Churchill's Tarnished Hour
For a change I am writing about a book that I do not think you should read.
When I learned that a new book about the British attack on the French Navy had been published several months ago, I was a bit surprised. But heck, this is history; other authors wrote about this operation before me, and it is no more my story than it is anyone else’s. When I read that other book, however, I was horrified. Because I had worked with the same source material for over a decade and it was still fresh in my memory, the author’s many manipulations and fabrications of events from July 1940 (I found more than ninety defects, most of them intentional) were readily apparent. Operation Catapult is a complex story. I sweated over every name, rank, date, location, and the authenticity of every quote that appears in my book. The other author’s casual disregard for accuracy and precision was more offensive than it was shocking. I was deeply bothered, and did not want him to get away with his deception. But I was not quite sure what to do.
In the end I shared my findings with a number of people who I knew would recognize the significance of what I discovered. Dr. Robert Lyman - author of ”A War of Empires: Japan, India, Burma and Britain 1941-45,” “Operation Jericho: Freeing the French Resistance from Gestapo Jail, Amiens 1944,” “The Reconquest of Burma 1944–45: From Operation Capital to the Sittang Bend,” “Victory to Defeat, The British Army, 1918-1940 (with General Lord Dannatt),” and more than a dozen other books - had previously reviewed the other author’s book. After I shared some of my findings, Rob Lyman published a re-evaluation on Substack, and he has kindly granted me permission to share it here.
Mers-el-Kebir: One Battle, Two Books, Two Stories and dodgy history...
Dr. Robert Lyman MBE
September 25, 2026
I read and enjoyed Edward Abel Smith’s A Hateful Decision earlier this year and subsequently wrote a quick review on here and for Aspects of History. Soon after I was contacted by Bill Whiteside, whose Operation Catapult was also published this year by the Naval Institute Press. It is a happy coincidence that these two books have come out in the same year as the new two part biopic on Charles de Gaulle, the second part of which I am eagerly looking forward to watching tonight.
In my correspondence with Bill it became clear that the story his account told differed in a number of respects from that of Edward Abel Smith’s. He encouraged me to read his book, which I have now done. I have also crossed referenced it with the account in Colin Smith’s superb England’s Last War with France, a book I have long admired.
So, what did I find?
I admit that the findings have surprised me, for it is clear that A Hateful Decision massages the story in a way that in some cases materially changes the facts and makes his dramatic account more akin to a novel than a serious work of history. In my review of A Hateful Decision, I observed: ‘Edward Abel Smith tells that remarkable story, in a fresh and helpful way, taking us through these fratricidal events by means of participant’s dialogue. The device works well.’ Perhaps too well I might subsequently observe, as some of conversations he quotes simply did not happen. In the Author’s Note, Edward Abel Smith is certainly clear that he has reconstructed dialogue from the evidence of contemporaneous records. This is fair enough. What he tends to do, however, for dramatic effect, is to re-create some conversations on the basis of imagination, not fact. We are used to this in the cinematic reimagining of historic events. This appears to be the case here. The issue is, therefore, whether this book should in fact be regarded as one of fiction rather than non-fiction.
The first problem I came across was a misapplied quotation by Winston Churchill. On Page 21 of A Hateful Decision the author tells us that on the early hours of 3 July 1940:
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, in his cabin aboard HMS Hood, Vice Admiral Somerville had also been unable to sleep. For the whole night he had been restless. A memorandum he had received from the Prime Minister the previous evening had been ringing around his head: ‘If the French refuse to parley,’ Churchill had ordered, ‘they must be treated as traitors to the Allied cause’. Leaving no ambiguity, he instructed that ‘the ships must be bombed’, before concluding, ‘in no circumstances must these ships be allowed to escape.’
However, examining Martin Gilbert’s biography of WSC it is clear that the statement about the French refusing to parley was in fact spoken at a meeting of the War Cabinet on 22 June, nearly a fortnight earlier and long before the plan for Operation Catapult was constructed. Equally, this statement did not refer to Mers-el-Kebir at all, but about two entirely different French battleships, the Richelieu and the Jean Bart, neither of which had any bearing on the story of Mers-el-Kebir. At the meeting of the War Cabinet on 22 June Churchill had stated:
The most important thing to do was to make certain of the two modern battleships Richelieu and Jean Bart. If these fell into the hands of the Germans, they would have a very formidable line of battle….
As a result, Churchill had no compunction in asserting
If the captains refused to parley, they must be treated as traitors to the Allied cause. The ships might have to be bombed by aircraft from the Ark Royal or they must be mined into their harbours and naval forces stationed outside to prevent the minefields being swept up. In no circumstances whatever must these ships be allowed to escape.
Churchill did not insist that these ships ‘must be bombed.’ Nor is it correct to insinuate that he said anything of the kind about the fleet in Mers-el-Kebir. This is a simple fabrication, done so admittedly to create narrative drama. But facts matter.
Other attempts to create personal drama from the historic record are also apparent in the text. I will highlight a few more here.
First, on pages 221-222 A Hateful Decision merges a letter from Admiral Somerville to his wife, written in July 1940, with a letter that Admiral Andrew B. Cunningham wrote in 1959 to form an entirely imagined exchange between Somerville and the Admiralty. After providing the details of Holland’s letter of resignation, A Hateful Decision states:
Somerville sympathized but did not seem to take the resignation seriously. He took the request to the Admiralty, writing in his covering letter, ‘Poor Hookie Holland is so upset that he’s asked to be relieved of his command in HMS Ark Royal.'
‘I think he is just being highly strung,’ Admiral Cunningham replied unsympathetically. And with that, the conversation was over. It fell once again to Somerville to rectify the situation.
‘I persuaded him to withdraw [his resignation],’ he wrote to his wife.
But this conversation is entirely manufactured. It was not contemporaneous. The ‘Poor Hookie…’ letter was not sent by Somerville to the Admiralty but to his wife. On 5 July he wrote:
Poor Hooky Holland is so upset that he’s asked to be relieved of his command in Ark Royal. I persuaded him to withdraw it but have sent on a letter to the Admiralty saying in all fairness he ought to be relieved as the strain of it all after his close association with the French must inevitably prove too much for him.
While Cunningham did consider Holland to be highly strung (Bill tells me that the evidence is clear in notes in the Somerville Papers) this opinion about Holland was written in 1959, not in 1940. At the time Cunningham commanded the British Mediterranean fleet in Alexandria. He was not appointed First Sea Lord in the Admiralty until October 1943. In other words, A Hateful Decision takes a comment from a letter written by Cunningham in 1959 to create a fabricated contemporaneous exchange between Somerville and the Admiralty in July 1940.
Second, the text from a letter that Somerville sent to his wife is massaged into an imagined conversation between Somerville and his secretary, Bill Farrell, purportedly conducted in the bay outside of Mers-el-Kébir on the morning of 3 July 1940. A Hateful Decision imagines this conversation at length:
I begged the Admiralty not to order that I go to the lengths of opening fire on the French,’ said an exasperated Somerville, not listening to his secretary’s attempts to comfort him.
’I know, sir,’ replied Farrell sympathetically, having read Somerville’s letter of concerns the previous day.
‘I warned the Admiralty that this will be the biggest political blunder of modern times, and that it will rouse the world against us.’
‘I know, sir,’ Farrell repeated.
This is a fascinating conversation, but is constructed from Somerville’s letter to his wife. There is no evidence that it was conducted with Farrell. The entire incident has been, it appears to me, inserted as an artistic device to add colour to the event. Is this appropriate in an historic account such as this? I’ll leave you to judge. Exciting, yes. Dramatic, certainly. Factual? No. The author suggests the incident happened, despite the fact that we know it was contrived from a letter Somerville wrote to his wife. The citation in question says:
The conversation between Somerville and Bill Farrell was recounted in a letter from Somerville to his wife on 4 July 1940 and kept at the Churchill Archives Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge, SMVL 3/22.
That’s something of a stretch. The letter is in the archive, but it wasn’t an account of Somerville’s conversation with Farrell. Somerville’s letter of 4 July reads:
Expect you have heard about this battle at Oran. Before we left Gib. I begged the admiralty not to go to the lengths of opening fire on the French as I felt sure it would be disastrous….
But, as I warned the Admiralty, I think it was the biggest political blunder of modern times and I imagine it will rouse the world against us.
A further example of re-imagining is the entirety of Chapter 41, an account of a purported meeting between Admiral Somerville and Captain Holland on the evening of 6 July, in the aftermath of the attack. The story goes:
Somerville too was extremely shaken by the experience, but what shocked him more than anything was the visible impact it had on Holland.
‘Given more time, Captain,’ he replied reassuringly, ‘I believe you might have succeeded in converting Vice Admiral Gensoul to our point of view.’
Holland shook his head, tears now blurring his vision, as he stoically tried to hold himself together.
’Had I been able, as was my intention, to present the case verbally on the lines indicated I feel a peaceful settlement might have arrived,’ he said, the words coming out in staccato bursts, ‘in this way, the proposals would have come to him gradually, and my considered opinion is that he might have accepted one of them.’
‘I agree, said Somerville comfortingly….’
‘The blame must ultimately sit with me,’ Holland replied sombrely.
‘I consider, Captain Holland, that you carried out your difficult task with the greatest tact, courage and perseverance. That you failed in your mission is not your fault.’
‘Sir …’ Holland tried to interject frustratingly.
‘That you so clearly succeeded is greatly to your credit.’ Somerville continued.
Holland shook his head. He looked down at the envelope he had been fingering anxiously throughout the conversation. Without being able to muster another word, he stood up, handed it to Somerville, saluted and then left the vice admiral’s quarters.
Somerville’s official recap of the activities at Mers-el-Kébir appears in his Report of Proceedings. The section in which Somerville’s half of the supposed conversation is as follows:
I believe that given more time Captain Holland might have succeeded in converting Admiral Gensoul to our point of view….
I consider that Captain C.S. Holland carried out his most difficult task with the greatest tact, courage and perseverance. That he failed in his mission was not his fault – that he so nearly succeeded is greatly to his credit.
Captain Holland’s report says:
20. The action of Admiral Gensoul in refusing to see me on arrival made the task of reaching peaceful solution in the short time available extremely difficult since he received the terms by letter through the hands of an intermediary, this eliminating all possibility of a friendly interview and amicable discussion. Had I been able, as was my intention, to present the case verbally on the lines indicated in Appendix D, I feel a peaceful settlement might have been arrived at.
21. As can be seen, I had intended before putting forward any proposals, to outline the reasons for my visit, impressing on the Admiral the fact that, while we trusted him and all the French Admirals to endeavour by every means in their power to prevent any of their ships falling into enemy hands, since they had promised they would do so, this guarantee to us was insufficient in view of the treachery of the Germans and Italians who would by every means of trickery try to forestall their plans. I would then have outlined the three proposals that I was instructed to make and discussed them in a friendly spirit. If, after this, he had not accepted one of the three terms, I would have requested him to sink his shops within six hours. Finally, should he have refused even to do this, but until then, I would have informed him that H.M. Government would be obliged to use force if he did not comply shy of the terms proposed.
22. In this way, the proposal would have come to him gradually, and my considered opinion is that he might have accepted one of them.
The dramatic effect developed in A Hateful Decision is entirely absent in these reports. The inference of Hollands mental fragility is, therefore, a reimagining based not on facts but on the desire to create drama for which no evidence exists.
Another instance of the remarkably casual relationship between the narrative and the facts an be found in Chapter 43. The chapter begins with the words:
In Britain, Churchill had been warned continually about the fallout from Operation Catapult, including by the highly respected Admiral Sir William Pleydell-Bouverie, Head of the British Naval Mission in France, who wrote to the Prime Minister that ‘it is quite certain that political reaction of such a course might be adverse and be very far reaching.’
Incidentally, the Head of the British Naval Mission in France in June and July 1940 was Captain Edward Pleydell-Bouverie, not Admiral Sir William. The problem was that the passage quoted by the author is not a warning about ‘fallout from Operation Catapult’ as it was sent on 26 June, well before the details of Catapult were even formed. Nor was it sent to the Prime Minister. And most significantly and specifically, according to Professor Arthur J. Marder’s book From the Dardanelles to Oran, Edward Pleydell-Bouverie’s statement was a note of caution about prospective “British naval action to prevent the [French] Fleet from reaching its home ports” to comply with German armistice terms, and thus had nothing to do with Operation Catapult. Marder writes:
Finally, there were two reports from the former Head of the British Naval Mission in France, Pleydell-Bouverie. Among the salient facts that stood out in the experience of his last days in France were that the Fleet and its commanders had great faith in Darlan and would obey his orders in all circumstances; that the Government was entirely concerned with stopping the war; and that there was considerable fear among the officers and men about the consequences to their families if they failed to obey the armistice terms. ‘The conclusion that I come to from these facts is that it seems likely that the French Fleet will be ordered by Admiral Darlan to its “Home Ports”, there to be disarmed under the terms of the Armistice but that insufficient preparation will have been made for the eventuality which is almost certain to happen.’ What action could be taken to prevent the French Fleet going to its home ports? There were two answers: the setting up of a French government in Africa, which would take control of the Fleet, or British naval action to prevent the Fleet from reaching its home ports. He had no opinion on the feasibility of the former. The latter possibility ‘bristles with difficulties and it is quite certain that political reaction of such a course might be adverse and be very far reaching.
Finally, I was intrigued to see on page 234 the use of a single word changed in A Hateful Decision to distort the intent of a letter from Admiral Darlan to Winston Churchill. In a discussion of reactions in the aftermath of the attack at Mers-el-Kébir, the text says:
The most senior member of the French Admiralty, Admiral François Darlan, also spoke little about Mers el-Kébir. He made his feelings clear to Churchill in a letter in 1941, in which he told the Prime Minister that ‘I follow my role without attacking [you]. I ask for reciprocity.’
But the real quotation in Churchill’s Their Finest Hour, along with additional context from several preceding and subsequent sentences, provides a demonstrably different understanding of Admiral Darlan’s statement. It reads:
I have the conviction that all Frenchmen who now fight against Germany each in his own manner will finally achieve a general reconciliation, but I believe that for the moment they must continue their separate action. There is a certain resentment, notably in French West Africa, which is too active for me to obtain more, as you know. I follow my rôle without attacking anyone, I ask for reciprocity. For the moment, the only thing which counts is to defeat the Axis; the French people when liberated will later choose their political régime and their leaders.
Admiral Darlan’s reference to ‘anyone’ was directed toward the disparate French factions in north Africa, not to Winston Churchill. The reciprocity that Darlan sought was from those factions, not from Churchill. By intentionally changing ‘anyone’ to ‘[you]’, the real meaning of Darlan’s statement is distorted. Further, Darlan’s letter was sent in 1942 (shortly before his assassination), not in 1941.
Historians rightly spend considerable time building their arguments on the basis of facts and their reasonable interpretation. The recreation of the evidence for dramatic purposes is not history, but cinema. For this reason, and on the evidence, A Hateful Decision should in my view be more reasonably labelled a work of fiction. Fascinating and dramatic no doubt, but dodgy history.
Have I done the right thing? One historian told me "Critiquing revisionist books with the detailed analysis you have produced helps to keep the industry honest." I am convinced that I could not remain quiet, that I had a duty to shine a light on the other author’s manipulation of the story that I know so well. Concerns about my motives and my account of Operation Catapult are natural and understandable. I welcome critiques, comparisons, and close inspections of my work.
Thanks for reading (or, in this case, perhaps not reading),
Bill
PS. I hope you will follow and support Rob Lyman. He is a brilliant writer with keen and candid insights into history and current events. You can learn about his career and his books on his website. I also encourage you to check out and subscribe to his The War Room blog on Substack. As Rob notes, he is an" author, historian, defence analyst and occasional commentator on world events. I spend much of my life reading, writing and commenting on matters of modern history and international affairs and use this blog to talk about matters of interest in the news, or about which I am researching or writing. It offers a bit more than the rapid fire of Twitter, but not so much as an essay or long newspaper article."
PPS. I want to be clear that I am a fan of every other book I have ever read about Operation Catapult and Mers-el-Kébir, including, most recently, “Mers El-Kébir 1940: Operation Catapult” by Ryan Noppen, as well as: “The Deadly Stroke” by Warren Tute, “The Road to Oran: Anglo-French Naval Relations, Sept 1939-July 1940” by David Brown, and “From the Dardanelles to Oran: Studies of the Royal Navy in War and Peace, 1915-1940” by Arthur J. Marder.