1942.11.28 “French Fleet”
by Lucius Curtis “Lute” Pease, Jr. (1869 -1963)
15 x 20 in., crayon and ink on board
Coppola Collection
Pease was a cartoonist for the Newark Evening News from 1914 to 1954, and received the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. He was a miner in Alaska for 5 years before beginning a career in art. He was an illustrator for the Oregonian and famously interviewed Mark Twain. From his retirement in 1954 until his death in 1963, he devoted himself to fostering his skills as a painter of portraits and landscapes.
The Germans occupied the north and west of France in 1940, with the “unoccupied” or “Free France” concentrated in the south, the capital moving to Vichy (hence, Vichy France). The détente between the Nazis and Vichy France was tentative, at best, and was a restless time of collaborators, sympathizers, and rebellion. The time period was in the news at the end of 1942, rushing the film Casablanca into production and release to take advantage of the unexpected publicity. Casablanca was released on November 26, 1942.
With the armistice of June 1940, much of the French naval fleet was confined to the Mediterranean port of Toulon. Confined but not disarmed, and the French fleet possessed some of the most advanced naval technologies of the age, enough to shift the balance of military power in the Mediterranean.
October 1942: Second Battle of El Alamein – the British inflicted a decisive defeat on Rommel's Afrika Korps and forced its remnants into Tunisia. The opening of the second front for the Allies who would eventually come into Italy via the Mediterranean, was a strategic gain.
November 1942: Operation Torch (Nov 8-16) – the Anglo-American landings in North-West Africa and subsequent battles against Vichy France forces (who then changed sides), the Allies encircled several hundred thousand German and Italian personnel in northern Tunisia and finally forced their surrender in May 1943. Operation Torch in November 1942 was a compromise operation that met the British objective of securing victory in North Africa while allowing America armed forces the opportunity to engage in the fight against Nazi Germany on a limited scale. The betrayal by Vichy resulted in the end of the Free Zone and the rest of France was occupied.
Hitler wanted that fleet and sent in the tanks to Toulon.
The day after this, on November 27, the Vichy guards around Toulon delayed the Germans long enough to pull of their bold plan. A French fleet was a French fleet, and they managed to scuttle the 100+ ships while the Germans looked on helplessly.
