A Hateful Decision

‘This was a hateful decision, the most unnatural and painful in which I have ever been concerned... But no act was ever more necessary for the life of Britain and for all that depended upon it.’

WINSTON CHURCHILL
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Summer, 1940. Winston Churchill watches in horror as France falls to the Germans in just six weeks, completing the Nazi conquest of mainland Europe. He faces an urgent question: what will happen to the mighty French Navy? Under German control it presents a major threat, and could defeat all hopes of British resistance.

With the Nazis closing in, Churchill orders Operation Catapult. By the end of one of the most agonising but necessary military operations of the war, the British will have destroyed a large part of the French Navy and nearly 1,300 French sailors will be dead.

Based on extensive new research and rediscovered eyewitness accounts, A Hateful Decision tells for the first time the full story of the British attack on the French fleet at Mers el Kébir, on 3 July 1940.

As we pass between the men on the ground and the ratcheting tension in the European corridors of power, this riveting book brings to life Churchill’s darkest hour, and the act that demonstrated to the world how far Britain would go to win the war.