Dakar 1940: Operation Menace and the Allied Disaster in West Africa

A detailed analysis of the Allied failure in Dakar against Vichy France in September 1940.

Amidst the onslaught of the Blitz, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was desperate to take the fight to the enemy and so he set his eyes on the French West African port of Dakar. Emboldened by the recent defection of some of the Vichy colonies to the Free French movement, Churchill asked Charles de Gaulle if he could rally Dakar, and its potent naval force, to their cause. It was readily agreed and a hastily assembled British and Free French force was sent to Dakar to bring it back into the Allied sphere.

Operation Menace began on 23 September 1940, but the campaign unfolded almost completely contrary to Churchill and de Gaulle's expectations. The Vichy troops were a determined and effective resistance – and the battered Allied force was withdrawn after three days, without landing a single troop on Dakar's shores.

With detailed maps, period images and colourful artwork, historian Ryan K. Noppen analyses the trying circumstances from which Operation Menace was born, including how the impulsive and overly optimistic attitudes of Churchill and de Gaulle overlooked clear warning signs, and examines how this failure would help prepare the Allies for success later in the war. This book also explores the naval and air battles around Dakar as well as Vichy France's retaliatory attacks on Gibraltar in the wake of Operation Menace.