{"id":2339,"date":"2012-09-28T23:39:30","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T05:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=2339"},"modified":"2012-09-28T23:39:30","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T05:39:30","slug":"this-week-in-the-war-23-29-september-failure-at-dakar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/?p=2339","title":{"rendered":"This week in the War, 23–29 September: Failure at Dakar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This week in the war, on 23 September 1940, the Free French leader, Charles de Gaulle, arrived with a Royal Navy task force at Dakar on the coast of the Vichy-controlled colony of French West Africa. He sailed on board the Dutch liner Westernland<\/em>, which flew Free France’s new flag: the French tricolour with the Cross of Lorraine at the centre.<\/p>\n

Despite the threat of a German invasion of the British Isles (Operation Sealion), Britain was willing to divert appreciable resources to continue its (undeclared) war against neutral Vichy.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“Remember this,” de Gaulle had announced on the BBC, “France does not stand alone. Behind her stands a vast empire.” He was not referring to the British Empire, but to the French<\/em> Empire. The plan was to stage a British\/Free French landing at Dakar to recapture the colony.<\/p>\n

The Royal Navy’s two old battleships, Barham<\/em> and Resolution<\/em>, and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal<\/em>, were pitted against the shore batteries and the modern French battleship Richelieu<\/em>. The defenders refused to surrender, or to join the Gaullist cause, and their determined defence eventually caused the attackers to withdraw. It was only a minor setback for the British cause, considering that, closer to home, the RAF was winning the Battle of Britain.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Vichy forces in Dakar would eventually join the Allied cause in 1942, after the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch), and the Richelieu<\/em> would sail to the Brooklyn Navy Yard for repairs. Notice, in the picture to the left, that the battleship’s second turret has a gun missing—the result of an explosion in the barrel in September 1940 during the battle for Dakar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week in the war, on 23 September 1940, the Free French leader, Charles de Gaulle, arrived with a Royal Navy task force at Dakar on the coast of the Vichy-controlled colony of French West Africa. He sailed on board … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[235,4,187,236,113],"class_list":["post-2339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-war-ii","tag-dakar","tag-de-gaulle","tag-operation-sealion","tag-richelieu","tag-vichy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2339"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2362,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2339\/revisions\/2362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secondbysecondworldwar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}