The French Navy in World War II. Paul Auphan
of a counteroffensive toward the south, which was mandatory in order to close the gap opened by the German tanks.
Weygand’s plan for a counteroffensive along the entire front had already begun that day, below Arras, where two English divisions, along with elements of the French cavalry corps, had been hurled against the enemy Panzers. The attack started off well, yet the day ended with no decisive results. The next day the English were no longer available. The French attacked again, this time alone, and made some progress toward Cambrai, but were eventually brought to a halt by heavy enemy air attacks. The attempt to break out of the German encirclement was doomed to failure.
The causes for this failure were many. Outstanding were the death of General Billotte, killed in an automobile accident; the caving in of the Belgian front; the withdrawl of the British toward the sea; the compromising situation of the French divisions, making it impossible for them to pull quickly out of Belgium; the disorganized state of communications and resulting confusion; and the excessive delay in concentrating the divisions which were to attack from the south.
Half a million French and British soldiers were to remain cut off from their supplies and their normal lines of communication—with the two Navies the only hope of supplying them or of evacuating them from the beaches.
Such was the situation around Dunkirk, headquarters of Admiral, North. But there were two other large ports threatened by the German advance: Boulogne, a fishing port and the most important such on the European continent, with over 30,000 inhabitants, and Calais, an ancient city of 50,000 souls, terminus of the rapid cross-Channel traffic to Dover. These two ports had been handling practically all the British Expeditionary Force’s lighter traffic with the home country—both light material and individual passengers going on leave or to hospitalization in England or on errands of military importance.
With the exception of French and British workers attached to the various auxiliary services there, these two cities had no garrisons, even.
Yet there did exist an element of defense. In France it is the Navy which is charged with defense of the coast against attack from the sea. On that basis Boulogne and Calais were surrounded by a certain number of rather antiquated coast defense batteries, all primarily mounted to fire toward the open sea. Never, before this war, did the Navy ever expect to engage in a critical battle in that region; the officers and men who manned these batteries—or the Navigation Police Service—were mostly reservists who had not been on active duty for years. There were practically no antiaircraft defenses. The beaches themselves were patrolled only by a few territorial troops.
Boulogne and Calais had been subjected to initial heavy air attack on May 10. This was soon to become a daily occurrence. Numerous magnetic mines menaced the ship channels, despite constant sweeping by the Navy. Victims of either bombs or mines, many ships which had escaped safely from Holland and Belgium ended their cruising forever in the Boulogne roadstead.
Moreover these ports were the Meccas of the innumerable Belgian or French men, women, and children fleeing before the German approach. Many civil servants thought they were carrying out their duties by trying to carry their archives to safety. The prefect of the Pas-de-Calais Department was preparing to evacuate all able-bodied men. Mingled with these refugees were even some disorganized persons in French or Belgian uniforms. All surged toward the ports seeking to embark. The most pessimistic rumors were rife. The imaginative populace saw German parachutists and spies everywhere.
Everyone was confused by the speed of the Panzers. The lessons of the Polish campaign had not been well learned. It was practically the first time in history that a great battle had been fought on land at the speed of an automobile. In fact, when questioned by the Navy, the Army High Command did not imagine it possible that the Germans could be in force in the port areas of the north, and put all such reports down as cases of “audacious infiltrations by isolated units.”
The French Admiralty, nevertheless, was distinctly uneasy over the situation. The revictualling of the encircled armies depended entirely on the ports. Holding on to them was a vital necessity. No sooner had he returned from Ypres, than General Weygand asked Admiral Darlan to do the impossible—defend the ports against enemy land attack by checking them with Navy personnel.
To Admiral Abrial—Admiral, North—was given the responsibility of carrying out that hopeless mission. As early as May 17 the French Admiralty had informed him that “the axis of advance of the enemy armored divisions is westward.” The Panzers were even then at Saint-Quentin, and on the direct road to the outskirts of Boulogne. And on the 20th the Admiralty ordered: “Direct your efforts in the defense of the ports against all enemy armored or motorized vehicles and against parachutists or planes landing on the beaches.”
It was understood, of course, that in case of an attack in force, and if no Army troops were covering the port, the Navy had only to destroy everything it could, and then evacuate.
Before all these various directions reached their proper destinations, however, a tragic incident had occurred at Boulogne.
On May 17 the British had begun the evacuation of noncombatants. This evacuation gave rise to various comments, not altogether inspiring. During the night of the 20th a French general, separated from his troops and demoralized, arrived at Boulogne and informed the captain in command of the naval unit that the Germans were almost on his heels. The Navy captain telephoned immediately to inform Admiral, North, and to ask instructions. Unluckily he did not succeed in getting a message through to Dunkirk. Convinced thereupon that the Germans indeed were at the gates, and laboring under the general delusion, the naval commander gave the order to evacuate. A few hours later an emphatic counterorder came from Admiral, North. Unfortunately a great deal of destruction had already been done, and many of the sailors had already sailed on the better ships that were available. The remaining ships had been scuttled.
For that temporary lapse, the naval captain was tried by general court-martial at Cherbourg within three days, and was sentenced to twenty years at hard labor. Admiral Darlan wanted to make an example: a Navy man must not lose his head. It is regrettable, perhaps, that this procedure was not followed in dealing with other leaders—civil or military—who gave way under less dramatic circumstances.
On the afternoon of May 22, Captain Audouin de Lestrange arrived from Cherbourg on a fast motor boat to take charge of the defenses of Boulogne. By then the situation had been somewhat remedied, due to the efforts of Commander Henri Nomy,33 commanding the naval air force at Berck, who had hurried to Boulogne late the preceding day. Later a few troops returned to man the installations. For the French, General Pierre Lanquetot brought in about two battalions and some artillery, drawn from a French division retreating from Belgium. To these were added a British brigade sent from Dover, as London was anxious to keep communications open with Boulogne as long as possible.
Now an admiral and Chief of Naval Operations.
The German attack began that very evening and continued throughout the night. Although the guns of some of the coastal batteries could not be brought to bear on the inland roads, they entered the fight and continued firing until overrun by the enemy infantry.
The morning of the 23rd, the defenders suddenly received powerful support from French naval forces under Captain Yves Urvoy de Porzamparc, commanding the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla and flying his flag in the Cyclone. Backed up by naval aviation, two super-destroyers and eight destroyers, plus additional small craft, fired on the advancing German columns until they had exhausted their ammunition, after which they had to return to Cherbourg to replenish. The naval gunfire had momentarily checked the German tanks, and General Heinz Guderian, commanding the armored corps, had to call on the Luftwaffe for assistance. The latter had responded in force. The destroyer Orage, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Vanblanc, took a direct hit and had to be abandoned, its flaming wreck illuminating the battlefield for a long time.
But the garrison ashore had been bolstered long enough to permit a squadron of British destroyers from Dover to evacuate 4,368 British troops from almost under the enemy guns. This was a magnificent accomplishment by the Royal Navy, although it had no effect on the battle for Boulogne itself.
For by now the battlefront had reached the heart of the city. Captain de Lestrange was