North, Admiral Sir Dudley

North, Admiral Sir Dudley (1881–1961),British naval officer who was Flag Officer North Atlantic at Gibraltar in July 1940 when Admiral Somerville'sForce H, which was based at Gibraltar but was not under North's operational command, was ordered by the Admiralty to bombard the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. After the operation North informed the Admiralty how repugnant the operation had been to all concerned. This bluntness earned him a severe reprimand and was almost certainly the true reason why he was subsequently dismissed when, in September 1940, he allowed six Vichy French warships to pass through the straits of Gibraltar unmolested. The Axis had allowed them to sail from Toulon to reinforce Vichy French forces in Gabon; and North, whose orders were to avoid incidents with the French Navy, assumed that if the Admiralty wanted them stopped it would have ordered Somerville to act.

In fact, through a series of mishaps and mistakes, the Admiralty was unaware that the French ships had sailed, and their appearance in the Atlantic, just as the Anglo-French Dakar expedition was about to land in French West Africa, caused great consternation. Though the ships did not affect the outcome at Dakar, and were later intercepted and turned back, North was blamed for failing to take action, and was relieved of his command. After the war powerful voices were raised on North's behalf but the Admiralty refused him a court martial or a public enquiry. However, in 1957 the then prime minister, Harold Macmillan, stated in parliament that neither North's honour nor his professional integrity had been impugned. He was knighted in 1937.

Bibliography

Marder, A. J. , Operation ‘Menace’: The Dakar Expedition and the Dudley North Affair (Oxford, 1976).