captains and crews balked. “The Germans will force the French Fleet to join the Italians, thus taking command of the Mediterranean,” he said. “The Germans will force this by threatening to burn Bordeaux the first day the French refuse, the next day Marseilles, and the third day Paris.”

  This persuaded Churchill, but just after he gave the order to proceed, the magnitude of what might soon unfold overwhelmed him. He grabbed Beaverbrook by the arm and dragged him into the garden behind 10 Downing. It was almost two A.M. The wind blew strong. Churchill sped through the garden, with Beaverbrook behind, struggling to keep up. Beaverbrook’s asthma spiked. As he stood wheezing and gulping air, Churchill affirmed that the only path was indeed attack, and began to weep.

  Somerville received his final orders at 4:26 A.M., on Tuesday, July 2. The operation was to begin with the delivery of an ultimatum from Somerville to the French admiral in command at Mers el-Kébir, Marcel Gensoul, that set out three alternatives: to join England in fighting Germany and Italy; to sail to a British port; or to sail to a French port in the West Indies where the ships could be stripped of armament or transferred to the United States for safekeeping.

  “If you refuse these fair offers,” Somerville’s message stated, “I must with profound regret require you to sink your ships within six hours. Finally, failing the above, I have the orders of His Majesty’s Government to use whatever force may be necessary to prevent your ships from falling into German or Italian hands.”

  Force H left Gibraltar at dawn. That night, at ten fifty-five, Admiral Pound, at Churchill’s behest, telegraphed Somerville: “You are charged with one of the most disagreeable and difficult tasks that a British Admiral has ever been faced with, but we have complete confidence in you and rely on you to carry it out relentlessly.”

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  IN BERLIN THAT DAY, Tuesday, July 2, Hitler asked the commanders of his army, navy, and air force to evaluate the feasibility of a full-on invasion of England, the first concrete indication that he had begun seriously to contemplate such an attack.

  Until now he had shown little interest in invasion. With the fall of France and the disarray of Britain’s army after Dunkirk, Hitler had assumed that England, in one way or another, would withdraw from the war. It was crucial that this happen, and soon. England was the last obstacle in the west, one Hitler needed to eliminate so that he could concentrate on his long-dreamed-of invasion of Soviet Russia and avoid a two-front war, a phenomenon for which the word-minting power of the German language did not fail: Zweifrontenkrieg. He believed that even Churchill, at some point, would have to acknowledge the folly of continuing to oppose him. The war in the west was, in Hitler’s view, all but over. “Britain’s position is hopeless,” he told his head of Army High Command, General Franz Halder. “The war is won by us. A reversal in the prospects of success is impossible.” So confident was Hitler that England would negotiate, he demobilized forty Wehrmacht divisions—25 percent of his army.

  But Churchill was not behaving like a sane man. Hitler sent a series of indirect peace feelers through multiple sources, including the king of Sweden and the Vatican; all were rejected or ignored. To help avoid scuttling any opportunity for a peace deal, he forbade Luftwaffe chief Hermann Göring from launching air raids against civilian districts of London. Invasion was a prospect he contemplated with anxiety and reluctance, and with good reason. Early studies conducted independently by the German navy well before Hitler himself began to ponder invasion highlighted grave obstacles, mostly centered on the fact that Germany’s relatively small navy was ill-equipped for any such enterprise. The army, too, saw dangerous hurdles.

  Hitler’s uncertainty was evident in how he now couched this new request to his commanders. He emphasized that “the plan to invade England has not taken any definite shape” and that his request merely contemplated the possibility of such an invasion. He was definitive on one point, however: Any such invasion could succeed only if Germany first achieved complete air superiority over the RAF.

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  AT THREE A.M. ON Wednesday, July 3, as Admiral Somerville’s Force H neared Oran in the Mediterranean Sea, a destroyer in the group was sent out ahead with three officers, to open a communications channel with the French. Nearby stood the ruins of an ancient Roman town with the disconcerting name of Vulturia. Soon afterward, a message was sent to the French admiral in charge, Gensoul, requesting a meeting. The message began with a salvo of flattery: “The British Navy hopes that their proposals will enable you and the valiant and glorious French Navy to be by our side.” It assured the French admiral that if he chose to sail with the Royal Navy, “your ships would remain yours and no one need have anxiety for the future.”

  The message closed: “A British Fleet is at sea off Oran waiting to welcome you.”

  The admiral refused to meet with the British officers, who now sent him a written copy of the full ultimatum. The time was 9:35 A.M. Britain’s Admiral Somerville signaled the French: “We hope most sincerely that the proposals will be acceptable and that we shall have you by our side.”

  Reconnaissance planes from the Ark Royal, the aircraft carrier assigned to Force H, reported signs that the French ships were preparing to sail, “raising steam and furling awnings.”

  At ten A.M., the French admiral delivered a message affirming that he would never let the French ships fall under German control but also vowing, in light of the ultimatum, that his ships would fight back if the British used force. He repeated this vow an hour later, pledging to spare nothing to defend his fleet.

  Tension mounted. At eleven-forty, the British sent a message stating that no French ship would be allowed to leave the harbor unless the terms of the ultimatum were accepted. British air reconnaissance reported further signs that the French fleet was getting ready to put to sea. The ships’ bridges were fully manned.

  Admiral Somerville ordered that aircraft from the Ark Royal begin depositing mines at the mouth of the harbor.

  Somerville was just about to send a message telling the French that he would begin bombarding their ships at two-thirty that afternoon when word arrived from the French admiral, agreeing to a face-to-face conference. By this point, Somerville suspected that the French were merely stalling for time, but he dispatched an officer all the same. The meeting, aboard the French flagship, Dunkerque, began at four-fifteen, by which time the French ships were fully primed to sail, with tugboats in position.

  Somerville ordered the placement of more mines, these to be dropped in the nearby harbor at Oran.

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  ABOARD THE DUNKERQUE, the meeting went badly. The French admiral was “extremely indignant and angry,” according to the British emissary. The talk continued for an hour, achieving nothing.

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  IN LONDON, CHURCHILL AND the Admiralty grew impatient. The French admiral was clearly stalling for time, and so, it seemed, was Somerville. His reluctance to attack was understandable; nevertheless, the time for action had come. Nightfall was approaching. “There was nothing for it but to give [Somerville] a peremptory order to carry out the repugnant task without further question,” wrote Pug Ismay. “But all who were present when that message was drafted could not but feel sad and, in a sense, guilty.” Pug had initially opposed attacking the French fleet, out of both moral scruple and fear that France might declare war on Britain. “To kick a man when he is down is unattractive at any time,” he wrote. “But when the man is a friend who has already suffered grievously, it seems almost to border on infamy.”

  The Admiralty wired Somerville, “Settle the matter quickly or you may have French reinforcements to deal with.”

  At four-fifteen P.M., while the meeting aboard the Dunkerque was just getting underway, Somerville signaled th
e French that if they did not accept one of the options set out in the original British ultimatum by five-thirty, he would sink their ships.

  Force H prepared for battle. The French did likewise. As the British emissary left the Dunkerque, he heard alarms behind him sounding “Action.” He reached his ship at five twenty-five P.M., five minutes before Somerville’s deadline.

  The deadline came—and went.

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  IN PORTSMOUTH AND PLYMOUTH, where the operation to seize French ships was also underway, British forces faced little resistance. “The action was sudden and necessarily a surprise,” Churchill wrote. “Overwhelming force was employed, and the whole transaction showed how easily the Germans could have taken possession of any French warships lying in ports which they controlled.”

  Churchill described the action in British ports as having been mostly “amicable,” with some French crews actually glad to leave their ships behind. One vessel resisted—the Surcouf, an immense submarine named for an eighteenth-century French privateer. As a British squad raced aboard, the French sought to burn manuals and scuttle the submarine. Gunfire left one French sailor dead, three British. The Surcouf surrendered.