Battle of Dakar

23–25 September 1940, Dakar, French West Africa

Vichy French victory; the Allied force withdrew

General de Gaulle believed that Dakar, the best port in West Africa, where the unfinished battleship Richelieu lay, would come over to the Free French if he arrived with enough force. Operation Menace brought him there with a British squadron under Vice-Admiral John Cunningham: two battleships, the carrier Ark Royal, four cruisers, destroyers and transports with Free French troops and Royal Marines. A few days before, three Vichy cruisers had slipped through the Strait of Gibraltar, and two of them reached Dakar ahead of the British. On 23 September, in thick fog, de Gaulle's emissaries were fired on, and when the British ships closed in the shore batteries and Richelieu opened fire. HMAS Australia set the destroyer L'Audacieux ablaze, and the submarine Persée was sunk. A Free French landing at Rufisque was driven off. Over the next two days Barham and Resolution exchanged fire with Richelieu and the batteries; the submarine Ajax was sunk, but on 25 September Bévéziers torpedoed Resolution, and Churchill called the operation off. Dakar stayed with Vichy until the end of 1942.

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