Operation Lever (continuation of Operation Catapult). British Force H returns to Mers-el-Kébir, Algeria, to finish off the French battleships Provence and Dunkerque. At dawn, Fairey Swordfish from HMS Ark Royal score several torpedo hits on Dunkerque. One torpedo hits patrol boat French Terre Neuve, setting off a massive explosion in a large store of depth charges (8 killed), which badly damaged the nearby Dunkerque (154 killed and wounded).
At 5.37 AM, British cruisers HMS Capetown and Caledon and destroyers HMS Janus, Juno, Ilex and Imperial shell the Libyan port of Bardia, 10 miles along the coast from the Egyptian border. They sink Italian steamer Axum and damage another merchant ship. At 8.20 AM, the British ships are attacked by Italian bombers, suffering no damage.
British submarine HMS Shark, unable to dive, is captured by German minesweepers in Boknafjord near Stavanger, Norway. HMS Shark sinks under tow (3 killed, 32 taken prisoner). Another crewmember will be killed August 27 near his prison camp, dealing with an unexploded British bomb.
U-34 sinks Estonian collier Vapper, South of Cape Clear, Ireland (1 dead, 32 crew abandon ship in two lifeboats). U-99 (which had chased Vapper for 90 minutes) observes the sinking.
U-30 sinks Egyptian steamer Angele Mabro, West of Brest, France (all hands lost).
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