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But the risks at Dakar were bigger than Charles de Gaulle figured. It was a harbor inside a bay, terribly confined for naval action. It was a town guarded by four forts and three regiments of about 7,000 French and Senegalese—wide-eyed Negro troops, some of whom had come back from France with bogy tales of German soldiers with wings that no Senegalese could reach so as to cut their ears off. The place was strengthened by five newly arrived pro-Vichy warships. Of the six which had escaped from Toulon and through Gibraltar without so much as a cough from the British (TIME, Sept. 30), one had put into Casablanca with engine trouble. These vessels, which were armed under the armistice clause permitting French defense of the French Empire, had brought about 3,000 more men, all of whom would be a long time forgiving the British for the Battle of Oran. The new battleship Richelieu which the British crippled last July was in drydock at Dakar, but there was nothing wrong with her 15-inch guns.
When General de Gaulle and his force (identified by the defenders as the battleships Barham and Resolution, four cruisers, six destroyers, six transports, but probably including three French gunboats taken by the British after the fall of France) arrived at Dakar, they got the surprise of their lives. The commander dispatched two airplanes ashore with an invitation to surrender. The planes did not return. General de Gaulle and some aides—including Captain Bécourt Foch, grandson of the late Marshal—boarded a launch and made for the basin, waving a white flag and a tricolor. They were greeted by gunfire, and two aides were wounded. General de Gaulle boarded his flagship and signaled an ultimatum. Dakar rejected it. From Vichy, Minister of the Navy Admiral Jean Darlan wired: "Remember the words of Joan of Arc, that 'peace is won only at the point of a lance.' "
General de Gaulle's Free French troops and vessels opened fire on the town. During the night they tried several times to effect a landing on Rufisque beach across the bay, but each time machine-gun fire drove them back. The commander of the supporting British squadron threatened attack unless the town gave in. Governor General Pierre Boisson, who lost a leg fighting the Germans in 1917, signaled in reply: "France has confided Dakar to me, and I shall defend it to the end." British guns spoke. Their conversation touched the Governor General's house, the town radio station (so that for several hours Vichy heard nothing), the French and native cities, Wakam airport, the railroad line to St. Louis, the city's main boulevard. Three pro-Vichy submarines put out, two of which were sunk. Altogether there were about 600 casualties, half civilian, half military. By way of reprisal, French planes armed for patrol duty in Algeria bombed Gibraltar two days. And Dakar did not surrender.
Suddenly, for no reason that anyone in either London or Vichy understood, General de Gaulle withdrew.