Operation Catapult led to the British bombardment of the French fleet at the Algerian port of Mers el-Kébir and the death of 1,297 French naval personnel. The previous chapter illustrated how strategic, moral and symbolic factors shaped the operational boundaries for Catapult. This chapter examines how the operation unfolded. It draws on press publications and statements to illustrate how strategic language was used to create or challenge a sense of national legitimacy.

Pétain’s government condemned the bombardments as an attack on neutral territory. British statements drew on historical imagery to justify the brutality of the operations. Images of past military victories (many against the French) were a reminder of British resilience. They suggested that British victory was something of an historic certainty. British press statements also delegitimised Pétain’s government by implying its unpopularity amongst the French public. Desmond Morton, Churchill’s personal assistant, mandated that the British press refers to the metropolitan government as the ‘Vichy Government’ or the ‘Pétain Government’, but never the French government.

This chapter explores the future of the French fleet in the wake of the Franco-German armistice. It focuses upon the fleet’s material and symbolic importance on both sides of the Channel. For Pétain’s newly minted government, the fleet was a mark of international prestige, a measurement of sovereignty and the guardian of the empire. For Britain, it was a strategic and symbolic liability. Its neutralisation would send a powerful message of Britain’s wartime resolve to audiences in Britain, metropolitan France and the United States.

Operation Catapult was conceived to remove the French fleet as a military threat, illustrate British power and justify an armed incursion against an erstwhile ally. By examining the content and proposed timing of draft press releases, which have not been discussed in any academic literature to date, this chapter reveals how policy-makers dealt with questions of violence and morality in wartime. It explores how these normative concepts precluded certain actions while allowing others. Finally, it assesses how British leaders justified action against the French fleet as both inevitable and necessary for the successful prosecution of the war.