1940s NEWSREEL TACOMA BRIDGE COLLAPSE FRENCH FLEET SUNK AT ORAN 70682

Love our channel? Help us save and post more orphaned films! Support us on Patreon:   / periscopefilm   Even a really tiny contribution can make a difference. This historic newsreel shows some interesting events in the 1940s including the attack on the French fleet by the British at Oran and the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The 1940 Tacoma Narrows Bridge, the first Tacoma Narrows Bridge, was a suspension bridge in the U.S. state of Washington that spanned the Tacoma Narrows strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula. It opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. At the time of its construction (and its destruction), the bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in the world in terms of main span length, behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the George Washington Bridge. Construction on the bridge began in September 1938. From the time the deck was built, it began to move vertically in windy conditions, which led to construction workers giving the bridge the nickname Galloping Gertie. The motion was observed even when the bridge opened to the public. Several measures aimed at stopping the motion were ineffective, and the bridge's main span finally collapsed under 40-mile-per-hour (64 km/h) wind conditions the morning of November 7, 1940. Following the collapse, the United States' involvement in World War II delayed plans to replace the bridge. The portions of the bridge still standing after the collapse, including the towers and cables, were dismantled and sold as scrap metal. Nearly 10 years after the bridge collapsed, a new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened in the same location, using the original bridge's tower pedestals and cable anchorages. The portion of the bridge that fell into the water now serves as an artificial reef. The bridge's collapse had a lasting effect on science and engineering. In many physics textbooks, the event is presented as an example of elementary forced resonance, with the wind providing an external periodic frequency that matched the bridge's natural structural frequency, though the actual cause of failure was aeroelastic flutter. Its failure also boosted research in the field of bridge aerodynamics-aeroelastics, the study of which has influenced the designs of all the world's great long-span bridges built since 1940. The Attack on Mers-el-Kébir, part of Operation Catapult and also known as the Battle of Mers-el-Kébir, was a British naval bombardment of the French Navy (Marine Nationale) at its base at Mers-el-Kébir on the coast of what was then French Algeria on 3 July 1940. The raid resulted in the deaths of 1,297 French servicemen, the sinking of a battleship and the damaging of five other ships. The combined air-and-sea attack was conducted by the Royal Navy as a direct response to the French-German armistice of 22 June, which had seen Britain's sole continental ally replaced by a collaborationist, pro-Nazi government administrated from Vichy. The new Vichy government had also inherited the considerable French naval force of the Marine Nationale; of particular significance were the seven battleships of the Bretagne, Dunkerque and Richelieu classes, which collectively represented the second largest force of capital ships in Europe behind the British. Since Vichy was seen by the British (with a good deal of justification) as a mere puppet state of the Nazi regime, there was serious fear that they would surrender or loan the ships to the Kriegsmarine, an outcome which would largely undo Britain's tenuous grasp on European naval superiority and confer a major Axis advantage in the ongoing Battle of the Atlantic. Despite promises from Vichy Admiral of the Fleet François Darlan that the fleet would remain under French control and out of the hands of the Germans, Winston Churchill, still reeling from Dunkirk and stung by the Vichy French collaboration, determined that the fleet was simply too dangerous to remain intact, French sovereignty notwithstanding In response to the British attack at Mers-el-Kébir and another at Dakar, the French mounted air raids on Gibraltar. The Vichy government also severed diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom. The attack remains controversial. It created much rancour between Vichy France and Britain, but it also demonstrated to the world and to the United States in particular, Britain's commitment to continue the war with Germany at all costs and without allies if need be. This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2K/4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com