One boiler in the fireroom had been ready since June 11, but only two of the four propellers were in place. The turbine drives for these two propellers had been hurriedly installed, but the engines had not yet been turned over under their own power. Not a gun aboard was in condition to fire, so a few antiaircraft machineguns, a few 37-mm. guns, and two 90-mm. twin mounts were hurriedly swung aboard and bolted down.
Already, it was learned, the Germans were at Rennes; they would reach Saint-Nazaire the next day. If the Jean Bart did not leave that very night, there would be nothing left to do but blow her up.
At 0330, the time of high tide, the operation began. There was no power on the main engines, or on the rudder, or the windlass, or the after winches. Everything had to be done by hand—with capstan bars aboard and pushing tugs outboard. The ship managed to get clear of the basin without too much difficulty, but in the darkness she missed a buoy in the too narrow channel and ran aground. It took six tugs to pull her off again. Then at 0440, just as the Jean Bart was clearing the entrance to the Loire, the Luftwaffe appeared. The ship sustained but one hit, and that caused only minor damage. Then after the German air attack was over, the French fighter planes, which had been scheduled to give air cover, belatedly arrived—and were warmly greeted by the Jean Bart’s gunners. Luckily only one Morane fighter was hit, and no lives were lost.
Then, little by little everything straightened out. Luck was with the ship. The main engines began to turn over; there was steam for the auxiliaries, and electric power for the steering; the oil tankers were on time at the refueling rendezvous; and two German submarines, which had been lying in wait, never made contact.
The Jean Bart was saved. Even though she had no steering compass, she could follow the destroyer Hardi, on which Admiral de Laborde had hoisted his flag. At 1700 on June 22, the Jean Bart steamed into Casablanca harbor, in French Morocco, having made the whole trip at an average speed of 21 knots.
Meanwhile, back in France, as the enemy advanced south along the coast, the French shipping fled constantly before them, until no ports were left. The large fishing trawlers had pushed straight on toward the Mediterranean. At Rochefort and La Pallice and in the Charente River 36 ships out of 40 escaped. At the Rochefort Air Base Rear Admiral Jean Lartigue, Chief of Naval Aviation, was killed while directing the shift of naval air groups to Hourtin and Marignane.66
Airfields near Bordeaux and Marseilles, respectively.
At Bordeaux the Admiralty Delegate, Rear Admiral Gaston Barnouin, had held that post only since June 13. Convoys of 10 to 15 ships were still arriving from the Atlantic. From June 23 on, the port at the mouth of the Gironde was under attack from three directions—bombing from the air, magnetic mines in the sea, and German artillery fire from Royan, on the north shore of the estuary. The port itself, from the docks to the suburbs, was a human ant hill of civilian refugees and military evacuees, most of the latter being supply service troops.
The Navy had been asked to provide passage for 30,000 young recruits to North Africa, but at the last moment the Army was unable to muster the recruits. The Navy was next asked to evacuate important stockpiles as well as several thousand specialists, principally from the Air Force.
On June 13 the French Admiralty had given orders for 8 large passenger liners, with suitable escort, to be made ready at the mouth of the Gironde, but by June 20, only 4 were available—the Mexique having been lost to magnetic mines at Verdon and the Champlain at La Pallice.
The morale among merchant marine sailors was very low. No one wanted to be “the last man killed in the war.” Some crews deserted their ships in order to be with their families ashore if the Germans came. Two passenger liners loaded with military personnel refused to get under way. The crew of a third one, taken firmly in hand by the Admiralty Delegate, carried off all the personnel of the Hourtin Air Base under direct fire from the Germans. The fourth ship—the Massilia—was assigned to carry those members of Parliament who wished to leave for North Africa; it required the captain’s best arguments to persuade the crew to evacuate men whom many among them regarded as fugitives from their duty in France. One freighter loaded with valuable war material got under way with naval officers replacing the usual ship’s officers, but it was too late to cross the bar and the ship had to be scuttled to prevent the Germans capturing her. In all, some 30 transports, sweepers, or patrol vessels left the Gironde, the majority of them heading for Casablanca.77 The last shipment of gold was sent to North Africa on the cruiser Primauguet and on a few of the patrol vessels.
A few ships, however, headed for England under pressure of the British destroyers cruising off the Gironde. Among them was the freighter Fort Médine, which was of particular interest since it carried the archives of the Gnome and Rhône aircraft engine factory. The British liaison officer at Bordeaux had received orders to do his utmost to persuade the freighter captain to sail for England, and, if necessary, to bribe him. (A British Admiralty dispatch, 1937 of 22 June, specified 100 pounds sterling.)
As a cheerful change from these depressing incidents of defeat there was the exploit of the destroyer Lansquenet. Like the Jean Bart, she was uncompleted when the order came to evacuate. She was first floated on June 17, without ever having turned her engines over. She received her turrets that afternoon, was towed to the supply and oil docks, got under way under her own power on June 23, and cleared the mouth of the Gironde under fire of the arriving German guns.
Why, it is often asked, did all of these ships head for French Africa, and not, as had been planned several days before, for England?
The answer is that the situation had radically changed since the military collapse of France.
On May 28, when the evacuation of Dunkirk had scarcely begun, in strictest confidence Admiral Darlan had given a personal, handwritten memorandum to his chief of staff, Rear Admiral Le Luc. The memorandum began with these words: “In case military events lead to an armistice, the conditions of which would be set by the Germans, and if these conditions include the surrender of the Fleet, I have no intention of carrying out that order.” Then followed a list of detailed instructions which were to govern in that case.
Certainly no sailor could have been found in France who would have turned over the Fleet intact to the Germans. But, fearing a moment of weakness on the part of the Government, Darlan was taking no chances. In fact, only the day before, the French Admiralty had inquired into the possibility of completing the Jean Bart and the Richelieu in an English navy yard.
But if no surrender were required, or if the dishonor of a capitulation were not imposed on the Navy, the latter had no reason not to remain faithful and obedient to the legal government of France, as required by every commissioned officer’s oath.
On June 14, Darlan, believing that the Government intended to continue the war from overseas, had plans prepared so that the Fleet could proceed to some English or French colonial port and continue to fight from there. But not one single person in the Reynaud Government—where César Campinchi was Minister of the Navy and General de Gaulle the Assistant Secretary of the Army—gave orders to execute those plans.
On the contrary, the group in power, faced with the tragic reality of defeat, resigned and was succeeded in an orderly manner by another Government, which then asked for an armistice.
An armistice is not a peace treaty concluding a war; it is merely a truce, a cessation of hostilities. And one could not ask for a cessation of hostilities on land yet still continue the fighting at sea. The new Government, of which Darlan was a member, had taken the firm position that no armistice would be concluded if it involved surrendering the Fleet to the Germans. All that remained for Darlan to do was to regroup the ships in the ports remaining to France, and to continue the fight as directed until he received orders to the contrary. The interests of the Fleet could not be considered ahead of the interests of France.88