First pictures to reach Shanghai of the action taken by the Royal Navy to prevent French warships from falling into German hands. The battle pictured above took place at El Kebir, Africa, and it shows (top left) a salvo of shots from the British ships bursting around the French battleship, Bretagne, which has been hit in several places by previous salvoes. In the mezt picture (top right) the Bretagne is seen heeling over after a violent explosion in her stern, The ship was totally destroyed. The lower pictures show (left) a general view of the action taken from a British warship and (right) sailors from the sunken Bretagne swimming in the sea. As a result of this action, which was most distasteful to all Britons, the Nazis were prevented from menacing, British naval command of the seas, which would have been endangered had the Germans and Italians taken charge of the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.