WWII Scuttling of the French Fleet

On 27 November 1942, French naval officers organized the scuttling of the French fleet based in Toulon. Their fear was that their ships would eventually end up being used by Hitler.

While this was a tragedy, Charles de Gaulle saluted and acknowledged that the officers finally saw the reality of the ambiguous Vichy regime that "governed" part of France while another part was occupied by Nazi Germany.

Over one hundred ships, vessels, destroyers and submarines disapeared, sinking onto the sea, or were damaged sufficiently to be unusable.