gensel kept stalling. at 6:00, the british opened fire, and they sank a number of french ships including a very large battleship, killed about 1300 french sailors, so it was a greek tragedy. churchill understood it was a greek tragedy. and it's not discussed very much when the battle of britain is discussed, because the battle of britain people think of the messer schmidts and the spitfires, and the british don't really like to talk about the french like to talk about it. but it actually had a very important impact. the american ors were -- americans were solicited time and again to send arms to the british. churchill is very emphatic about this. he wanted destroyers. he wanted all kinds of guns to make up for the guns that the british army had left in france. and the americans were skeptical. first, there were neutrality laws, but there was also a very strong isolationist sentiment in america. and even george marshall, who was the chief military adviser to franklin roosevelt, said how could we send all th