Image:Toulon 1942.jpg

Toulon

The scuttled French fleet at Toulon: aerial pictures. On November 28, 1942, the day after the scuttling and firing of the ships of the French fleet in Toulon harbor, photographs were taken by the Royal Air Force. Many of the vessels were still burning so that smoke and shadows obscure part of the scene. But the photographs show, besides the burning cruisers, ship after ship of the contre-torpilleurs and destroyer classes lying capsized or sunk, testifying to the thoroughness with which the French seamen carried out their bitter task. While the vast damage done is shown in these photographs, no exact list of the state of the ships can be drawn up, since the ships themselves cannot be seen in an aerial photograph. Thus the upper deck of the battle cruiser Strasbourg is not submerged, but here are signs that the vessel has settled and is grounded. The key plan C.3296 shows the whereabouts of the majority of the ships and their condition as far as it can be seen from the photographs. Picture shows: damaged and sunk light cruisers and destroyers visible through the shadow and the smoke caused by the burning cruisers

Public Domain

Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division Washington, DC 20540

CALL NUMBER: LC-USW33- 026496-D

• left is the Strasbourg (bridge above the water but clearly sunk)
• next to her, burning, is the Colbert
• under the smoke, the Algérie
• to the right, the Marseillaise.[1]

Originally from de.wikipedia; description page is/was here.

2004-07-09 (original upload date)

Original uploader was Stefan Kühn at de.wikipedia

This image is in the public domain.