Was the Royal Navy’s Attack on the French Fleet a Senseless Tragedy?
Churchill’s order to strike at Mers-el-Kebir remains controversial to this day
6 min readJan 24, 2021
July 3, 1940. The Sitzkrieg, or “phony war,” was long over. France had fallen, and one of World War Two’s lesser-known tragedies had begun. Operation Catapult sought to neutralize the French navy, considered the world’s…
