The ''Force de Raid'' (Raiding Force) was a French naval squadron formed at Brest during naval mobilization for

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The squadron commanded by Vice Amiral d'Escadre Marcel Gensoul consisted of the most modern French

capital ship The capital ships of a navy are its most important warships; they are generally the larger ships when compared to other warships in their respective fleet. A capital ship is generally a leading or a primary ship in a naval fleet. Strategic i ...

s ''Dunkerque'' and ''Strasbourg'', screened by the three newest French

cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several operational roles from search-and-destroy to ocean escort to sea ...

s, the eight largest and most modern ''contre-torpilleurs'', and the only French

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

. The Force effectively ceased to exist as a separate unit after the British

attack on Mers-el-Kébir The attack on Mers-el-Kébir (Battle of Mers-el-Kébir) on 3 July 1940, during the Second World War, was a British naval attack on French Navy ships at the naval base at Mers El Kébir, near Oran, on the coast of French Algeria. The attack was ...

Strategic significance

Battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

s had been internationally perceived as the strategic

arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...

focus since the

Washington Naval Conference The Washington Naval Conference (or the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armament) was a disarmament conference called by the United States and held in Washington, D.C., from November 12, 1921, to February 6, 1922. It was conducted out ...

of 1921. Countries unable to match the numbers of battleships maintained by the United States and the United Kingdom had built faster battleships so they might have the option of evading stronger fleets. Italy modernized ''Conte di Cavour'' and ''Giulio Cesare'' in 1937 with new engines increasing their speed to 28 knots. Germany completed the 31-knot battleships ''Gneisenau'' in 1938 and ''Scharnhorst'' in January 1939. For the first ten months of

, the ''Dunkerque''-class battleships of ''Force de Raid'' were among the few

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...

battleships available to counter the ''Scharnhorst''-class battleships. The

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

battle cruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...

s , , and , although older, were also generally competitive with Scharnhorst, in part due to upgrades between-the-wars, including increased horizontal protection in the first two. The Italian battleships ''Vittorio Veneto'' and ''Littorio'' were completed in April and May 1940. ''Duilio'' was modernized to a speed of 27 knots in July, and ''Andrea Doria'' completed similar modernization in October. The German battleship ''Bismarck'' was completed in August. Britain's first modern battleship would not be completed until December 1940, and a British Defense Council subcommittee had concluded as recently as 1936 there was no justification for assuming aircraft could destroy battleships. This conclusion would be disproved by the

battle of Taranto The Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11/12 November 1940 during the Second World War between British naval forces (Admiral Andrew Cunningham) and Italian naval forces (Admiral Inigo Campioni). The Royal Navy launched the first all ...

in November, but

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

remained focused on battleships as late as August 1941.

History

The ''Force de Raid'' sortied from Brest immediately following declaration of war and temporarily patrolled off

Casablanca Casablanca (, ) is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the Chaouia (Morocco), Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a populatio ...

to prevent a ''

Kriegsmarine The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...

'' raid on Moroccan ports. The Allies organized eight naval hunting groups on 5 October 1939 when the

pocket battleship The class was a series of three (armored ships), a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the officially in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. The ships of the class, , , and , were all stated to displace in a ...

''Admiral Graf Spee'' began sinking merchant ships in the

South Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for ...

. ''Dunkerque'', ''Béarn'', ''Montcalm'', ''Georges Leygues'', ''Gloire'', ''L'Audacieux'', ''Le Fantasque'', ''Le Malin'', ''Le Terrible'', ''Le Triomphant'', ''L'Indomptable'', ''Mogador'', and ''Volta'' of ''Force de Raid'' patrolled the North Atlantic from Brest as Force L, while ''Strasbourg'' was detached to the

West Indies The West Indies is an island subregion of the Americas, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, which comprises 13 independent island country, island countries and 19 dependent territory, dependencies in thr ...

to form Force N with and . ''Bearn'' proved too slow to accompany the modern ships of ''Force de Raid'' and was soon detached for service as an aircraft transport bringing newly manufactured American warplanes to France.Le Masson, p.82 The remainder of Force L covered convoy KJ4 from

Kingston, Jamaica Kingston is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long spit (landform), sand spit which connects the town of Por ...

to the

British Isles The British Isles are an archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner Hebrides, Inner and Outer Hebr ...

to prevent attacks by the pocket battleship ''Deutschland''. ''Strasbourg'' left

Dakar Dakar ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Senegal, largest city of Senegal. The Departments of Senegal, department of Dakar has a population of 1,278,469, and the population of the Dakar metropolitan area was at 4.0 mill ...

on 21 November and was escorted back to Brest on 27 November by ''Le Triomphant'', ''L'Indomptable'' and ''Le Malin''. ''Strasbourg'' sailed south again with HMS ''Neptune'' as Force Y during the Battle of the River Plate. ''Force de Raid'' shifted its base of operations from Brest to

Mers El Kébir Mers El Kébir ( ) is a port on the Mediterranean Sea, near Oran in Oran Province, northwest Algeria. It is famous for the attack on the French fleet in 1940, in the Second World War. History Originally a Phoenician port, it was called ''Port ...

on 27 April 1940 in anticipation of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

joining the

Axis An axis (: axes) may refer to: Mathematics *A specific line (often a directed line) that plays an important role in some contexts. In particular: ** Coordinate axis of a coordinate system *** ''x''-axis, ''y''-axis, ''z''-axis, common names ...

. ''Force de Raid'' was unsuccessfully attacked by ''Dandolo'' on 13 June after a sortie from Mers El Kébir in response to a false report of a ''Kriegsmarine'' squadron preparing to enter the

Strait of Gibraltar The Strait of Gibraltar is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The two continents are separated by 7.7 nautical miles (14.2 kilometers, 8.9 miles) at its narrowest point. Fe ...

. Although the ''Force de Raid'' was berthed in colonial Africa outside Axis-occupied territory following the

Second Armistice at Compiègne The Armistice of 22 June 1940, sometimes referred to as the Second Armistice at Compiègne, was an agreement signed at 18:36 on 22 June 1940 near Compiègne, France by officials of Nazi Germany and the French Third Republic. It became effective a ...

, the wartime British Government of Winston Churchill was greatly alarmed by the possibility that these modern capital ships might be acquired by the Axis powers, with or without French consent. When Vice Amiral Gensoul refused British demands to violate armistice conditions, the

shelled Mers El Kébir harbor. The surviving ''Force de Raid'' battleships were repaired and transferred to

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

Order of battle

*''Dunkerque''-class battleships **''Dunkerque'' **''Strasbourg'' * ''La Galissonnière''-class cruisers **''Montcalm'' **''Marseillaise'' **''Georges Leygues'' **''Gloire'' * ''Mogador''-class ''contre-torpilleurs'' **''Mogador'' **''Volta'' * ''Le Fantasque''-class ''contre-torpilleurs''Le Masson, p.116 **''Le Fantasque'' **''L'Audacieux'' **''L'Indomptable'' **''Le Malin'' **''Le Terrible'' **''Le Triomphant'' *Aircraft carrier ''Béarn''

References

* Auphan, Paul and Mordal, Jacques, ''The French Navy in World War II'' (1976) Greenwood Press *Bennett, Geoffrey, ''Naval Battles of World War II'' (1975) David McKay Company *Breyer, Siegfried, ''Battleships and Battle Cruisers 1905–1970'' (1978) Doubleday & Company *Le Masson, Henri ''The French Navy'' (volume 1) (1969) Doubleday & Company *Raven and Roberts, ''British Battleships of World War Two'' (1976) USNI Press *Rohwer, Jurgen and Hummelchen, Gerhard ''Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945'' (1992) Naval Institute Press *Stephen, Martin ''Sea Battles in close-up: World War 2'' (1993) Naval Institute Press

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Force De Raid French naval components