"A" as in "Part"

Radio's Raymond Gram Swing stirred up a kettle of speculation last week when he broadcast doubts about the scuttling of the French Fleet. Swing was quoted as saying: "The French Fleet at Toulon was not destroyed completely. ... At least half of the fleet was found [by air reconnaissance] to be afloat without signs of damage."

What Swing actually said, according to Swing, was: "At least part of the fleet. . ." The Swing broad "a" had confused some of his listeners, no doubt.

Half, or part, or what part, was still a mystery last week. Most reliable sources in London said that, while a few vessels might have escaped, all available information showed that the battleship Strasbourg and the cruisers Algerie, Dupleix and Colbert had been sunk, that most of the other 58 French warships in Toulon on that shattering dawn had at least been seriously damaged.

With the battleship Jean Bart out of action at Casablanca (see cut), it looked as though the French fleet as such was, for a while, out of the war.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.