Battle of Gabon

7–10 November 1940, Off Libreville, Gabon, French Equatorial Africa

Free French victory; Libreville taken and Gabon rallied to de Gaulle

After Dakar, de Gaulle turned to Gabon, the one colony of French Equatorial Africa still loyal to Vichy. On 7 November 1940 Free French troops under Leclerc and Koenig landed at Mondah Bay, north of Libreville, while a small Free French flotilla and British ships stood off the coast. The Vichy submarine Poncelet came out to attack and was spotted by the sloop Milford; a Walrus seaplane from the cruiser Devonshire damaged her with depth charges, and her captain, Bertrand de Saussine, sent his crew off and went down with her as she was scuttled. On 9 November the Free French aviso Savorgnan de Brazza met her sister Bougainville, defending the port with a third of her crew ashore. After twenty minutes Bougainville was ablaze and was run ashore. Libreville fell the next day, and on 12 November the last Vichy troops in Gabon surrendered. It was one of the few times in the war that French warships fought each other.