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Force H
Active 1940–1943
Country United Kingdom
Branch Royal Navy
Engagements World War II
Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
Battle of Calabria
Battle of Taranto
Battle of Cape Spartivento
Commanders
Notable
commanders		 Vice-AdmiralSir James Somerville (July 1940 - March 1942)
Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Harwood (March 1942 - April 1945)

Force H was a British naval task force (though that term was not used) during World War II. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service) The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, also known as Operation Catapult, was a hostile engagement off the coast of French Algeria where a British Royal Navy The Battle of Calabria, also known as the Battle of Punta Stilo, was a Naval battle between vessels of Italian Royal Navy ( Regia The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11 November 1940 &ndash 12 November 1940 during World War II The Battle of Cape Spartivento, known as the Battle of Cape Teulada in Italy was an engagement between naval forces of the British Royal Navy and Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Fownes Somerville GCB, GBE, DSO ( 17 July 1882 &ndash 19 March 1949 Sir Henry Harwood Harwood, KCB, OBE ( January 19, 1888 &ndash June 9, 1950) was a British naval officer who For the computer game see Joint Task Force (computer game. A task force (TF is a temporary unit or formation established to work World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including It was formed in 1940 to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean that had been removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe.

It occupied an odd place within the naval chain of command. Normal British practice was to have various naval stations and fleets around the world whose commanders reported to the First Sea Lord. The First Sea Lord is the professional head of the Royal Navy and the whole Naval Service. Force H was based at Gibraltar, and there was already a flag officer at the base who commanded one of the British regional naval commands. Gibraltar (dʒɨˈbrɒltər is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar A flag officer is a commissioned officer who is senior enough to be entitled to fly a Flag to represent where he exercises command However, the Flag Officer, Force H did not report to this officer. He reported directly to the First Sea Lord.

Contents

Operation Catapult

Main article: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir

One of the first operations that Force H took part in was connected with the reason for its formation. The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, also known as Operation Catapult, was a hostile engagement off the coast of French Algeria where a British Royal Navy French naval power still existed in the Mediterranean, and the British Government viewed it as a threat to British interests. It was feared that the Vichy government of Petain would hand the ships over to Germany, despite a vow that that would never happen. Such an incidence would almost certainly decisively tip the balance against Britain in the Mediterranean. Consequently, Force H was ordered to execute Operation Catapult.

The most powerful of the remaining French forces was in port at Mers-el-Kébir in Algeria. Mers-el-Kébir (المرسى الكبير “the Great Harbor” is a port town in northwestern Algeria, located by the Mediterranean Sea near Oran Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's It consisted of the French fast battleships Strasbourg and Dunkerque, two of the most modern and powerful units in the French fleet and two older battleships, along with escorting vessels. See also List of ship launches in 1936 List of ship commissionings in 1939 List of shipwrecks in 1940 Force H steamed to off the Algerian coast, and an envoy was sent to the French commander. Various terms were offered, including internment of the fleet in a neutral country, joining the British forces and scuttling the fleet at its berths. Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull. However, the commander of the French forces reported only the scuttling option to his superiors. He was thus ordered to fight. The reasons for the omission have been debated by many. It is often thought that the anti-British bias of the French commander was to blame.

The result of action was that the remains of the French fleet escaped to Toulon, a French base on the Mediterranean coast of metropolitan France. Toulon ( Provençal Occitan: Tolon in classical norm or Touloun in Mistralian norm is a city in southern France and a large They did so at heavy cost. The old French battleship Bretagne blew up under British gunfire, killing over 1,000 French sailors. Construction Her keel was laid down on 1 July 1912 and she was launched on 21 April 1913 The old battleship Provence was also heavily damaged and the Strasbourg and Dunkerque were also hit, though the Strasbourg escaped with four destroyers. Construction She was built by Arsenal de Lorient, and her keel was laid on 1 May 1912

Convoy operations

Main article: Malta Convoys

After this unpleasant operation, Force H settled down to its more normal operations. The Malta Convoys were a series of Allied supply Convoys to sustain the Mediterranean island of Malta during World War II. These involved general naval tasks in the western basin of the Mediterranean. Prominent amongst these tasks was fighting convoys through to Malta. A convoy is a group of Vehicles (of any type but usually motor vehicles or ships traveling together for mutual support Malta, officially the Republic of Malta (Repubblika ta' Malta is a European Microstate, comprising an Archipelago of three islands The early convoys came through with relatively light losses. That changed in 1941, when the Germans sent the Luftwaffe unit Fliegerkorps X to Sicily. ( German 'luftvafe is a generic German term for an Air force. Sicily ( Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is an autonomous region of Italy. Its bombers took a dreadful toll of both warships and merchantmen.

“Sink the Bismarck!”

Main article: Last battle of the battleship Bismarck

The most famous incident involving Force H in 1941 did not occur in the Mediterranean, but in the Atlantic Ocean. The last battle of the German Battleship ''Bismarck'' took place in the Atlantic Ocean approximately 300 nautical miles (560 km west of The German battleship Bismarck had sailed in company with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen from Germany to commerce raid in the Atlantic. Background Design of the ship started in the early 1930s following on from Germany's development of the ''Deutschland'' class cruisers and the ''Scharnhorst'' class Early war The Prinz Eugen suffered repeated damage before deployment It went round far to the north of the UK, passing through the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. The Denmark Strait (Danmarksstrædet Grænlandssund the latter meaning Greenland Strait is a Strait between Greenland (northwest and Iceland Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland ( ( Ísland or Lýðveldið Ísland ( Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat meaning "Land of the Greenlanders" Grønland is a self-governing Danish Province located between the There it was intercepted by a powerful British force made up of the new battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the old battlecruiser HMS Hood. Naming The Admiralty ordered construction of two new ''King George V''-class Battleships on 29 July 1936 (the other became HMS ''King George V'') History Construction Construction of Hood began at the John Brown & Company shipyards in Clydebank, Scotland, on 1 September The engagement was a disaster for the Royal Navy, with Prince of Wales being damaged and Hood blowing up. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service) Only three out of the crew of 1,400 aboard Hood survived. Every Royal Navy unit available was then given the task of destroying the Bismarck.

Force H set sail from Gibraltar to intercept the battleship. The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, battlecruiser HMS Renown and light cruiser HMS Sheffield. Design In 1923 the Admiralty prepared plans for a ten year building programme which included a new aircraft carrier and 300 aircraft for the Fleet Air Arm War service At the outbreak of war Sheffield served with the 18th Cruiser Squadron patrolling the Denmark Straits and then in April 1940 she was engaged Despite the loss of Hood, the Bismarck did not come out of the Denmark Strait engagement completely unscathed. A shell from Prince of Wales had ruptured the ship's fuel tanks, causing it to lose oil. The commerce raiding cruise was thus cut short, and the ship headed for the French port of Brest. Brest (bʁɛst in French, in Breton) is a city in the Finistère department in Bretagne in northwestern France. Bismarck was temporarily lost to the Royal Navy after it evaded the radar of the shadowing cruisers HMS Suffolk and HMS Norfolk. It was found again, but the only way of stopping it was if something slowed the ship down. To try and do this, Ark Royal launched a strike with its Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout However, the aircrews were wrongly informed of the location of the Sheffield and attacked it, thinking it to be the Bismarck. The torpedoes that the Swordfish had dropped carried a new type of magnetic detonator which proved too unreliable. A second strike was flown carrying the older, and totally reliable, contact detonator. Bismarck was found and a torpedo wrecked its steering gear. Unable to evade the British ships closing in, the German battleship was destroyed by a force including HMS King George V and HMS Rodney. Construction Following the tradition of naming the first battleship constructed in the reign of a new monarch after the current Monarch, she was planned to be named Service From commissioning until World War II broke out in September 1939 Rodney spent her entire time with the British Atlantic Fleet or Home

Britain at rock bottom

The end of 1941 saw the nadir of British naval fortunes in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Fleet lost its aircraft carrier to bomb damage, had one battleship sunk off Crete and its two remaining battleships put out of action by Italian human torpedoes. Crete ( Greek: Κρήτη transliteration: Krētē, modern transliteration Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the Force H in its turn suffered as well: Ark Royal was sunk by the German submarine U-81 in November 1941. It was only Italian lack of action that prevented a complete disaster for British fortunes.

1942 opened on a low note. The most urgent task during the first part of the year was supplying Malta. The island had been under heavy attack for many months, and supply convoys had to be very heavily escorted to stand any chance of getting through. Enough succeeded that Malta was kept from starving, but it was very close. The most heavily escorted convoy in the whole of World War II was the key to this. In August, Operation Pedestal was mounted which lead to enough supplies being sent to the island to keep it going. Operation Pedestal was a British operation to get desperately needed supplies to the island of Malta in August 1942 during the Second World War.

Amphibious assaults and the end of Force H

Force H was not actually extant for a portion of 1942. It was stripped bare in May to provide ships for the assault on Diego Suarez in Madagascar. Antsiranana, named Diogo Soares prior to 1975 is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar. Madagascar, or Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic) is an Island nation in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern This operation succeeded, but many argue that it was a waste of British naval resources at a critical time in the war.

November saw the turning point of the conflict. Operation Torch saw British and American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria under the British First Army. Operation Torch (initially called Operation Gymnast) was the British - American invasion of French North Africa in World War II Algeria ( ar [[Arabic]] الجزائر, Al Jaza'ir ælʤæˈzæːʔir Amazigh: ⴷⵥⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer) officially the People's The First Army was a field army of the British Army that existed during the First and Second World Wars First World War Force H was reinforced to cover these landings. The two main threats were the Italian fleet and French forces. In the end, only French forces fought, and the most significant battles took place at Casablanca where only American naval units were supporting operations. Casablanca (in Standard Arabic: الدار البيضاء ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʼ; Moroccan Arabic: dar beïda الدار البيضا

The end of the campaign in North Africa saw an interdiction effort on a vast scale. North Africa or Northern Africa is the Northernmost Region of the African Continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan The aim was to cut Tunisia completely off from Axis support. Tunisia (تونس Tūnis officially the Tunisian Republic ( is a country located in North Africa. It succeeded and 250,000 men surrendered to 18th Army Group; an equal number to those who surrendered at Stalingrad. 18th Army Group was an Allied formation in World War II. It was formed in early 1943 when British Eighth Army advancing from the east and British First Force H again provided heavy cover for this operation.

Two further sets of landings were covered by Force H against interference from the Italian fleet. Operation Husky in July 1943 saw the invasion and conquest of Sicily, and Operation Avalanche saw an attack on the Italian mainland at Salerno. The Allied invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, was a major World War II campaign in which the Allies took Sicily from the Axis Sicily ( Italian and Sicilian: Sicilia) is an autonomous region of Italy. The process Allied invasion of Italy, was the Allied landing on mainland Italy in September 1943 by General Harold Alexander 's 15th Army Group Salerno is a town in southern Italy, capital of the province of the same name in the region of Campania. Following the landings on Italy itself, the Italian Government surrendered. The Italian fleet mostly escaped German capture, although German radio-controlled bombs did sink an Italian battleship, killing the Commander-in-Chief of the Regia Marina. The Regia Marina ( Italian Royal Navy) dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification. Force H met the Italian fleet near Sardinia and escorted it to Malta. Sardinia (sɑrˈdɪnɪə Sardegna Sardigna or Sardinnya is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea (after Sicily) Admiral Cunningham sent a very traditional signal to the Admiralty in London:

"Be pleased to inform their Lordships that the Italian fleet lies under the guns of the fortress at Malta. The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. "

With the surrender of the Italian fleet, the need for heavy units in the Mediterranean disappeared. The battleships and aircraft carriers of Force H dispersed to the Home Fleet and Eastern Fleet and the command was disbanded. Naval operations in the Mediterranean from now on would be conducted by lighter units.

Modern Force H

Today the only Royal Navy ships attached to Gibraltar and the Western Mediterranean is the Gibraltar Squadron. The Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of the British armed services (and is therefore known as the Senior Service) Gibraltar (dʒɨˈbrɒltər is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar The Gibraltar Squadron is a unit of the British Royal Navy. It is the only resident sea-going Royal Naval unit in Gibraltar, attached to British Forces

Battles and Operations of Force H

List of Capital Ships in Force H

See also

External links

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