![]() If the British were compelled to open fire, it would be the first time in 125 years that the two navies were arrayed against one another in hostility. If the French commander refused the terms, his ships would be sunk by the British force. The British were to offer the French admiral four alternatives intended to prevent the French fleet’s falling into the hands of the Germans. Early that morning, he ordered a British fleet to arrive off the naval base of Mers-el-Kebir in North Africa and demand the surrender of the French vessels there. ![]() On July 3, 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had to make one of the most momentous decisions of his career. The battle of the Dnipro – or Dnieper, in the Russian version – was the focus of one of the biggest military operations of the second world war, the Soviet army’s counterattack against the German army, involving more than 6 million troops.Operation Catapult: Naval Destruction at Mers-el-Kebir Close Historians say some of the remains may be of people who died in a huge battle fought 80 years ago over the same terrain now at the centre of Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian occupation, around Nikopol and Kamianka-Dniprovska. In mid-June, the emptying of the vast reservoir along the Dnipro River as a result of the destruction of the Kakhovka dam uncovered mudflats littered with skeletons, according to footage posted online. ![]() ![]() “The UK is one of the largest suppliers of military equipment to our country now.” ![]() “The Hurricanes are a symbol of British assistance during the years of the second world war, just as we are very appreciative of British assistance nowadays,” Valerii Romanenko, the head of research at the museum, told the BBC. Ukraine’s National Aviation Museum is aiming to reassemble the Hurricanes and put them on display. Photograph: Sovfoto/Universal Images Group/Getty ImagesĪccording to historians, some of these aircraft were deliberately broken up and buried after the war so the Soviets did not have to pay back the US, as under lend-lease legislation Moscow was required to pay for any donated military equipment that remained intact. RAF Hurricanes in northern Russia during the second world war. ![]()
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