The navy, helped by the strangest collection of row-boats, motor-boats, paddle-steamers, pleasure-yachts and colliers ever assembled, took off 335, 000 men in roughly five days, off the beaches, from the piers, swin ing in the water, and under one of the most concentrated air and land barrages ever brought to bear on one spot.
The destruction of some of the most powerful units of the French fleet, at Oran on Julie 3 and at Dakar on June 8, was a necessary job about which the Navy doesn't talk much. But the second action succeeded hi cause of the greatest individual feat of the war. It. Commander Bristowe, a reserve officer from the London Stock Exchange, took a naval launch in over the defence nets, set off underwater charges under the stern of the biggest French warship, the 35,000 ton Richelieu, and escaped pursuit. Planes from a carrier completed the attack. The British left the Richelieu settled by the stern and badly damaged.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.