![]() ![]() On 25 September Australia (II) and Devonshire moved in towards Dakar to attack French cruisers. On the following day, 24 September, Australia (II) was engaged in a general fleet bombardment of French ships and forts and was twice subjected to high level bombing attacks by French planes. Australia (II) with Fury and Greyhound attacked a French destroyer which was set ablaze from end to end. Australia (II) escaped damage, but Cumberland and Foresight were both hit. The optimistic belief that the population of Dakar would welcome de Gaulle proved to be ill-founded and shore batteries opened fire on the fleet. The object of Operation MENACE was to install General de Gaulle and a Free French force in Dakar thereby evicting the existing Vichy government and forestalling any possible German occupation. September 1940 found Australia (II) involved in Operation MENACE and patrolling off Dakar, French West Africa, shadowing French cruisers Gloire, Montcalm and Georges Leygues. On 9 July she joined a convoy for the United Kingdom and for the rest of the month she was patrolling off Norway in the vicinity of the Faeroes with the 1st Cruiser Squadron, at one time engaged in a search for the German battleship Gneisenau. During this month Australia (II) fired her first shot in World War II when she was attacked by an enemy bomber. As part of the Dakar Squadron in July 1940, Australia (II), in company with HM Ships Hermes, Dorsetshire and Milford, was patrolling off the French West African coast, observing the French fleet. ![]()
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