On July 3, 1940 and then on July 6, at Mers El-Kébir, Algeria, the British navy destroyed part of the French fleet, causing the death of 1,295 sailors. Although it remains controversial, the reason is known: the British feared that the Germans would put the French ships stationed there at their service, following the armistice agreement signed between Pétain and Hitler, which came into force on June 25.
TO formerly of the national navy, who became The sea researcher, Max Guérout, has just contributed what appears to be a new element to the story of this episode: the English spy services had recovered a few days before. the secret codes of the French navy and had deciphered them, which allowed them to guess and thwart French designs.
In an ultimatum issued on the morning of July 3, the British demanded that the French ships continue fighting near the United Kingdom, be disarmed, or be transferred to a British port or Martinique. The negotiations lasted all day. They were the subject of incessant exchanges between Admiral Marcel Gensoul, who commanded the Mers El-Kébir squadron, and the naval staff in mainland France, then under the orders of Admiral François Darlan (future figure of the Vichy regime). Deciphering the secret exchanges of the French allowed the British to learn, live or almost, of their deceptions and their true intentions.
An unintentional actor
The person who proposes this hypothesis, Max Guérout, 88 years old, is both an old sea dog and a bookworm. After finishing his military career with the rank of frigate captain, he dedicated himself to underwater archeology in 1988. In historical services he explored numerous shipwrecks and many other archives. It is this experience that he recounts in a recently published book (The memory submerges, The smart camel).
One chapter is dedicated to Narwhal, a submarine that, in 1940, was one of the first (and one of the rare) French ships to join General de Gaulle, just after the call of June 18. According to the author’s hypothesis, based on French but also British archives, its commander, François Drogou, hero of Free France, was a very involuntary actor in the disastrous day of July 3.
Explanation. In 1940, the Narwhal is based in Sousse, Tunisia. Determined to join those who want to continue the fight against Germany, François Drogou sets sail secretly on the afternoon of June 24. The submarine arrived on the morning of the 26th at Malta, an island then under British rule. On June 28, six days before Mers El-Kébir, men from the Naval Intelligence Division (NID), the spy service of the British admiralty, recovered the secret codes of the French navy on board. The precious documents are transferred to England, specifically to Bletchley Park, the same place where Alan Turing’s team will manage to break the encryption of the German messages sent by the Enigma encoder.
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