PAMPHLET OFFICE THE NEW BALANCE OF POWER AT SEA By HANSON W. BALDWIN SPEECH Disposition of the French Fleet After Oran COMPLETED SHIPS Total Number Sunk Sunk or Put Out of In British In French Number byGermany(l) Action by Britain(2) Ports(3) Port8(4) by Battleships 7 .-. 3 3 1 The Prime Minister Aircraft Carrier 1 1 Seaplane Tender MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL 1 ™ 1 _.. Cruisers 18 _ .... 6-7? 11-12? Destroyers On the Taking of the French Fleet 73 8 2 8-9? 54-55? Submarines 77 1 — 5-20? 56-71? Delivered in the House of Commons 1. Sunk in naval operations, mostly oS Dunkerque, before the French surrender. 2. British report modernized battleship Bretagne (completed in 1915, ten 13.4^ inch guns) sunk in action off Oran; Provence, Bretagne's sister ship, heavily damaged; July 4, 1940 one of France's two new battleships, probably the Dunkerque (completed 1937, eight 13-inch guns) damaged and beached; Commandant Teste, seaplane tender; destroyer Mogador among others sunk. 3. The third of the Bretagne class, the Lorraine, with British fleet at Alexandria; two oldest French battleships, Paris and Courbet (completed 1913, 1914, each 12-inch) at Plymouth, Portmouth or Sheerness in British home waters. Cruisers, destroyers, "some" submarines, including Surcouf (2,880 tons, two 8-inch guns) world's largest underwater craft, in Alexandria or British home ports, with possibly one training cruiser, one destroyer in Halifax. More than 200 small minesweepers and anti• submarine craft—torpedo boats patrol vessels, etc.—in British home ports; a "number" in Alexandria. UNIVERSITY 4. The only completed French battleship known to be in a French port is one of OF TOLEDO France's two new battleships, believed to be the Strasbourg, sister ship of the Dunkerque, which escaped from the action oflf Oran, though torpedoed, to Toulon. Five destroyers, with some submarines and smaller craft, accompanied her. Several French ships are "at large" probably at sea); one or more cruisers, several destroyers JAN 23 1941 and submarines are believed to be in French Indo-China or on the way there. Of ships in French ports, most—except those that escaped to Toulon—are believed to be at French colonial ports, with six cruisers, twenty-one submarines, eighty trawlers, minesweepers, tankers, transports and small craft in Casablanca, French Morocco. Reprinted from the New York Times, July 5,1940 THE BRITISH LIBRARY OF INFORMATION By permission 50 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA NEW YORK The German Air Force already feels acutely the shortage of high- grade pilots and it seems particularly odious that these 400 skilled men Text of Prime Minister Winston Churchill's report should be handed over with the sure knowledge that they would be used to bomb this country and thus force our airmen to shoot them down a to the House of Commons, July 4th, 1940. second time. Such wrongful deeds will not, I am sure, be condoned by history and is with sincere sorrow that I must now announce to the House the I firmly believe a generation of Frenchmen will arise who will clear the rmeasures which we have felt bound to take in order to prevent the national honor of all countenance of them. French Fleet from falling into German hands. I said last week that we must now look with particular attention to our own salvation. I have never in my experience seen so grim or somber When two nations are fighting together in long and solemn alliance a question as what we were to do about the French fleet discussed in the against a common foe, one of them may be stricken down and overwhelmed Cabinet. And it shows how strong were the reasons for the course we and may be forced to ask its ally to release it from its obligations, but the thought it our duty to take that every member of the Cabinet had the least that could be expected was that the French Government, in abandon• same conviction about what should be done, that there was not the slightest ing the conflict and leaving its whole weight to fall upon Great Britain and hesitation or divergence among them, and that the three service Ministers the British Empire, would have been careful not to inflict needless injury as well as men like the Minister of Information (Alfred Duff Cooper) and upon their faithful comrade in whose final victory the sole chance of French the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Lord Lloyd), particularly noted for freedom lay and lies. their long friendship with France, when they were consulted were equally As the House will remember, we offered to give full release to the convinced that no other decision was possible from that we were taking, French from their treaty obligations—although they were designed pre• and it was a decision to which with aching hearts but with clear vision we cisely for the case which arose—on one condition, namely, that the French unitedly came. Fleet should be sailed for British harbors before separate armistice negotia• tions with the enemy were held. The French Fleet in British Ports Accordingly, early yesterday morning, July 3, after all preparation Reasons Why Action Had to be Taken had been made, we took the greater part of the French fleet under our control or else called upon them with an adequate force to comply with This was not done, but on the contrary, in spite of every kind of our requirements. Two battleships, two light cruisers, some submarines— private and personal promise and assurance given by Admiral Darlan to including a very large one, the Surcouf—eight destroyers and approximately the First Lord and his naval colleague the First Sea Lord of the British 200 smaller but extremely useful minesweeping and anti-submarine craft, Admiralty, an armistice was signed which was bound to place the French which lay for the most part in Portsmouth and Plymouth, were boarded by Fleet as effectively in the power of Germany and its Italian following superior forces after a brief notice had been given wherever possible to as that portion of the French Fleet which was placed in our power when their captains. many of them, being unable to reach French ports, came into the harbors This operation was successfully carried on without resistance or blood• of Portsmouth and Plymouth about ten days ago. But I must place on shed except in one instance. A scuffle arose through a misunderstanding record that what might have been a mortal injury was done to us by the in the submarine Surcouf in which one British seaman was killed and two Bordeaux Government with full knowledge of the consequences and of the British officers and one rating were wounded, and one French officer was dangers and after rejecting all our appeals at the moment when they were also killed and one wounded. For the rest, the French sailors in the main abandoning the alliance and breaking the engagement which fortified it. cheerfully accepted the end of a period of uncertainty. A considerable This was another example of the callous and perhaps even malevolent number—800 or 900—expressed an ardent desire to continue the war. treatment which we received not, indeed, from the French nation, who have Some have asked for British nationality. This we are ready to concede never been, and apparently never are to be, consulted in these transactions, without prejudice to other Frenchmen, numbered by thousands, who prefer but the treatment which we received from the Bordeaux Government. to fight with us as Frenchmen. All the rest of these crews will be immediately repatriated to French There were over 400 German air pilots who were prisoners in France, ports if the French Government are able to make arrangements for their many of them shot down by the Royal Air Force. I obtained from M. Rey- reception by permission of their German rulers. We are also repatriating all naud (former Premier Paul Reynaud) a personal promise that these pilots French troops within this country, excepting those who, of their own free should be sent for safekeeping to England and orders were given by him will, have volunteered to follow General de Gaulle and to enlist in the to that effect; but when M. Reynaud fell these pilots were delivered over French forces of liberation, of whom he is the chief. to Germany in order, no doubt, to win favor for the Bordeaux Government with the German masters and to win it without regard to the injury done Several French submarines have also joined us independently and we to us. have accepted their services. The Situation at Alexandria C. If either of these courses is adopted by you we will restore your ships to France at the conclusion of the war or pay full compensa• Now I turn to the Mediterranean at Alexandria, where a strong tion if they are damaged meanwhile. British battle fleet is lying. There are, besides a French battleship, four French cruisers, three of them modern, 8-inch gun vessels, and a number "Alternatively, if you feel bound to stipulate that your ships are not of smaller ships. These have been informed that they cannot be permitted to be used against the Germans or Italians unless they break the armistice to leave harbor and thus fall within the power of the German conquerors conditions, then sail them with us with reduced crews to some French port of France. in the West Indies—Martinique, for instance—where they can be demilitar• ized, or be perhaps entrusted to the United States and remain safe until the Negotiations and discussions have taken place and measures have now end of the war, the crews being repatriated to France.