FRENCH FLEET

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 188, 11 August 1941, Page 5

FRENCH FLEET

A DUBIOUS GAIN

IF HITLER GETS IT

POSSIBLE REACTIONS

The increasingly close association Vichy France with the Axis is reaching a point at which Britain has to face the deplorable possibility of •n actively hostile French Navy. What would this mean, and how Would such active hostility affect our fortunes at sea? asks Captain Bernard Acworth, D.5.0., R.N., in the Daily Mail," and profers an ®nswer.

the outbreak of war the «ench Navy was the strongest in; urope excepting our own. It con-; in "under-age" ships, of five gttleships, two battle-cruisers, one jwraft-carrier, 18 cruisers, 38 *™*troyers and torpedo-boats, 76 sub•:^^ines' an d 18 escort vessels. ygflf a result of Oran, Dakar, and '■MS®... voluntary demilitarisation at Alexandria and in our home ports, ||jl? fiv® French battleships and one may, I think, be re--1 Swi as out of action f° r the war, almost certainly during the Tj®ung months, when their intervenr O6 on the wrong side might have , iWen disastrous. • Addition to this great deduction y French fighting strength at there are some Free French > yerS * submarines, and small fighting with our own navy, some Free French sailors are small Br itish ships. u rom tlle potentially hostile : WW Fleet we further deduct «ust be a large number of

ships that have been laid up in French ports without being left, materially, in first-class seagoing [order, the fleet at Admiral Darlan's [disposal, or Hitler's, is little more than a shadow of the proud navy Iwith which France entered the war las our ally.

So far as ships are concerned, the still large submarine fleet under, Darlan's orders is potentially the chief threat.

But increased numbers of hostile submarines do not proportionately increase the threat to our convoys as do increased numbers of escorts proportionately increase their security. This is an important point to bear in mind, and it should provide a great • incentive to multiply our escorts with all possible speed and with boundless energy. In the absence of escorts, increased numbers lof submarines reduce the security lof convoys which is obtained by evasion.

But the possibility of active hostility of French warships is of less importance than has been the actual strategic loss of French bases. R e_ member, all French bases have been: denied to us, while those on the| North Atlantic seaboard have been | in use by the Germans against us. | The value to the Germans of the use of Mediterranean and South Atlantic French bases is therefore more apparent than real, because the German fleet is not large enough to profit greatly from these added faculties. Ports without ships to operate from them are not in themselves threats. Watching Them To man fresh bases Germany would, to that extent, have to unman die North Atlantic and Channel ports, thus easing her efifort in the Atlantic. . Another point to remember is that a considerable part of our navy has been the French, and has thus been partly immobilised. Furthermore, our warships have had to watch French traffic to and from Marseilles and through the Straits of Gibraltar, with results that have inevitably weakened our blockade of Germany, much as similar "watching" of Italy as a "non-belli-gerent" helped Germany.

It must therefore be a nice point for calculation for Hitler whether France as a friendly non-belligerent, or as an uneasy belligerent at sea, pays him best. Is the damage that French warships might be able to inflict on ours worth the cost of a tightened blockade? That is the real crux of the question for Germany and ourselves. Risk of Revolt In ordinary circumstances we; should underrate the fighting qualities of French seamen at our peril. But the circumstances, so far from being normal, are fantastic.

It }is hard to believe that thei humiliation of France, followed by aj year of demoralising inactivity ini French ports, has inspired French sailors with fighting zeal against; (England.

Indeed, if our authorities are right, and the majority of the French nation loathes the enforced "entente" with Germany, French warships must be debating chambers rather than efficient fighting machines—a function which is. apt to place a red flag at the masthead, as was the case with the French Fleet at the Dardanelles in 1919. Then, sailors aboard certain of the French vessels engaged in operations against the Bolsheviks, mutinied when Communists of the lUkraine appealed to them not to fire ion their comrades on shore.

In the light of all these considera-i tions there is, in my view, no need ! for alarm should events in the near future place the post-armistice rem-! ! nant of the French Fleet in active] opposition to the British Navy.

Indeed, on balance, it seems to me that it might well prove an advantage, because the navy would be freed from those uncertainties and disabilities which have so severely handicapped it whenever French warships and merchant ships have crossed its bows on missions which have, in all cases, harmed us and aided our enemies.

But if we may obtain certain qualified naval advantages from a definite] break with our old ally, such advantages, or even disadvantages, if such they should prove, fade into insignifi-l cance in the presence of so tragic a reversal of friendship to embittered enmity.

I Old friends, whether nations or individuals, have fought before now, but seldom with ze~* and generally 'with heavy hearts. •