[GOPJ]

...on July 4, 1940, Churchill revealed to Parliament that he had personally given the order to fire upon and sink three French battleships stationed at Oran in French North Africa, resulting in the death of nearly 1,300 French seamen. Young men, mostly; men who considered the British their brothers in arms; men in the prime of their lives, yet now entombed at the bottom of the sea. Why on earth would Churchill have done it? The answer is brutally simple. Though France had surrendered to Germany, its navy was still intact. (Its army was decimated.) Britain, understandably, asked its ally to turn its warships over to the U.K., the United States or any other neutral port, lest they be seized by Hitler and turned on Britain. But the French Navy refused, naïvely believing the ships were unimportant or could defend themselves. Churchill proved this reasoning a myth by sinking the ships in mere minutes. Upon learning of the sinking of the French fleet, the world bristled. But no one now doubted Churchill’s resolve.

Great story - thanks.

[SunkenCiv]

It’s interesting that Churchill didn’t always give his own radio addresses, though he wrote them all — a famous actor did a spot-on imitation of Churchill, and from time to time, when Churchill was not available (he kept strange hours, for obvious reasons, slept here and there during the day and night, and of course had to travel a bit, and had hundreds of meetings) the actor posed as Churchill. :’)