Force H was a British Royal Navy detached squadron during the Second World War. It was formed in summer 1940 with Gibraltar as its base, initially to replace the French fleet in the western Mediterranean after the fall of France. The presence of Force H kept the Italian fleet looking in two directions, as the Regia Marina was also threatened by the main British Mediterranean fleet based in Alexandria in Egypt. Force H also operated in the Atlantic, most famously during the hunting of the Bismarck in May 1941.
A large squadron of capital ships, most of the time including an aircraft carrier, Force H was used successfully by Great Britain to defend its interests and attack the Axis powers in the western Mediterranean and the Atlantic. Under the leadership of Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, it was a proactive force that fought major fleet battles, escorted vital convoys, performed Club Runs to ferry combat aircraft to besieged Malta and attacked ports, thus playing a critical part in the Battle of the Mediterranean.
Forerunner and establishment
During the opening months of World War II, there was an unconnected Royal Navy 'Force H', stationed in Cape Town and composed of the heavy cruisers Sussex and Shropshire. This was deployed as part of the hunt for the German pocket battleship, Admiral Graf Spee, which was commerce raiding in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The scuttling of Admiral Graf Spee off of Montevideo, following the Battle of the River Plate against another Royal Navy flotilla, Force G, led to the disbandment of this early Force H.
On 10 June 1940, Italy declared war on the Allies and entered the Battle of France, bringing its large Mediterranean fleet into the war on the Axis side. That same day, Italy launched its first air raids against Malta, which contained vital British naval and air bases, initiating a long siege of the islands. Then in late June, France agreed armistices with Nazi Germany and Italy, which both came into effect on 25 June, creating a crisis for the Royal Navy, as the French fleet in the western Mediterranean withdrew from the war. There was also the concern over what might happen now to France's warships, and whether they might fall into Axis hands. The situation was made more acute by the fact the Royal Navy had relocated its fleet in the region from Malta to Alexandria in the eastern Mediterranean. Consequently, Force H was established at Gibraltar as a detached squadron, to fill the vacuum created by the withdrawal from combat of the French Fleet and secure the Strait of Gibraltar to prevent the German and Italian surface fleets from linking up. An early task for Force H was to deal with the potential risk of the Axis gaining control of French warships in the Mediterranean.
On 23 June 1940, the Admiralty began assembling the ships that would become Force H, with the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the battlecruiser Hood arriving at Gibraltar, joining Resolution, a refitted Revenge-class battleship of World War I vintage. on 27 June, in London Vice-Admiral Somerville was given command of the new squadron, told to select a staff and depart for Gibraltar the following day on the light cruiser Arethusa. Somerville and his staff arrived in Gibraltar on 30 June where his flag was transferred to Hood. Later that same day Valiant, a modernised World War I-era Queen Elizabeth-class battleship, arrived from Scapa Flow. The light cruiser Enterprise reached Gibraltar in early July.
The force occupied an unorthodox place within the naval chain of command. Normal British practice was to have naval stations and fleets around the world, whose commanders reported to the First Sea Lord via a flag officer. Force H was based at Gibraltar but there was already a flag officer at the base, Flag Officer Commanding, North Atlantic. The commanding officer of Force H did not report to this Flag Officer but directly to the First Sea Lord, Admiral of the FleetSir Dudley Pound. So, Force H enjoyed significant operational independence.
Force H’s first operation saw it tasked with ending the uncertainty regarding the status of the French Mediterranean fleet. Britain feared the Vichy government of Philippe Pétain would hand the ships over to Germany, despite a vow that that would never happen. This would almost certainly tip the balance decisively against Britain in the Mediterranean. Consequently, Force H was ordered to execute Operation Catapult.
The most powerful of the remaining French forces was in port at Mers-el-Kébir in Algeria. It consisted of the French battleships Strasbourg, Dunkerque, Bretagne and Provence, and six destroyers. Force H steamed to off the Algerian coast, and an envoy was sent to the French commander. Various terms were offered, including internment of the fleet in a neutral country, joining the British forces, or scuttling the fleet at its berths. However, the commander of the French forces reported only the scuttling option to his superiors, and was consequently ordered to fight the British. The reasons for the omission have been debated by many. It is often thought that the anti-British bias of the French commander was to blame.[citation needed] The result of the action was that Dunkerque and Provence were damaged and put out of action, Bretagne was destroyed with heavy loss of life, but Strasbourg and four destroyers could escape to Toulon, a French base on the Mediterranean coast of metropolitan France.
After this unpleasant operation, Force H settled down to its more normal operations. These involved general naval tasks in the western basin of the Mediterranean. Prominent amongst these tasks was fighting convoys through to Malta. The early convoys came through with relatively light losses. That changed in 1941, when the Germans sent the Luftwaffe's X. Fliegerkorps to Sicily; its bombers took a high toll of both warships and merchantmen. Also, from 1942 the improved combat efficiency of the Regia Aeronautica (and especially of its SM.79torpedo bombers) and of the Regia Marina's submarines posed a far greater threat to these convoys than the 1940 Italian opposition.
In November 1940, screening convoys to Malta, Force H made an important contribution to Operation MB8, and the resulting success of Operation Judgement, the attack on Taranto harbour.
The most famous incident involving Force H in 1941 did not occur in the Mediterranean, but in the Atlantic Ocean. The German battleship Bismarck had sailed in company with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen to attack commercial shipping. She went far to the north of the UK, passing southwest through the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. There, she was intercepted by a British force made up of the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Hood. The engagement was a disaster for the Royal Navy; Prince of Wales was damaged and Hood's magazine exploded, breaking the ship in half. Only three out of 1,418 crew aboard were rescued from the sinking. Every Royal Navy unit available was then given the task of destroying Bismarck.
HMS Renown and HMS Ark Royal operating at sea in Force H. Photo taken from HMS Sheffield.
Force H set sail from Gibraltar to intercept Bismarck with the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the battlecruiser Renown and the light cruiser Sheffield. Bismarck had not come out of the Denmark Strait engagement completely unscathed: a shell from Prince of Wales had ruptured the ship's fuel tanks, causing her to lose oil. The commerce-raiding cruise was thus cut short, and the ship headed for the port of Brest in occupied France. Bismarck was temporarily lost to the Royal Navy after she evaded the radar of the shadowing cruisers Suffolk and Norfolk. She was found again, but the only way of stopping her was if something slowed the ship down. To try to do this, Ark Royal launched a strike with her Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers. However, the aircrews were wrongly informed of the location of Sheffield and attacked her instead, mistaking her for Bismarck. The torpedoes that the Swordfish had dropped carried a new type of magnetic detonator which proved too unreliable. A second strike was flown carrying the older, and more reliable, contact detonator. Bismarck was found and a torpedo jammed her steering gear. Unable to evade the British ships closing in, the German battleship was scuttled following incapacitating battle damage dealt by a force including King George V and Rodney.
Britain at rock bottom
The end of 1941 saw the nadir of British naval fortunes in the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Fleet lost the services of HMS Illustrious to bomb damage, HMS Barham was sunk off Crete by U-331, and its two remaining battleships were put out of action by an Italian raid on Alexandria. Force H in its turn suffered as well: Ark Royal was sunk byU-81 in November 1941. It was only the lack of action by the Italians that prevented a complete disaster for British fortunes. The most urgent task during the first part of the year was supplying Malta. The island had been under heavy attack for many months and supply convoys had to be escorted by many ships and aircraft to stand any chance of getting through. Malta was kept from starving but it was very close. Operation Pedestal, the most escorted convoy in the Second World War, delivered enough supplies in August to keep Malta going.
November saw the turning point of the conflict. Operation Torch saw British and American forces landed in Morocco and Algeria under the British First Army. Force H was reinforced to cover these landings. The two main threats were the Italian fleet and French forces. In the end, only French forces fought, and the most significant battles took place at Casablanca where only American naval units supported the operations.
The end of the campaign in North Africa saw an interdiction effort on a vast scale. The aim was to cut Tunisia completely off from Axis support. It succeeded, and 250,000men surrendered to the 18th Army Group, a number equal to those who surrendered at Stalingrad. Force H again provided heavy cover for this operation.
Two further sets of landings were covered by Force H against interference from the Italian fleet. Operation Husky in July 1943 saw the invasion and conquest of Sicily, and Operation Avalanche saw an attack on the Italian mainland at Salerno.
With the surrender of the Italian fleet, the need for heavy units in the Mediterranean disappeared. The battleships and aircraft carriers of Force H dispersed to the Home and Eastern Fleets and the command was disbanded. Naval operations in the Mediterranean from now on would be conducted by lighter units.
Konstam, Angus (2016). River Plate, 1939: The Sinking of the Graf Spee. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN9781472817976.
Konstam, Angus (2025). Royal Navy Force H, 1940-42: Britain's strike force at Gibraltar. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN9781472870957.
MacIntyre, Donald (1971). Fighting Admiral: The life of Admiral of the Fleet Sir James Somerville, GCB, GBE, DSO. Ilkley: Sapere Books. ISBN9780854954865.
Stephen, Martin (1988). Grove, Eric (ed.). Sea Battles in close-up: World War 2. London: Ian Allan ltd. ISBN0-7110-1596-1.
Taylor, Bruce (2012). The end of glory, war and peace in HMS Hood, 1916-1941. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN9781591142355.
United Kingdom
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