On July 3rd 1940 the Royal Navy attacked and largely destroyed the French Fleet as it lay at its moorings in the harbour of Mers el Kebir. Only two weeks before, the French and the British had been allies in the war against Germany. To the French the action was murderous aggression; to the sailors who carried it out it seemed incomprehensible folly; to the British government in London it was a grim but unavoidable necessity. 'Greek Tragedy' Churchill called it, and in the misunderstandings and misjugements, the increasingly frenzied efforts of the protagonists to avoid disaster and the dreadful inevitability of the end, all the elemnets of tragedy were, indeed, present. The introduction is by Sir John Colville, who was Assistant Private Secreatry to three Prime Ministers, Neville Chamberlain, 1939-40, Winston Churchill, 1940-45, and Clement Attlee. 4 pages of b/w photos
