Force de Raid

The old Royal Navy battle cruisers HMS Repulse, Renown, and Hood had similar speed, but their horizontal deck armor offered inadequate protection against aerial bombs and the plunging trajectory of long-range gunfire.

[12] The Allies organized eight naval hunting groups on 5 October 1939 when the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee began sinking merchant ships in the South Atlantic.

[14] Bearn proved too slow to accompany the modern ships of Force de Raid and was soon detached for service as an aircraft transport bringing newly manufactured American warplanes to France.

[19] Force de Raid was unsuccessfully attacked by Dandolo on 13 June[20] after a sortie from Mers El Kébir in response to a false report of a Kriegsmarine squadron preparing to enter the Strait of Gibraltar.

[21] Although the Force de Raid was berthed in colonial Africa outside Axis-occupied territory following the Second Armistice at Compiègne, the wartime British Government of Winston Churchill was greatly alarmed by the possibility that these modern capital ships might be acquired by the Axis powers, with or without French consent.