[Aktungbby]

"So I was patrolling outside one of my favorite spots, what I call 'The Funnel'

Close! the British, since well before the Napoleonic wars have always referred to it as "the gut"! A principle tenet of their maritime policy is to always control the gut; In their long continuous wars with France, the French, forced to maintain two navies because of geography, could never quite cope with this immutable fact. The Mediterranean fleet, based at Toulon, was kept apart from the Atlantic fleet (divide and conquer) at all costs. Nelson's great victory at Aboukir Bay and At Trafalgar (in the funnel) were adjuncts of this supreme policy: "he who controls the gut rules the waves". The one time the Brits 'screwed the pooch' of course was when French Admiral De Grasse got loose with the newly refurbished (barnacle free) fleet; got to the Americas and trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown against Hood and Rodney's combined fleets, at one History's five great naval encounters...a three day running battle; not much tactically, but strategically: we is US... from 'sea to shining sea'. ( naturally George W. took all the credit!) The British have not screwed that pooch since and sank or damaged the French fleet in WWII at Mers-el -Kébir, 3/JUL/40, lest the Germans do the same...1297 French sailors were killed and the battle ship Dunkerque was sunk! At Toulon on November 27, 1942, during the Operation Lila to gain the Vichy French naval assets, the French lost 12 killed and 26 wounded, while the Germans suffered one wounded and retreated! In scuttling their own fleet, the French under ADM Laborde, destroyed 77 vessels, including 3 battleships, 7 cruisers, 15 destroyers, and 13 torpedo boats. Five submarines managed to get underway, with three reaching North Africa, one Spain, and the last forced to scuttle at the mouth of the harbor. The surface ship Leonor Fresnel also escaped. While Charles de Gaulle and the Free French severely criticized the action, stating that the fleet should have tried to escape, the scuttling prevented the ships from falling into Axis hands. While salvage efforts began, none of the larger ships saw service again during the war. After the liberation of France, ADM Laborde was tried and convicted of treason for not trying to save the fleet. Found guilty, he was sentenced to death. This was soon commuted to life imprisonment before he was granted clemency in 1947. One of the great Allied victories ya never really hear ALL about! In my mind, politics aside, Laborde deserves better! He was antagonistic toward De Gaulle and the British but he made sure of his fleet not falling into Nazi hands. He died in 1977; age 99! In the end it's all about the gut...the Atlantic is an English speaking lake-everyone else can damn well stay in the Med, the Baltic, or the Black Sea...I think Russian Rear Admiral John Paul Jones, aboard his flagship Vladimir, might argue that one though!!