French veteran war vessels in Thames mark de Gaulle’s 1940 appeal
TWO French naval training ships that saw heroic service in the Second World War have arrived at Tower Bridge to mark the historic 1940 appeal by G�n�ral Charles de Gaulle for French forces to join his struggle against the German occupation
TWO French naval training ships that saw heroic service in the Second World War have arrived at Tower Bridge to mark the historic 1940 appeal by G�n�ral Charles de Gaulle for French forces to join his struggle against the German occupation.
Le Mutin was used by British and French Special Operations between 1940 and 1944, and her sister ship L’Etoile was run by Free French forces for training.
They are in London with other French Navy vessels to celebrate de Gaulle’s broadcast on the BBC 70 years ago this week.
Both made a dash across the Channel from the port of Brest when France fell in 1940, sailing under British Admiralty’s orders, to avoid falling into German hands.
The Mutin was later attacked by the Luftwaffe while in Portsmouth Harbour in 1941, but was saved by her captain who was seriously injured while tackling the blaze. She was also hit four times in German air raids, but each time the bombs failed to explode.
French vessels were used during the war on infiltration missions and on clandestine sorties to supply the Resistance with weapons.
Most Read
- 1 Revealed: Your favourite fish and chip shop in east London
- 2 RideLondon 2022: East and central London roads among 100 miles of closures
- 3 Maskless passengers on London trains and buses fined 4,000 times
- 4 Tower Hamlets neighbours must 'temporarily leave' and pay £85k for building repairs
- 5 Appeal: CCTV image released after mosque attacked with bottles
- 6 Covid: Weekly admissions halve as patient counts drop to July 2021 levels
- 7 Whitechapel dessert shop fined over £5,000 for dumping waste
- 8 Police looking for missing man last seen leaving hospital
- 9 Girl, 17, held on suspicion of terrorism offences after east London arrest
- 10 7 of the best Chinese restaurants with delivery in east London
Some 70 years on, they have berthed at HMS President navy base at St Katharine’s-by-the-Tower to celebrate their little-known pages of the Allied cause of the Second World War.