Word: oran
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...From Oran's harbor, below the frowning heights of Algeria's Jebel Murjajo, Britain got her full answer. It came with fearful finality. The question that Britain had faced was: What if France should lose? From some of France's politicians-well-intentioned poltroons, strong-minded pro-Nazis and plain defeatists-already had come the civilian's answer: ignominious surrender...
...Mediterranean pirates' 15th-Century stronghold at Mers-el-Kebir, France's Navy added its own postscript. It was put down in the blood of a thousand French gobs, gay in their red pompons and striped shirts, who had frolicked with British seamen on shore leave below Oran's quake-shattered Kasbah. It was put down in the hulk of the Dunkerque, France's answer to Germany's pocket battleships, now beached and battered by British bombs on the Barbary coast. It was repeated in the draggle-tailed flight of the crippled Strasbourg to Toulon...
...long days wore on the strain became greater. Altogether four people went out of their minds. . . ." But at Oran the refugees' hopes lifted, only to fall again as the news of France's surrender made the possibility of internment imminent. "The passengers were exhausted. The conditions were bad. With insufficient and unsuitable food there was danger of epidemic. Some of the older people were only just alive...
...boom in the harbor of Dakar. Smaller French warships lay there, too, to protect her, and all were well warned of an impending attack. For the Richelieu's commander had been signaled and had refused surrender terms similar to those offered Vice Admiral Gensoul for his squadron at Oran last fortnight. As the deadline approached in the small hours, the flag officer of the British detachment designated Broker Bristowe to lead an attack...
...Hood and the much-exercised aircraft carrier Ark Royal. They found no Italian warships at large but south of the Balearics they were attacked by swarms of Italian bombers, of which they shot down four, damaged three. Vice Admiral Sir James Fownes Somerville, hero of Dukirk and Oran, reported his ships unscathed, and Spanish observers who saw them return to Gibraltar after two days at sea made no mention of visible damage. Yet, as usual, the Italians claimed to have hit the Ark Royal's bridge with two big bombs, to have set afire the monster Hood...