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The Day ‘Black September’ Shook the Olympic Village in Munich

One of the attackers is seen at the Israeli team’s headquarters in the Olympic Village. (Getty Images)
One of the attackers is seen at the Israeli team’s headquarters in the Olympic Village. (Getty Images)
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The Day ‘Black September’ Shook the Olympic Village in Munich

One of the attackers is seen at the Israeli team’s headquarters in the Olympic Village. (Getty Images)
One of the attackers is seen at the Israeli team’s headquarters in the Olympic Village. (Getty Images)

Yehya al-Sinwar was ten years old when the Black September Palestinian organization carried out its hostage taking of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Nearly a billion people watched the Munich Massacre unfold on television as German police and Palestinian fighters traded fire during the operation. The events of September 1972 could be compared to the al-Aqsa Flood Operation that sparked Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023.

Then Israeli Prime Minister Gold Meir refused the kidnappers’ demand to be flown to Egypt with the hostages. The German government ambushed the kidnappers, but its lack of experience led to the massacre that has since become the subject of countless movies, documentaries and books.

After some initial hesitation, Meir yielded to the pressure of several of her ministers and agreed to Operation Wrath of God that would go after and assassinate nearly everyone involved in the Munich attack.

Paris, which is hosting the Olympic Games this summer, is bound to be worried that such a global event would attract terrorists, especially groups inspired by al-Qaeda, and ISIS.

My profession would have it that I met two of the men who took part in planning and carrying out the Munich attack. The first is Salah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, who was a member of the executive committee of the Fatah movement and the second in command after Yasser Arafat. The second was Mohammed Daoud Oudeh, or Abu Daoud, a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council.

Abu Daoud speaks to Asharq Al-Awsat Editor-in-Chief Ghassan Charbel. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Arafat and Abbas

More than half a century since the attack, the Israeli Mossad managed to kill the majority of those involved except its three masterminds: Abu Iyad, his aide Fakhri al-Omari (Abu Mohammed) and Abu Daoud.

Abu Iyad and al-Omari were eventually assassinated but by Palestinian, Sabry al-Banna, or Abu Nidal, the founder of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council. Abu Daoud was also wounded in al-Banna's attack.

In Tunis, Abu Daoud told me that al-Omari came up with the Munich attack during a meeting between him and Abu Iyad. Arafat was aware that the hostage taking would take place in Munich and that the Israelis would be swapped with Palestinians held in Israeli jails, recalled Abu Daoud. Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen, Fatah’s financial officer was tasked with providing the funds for the operation.

Abu Iyad stressed to me that the operation got out of hand because of Meir’s hardline position and the recklessness of the German government. He said the kidnappers had strict orders not to kill the hostages or open fire except when extremely necessary in self-defense. Abu Daoud confirmed the orders.

Weapons smuggled in undergarments

Abu Iyad personally oversaw the smuggling of weapons that would be used in the operation. He was accompanied by a Lebanese lady, Juliet, who had concealed the weapons in her luggage that was carrying her undergarments. When German customs sought to search the luggage for anything suspicious, they were embarrassed to find the underwear and quickly closed the luggage without searching it thoroughly.

Abu Daoud was tasked with storing the luggage at the train station and changing their locations daily to avoid suspicion until the day of the operation.

German security agencies were never alerted to the traveler who moved between Munich hotels using an Iraqi passport. The man was Abu Daoud and he was tasked with scouting the Olympic Village.

Black September

The Black September organization was born in wake of the battles that erupted between the Jordanian army and Palestinian groups in September 1970. The fighting ended the following year with the Palestinians’ defeat. Black September was formed out of desire for revenge against the Jordanian regime and to wage an open confrontation with Israel.

The defeat and ouster from Jordan were a major blow to the Palestinians who believed the country was the best position to confront Israel. Black September would be used to settle several scores. On November 28, 1971, it assassinated Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi al-Tal as he entered the Sheraton Hotel in Cairo. The incident is still the subject of heated debate to this day with some speculation that al-Tal was actually killed by a sniper on a nearby building, not the Palestinian group.

Egypt released the suspects without trial, raising doubts in Jordan that Cairo may have been involved in the attack or at least turned a blind eye to its planning. Abu Iyad agreed to discuss several issues with me, except al-Tal's assassination given how sensitive it still is.

Several setbacks

In 1972 the Palestinians were dejected. They had suffered a blow in Jordan and Palestinian factions in southern Lebanon lacked the weapons to confront Israeli attacks and incursions. The Palestinian leaders were worried that the factions would succumb to despair.

Over the spring, ideas started floating around to carry out an operation that would attract the world’s attention to the situation of the Palestinians and prove to the people in the camps that the resistance is capable of harming Israel.

Over the summer, Abu Iyad became even more invested in the idea of a major attack, especially with the summer Olympics around the corner. He asked that Abu Daoud visit Bulgaria to obtain weapons equipped with silencers “because we will need them in Europe.” The goal was to deal blows to Mossad agents in Europe.

Earlier that year, Palestinian authorities had sent a letter to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asking that Palestinian athletes be allowed to compete at the Games, but they received no reply. A second letter was also left without a reply.

The Palestinians were dealt a new blow with the assassination of journalist Ghassan Kanafani in Beirut. He was also the editor of the al-Hadaf magazine, the mouthpiece of the Palestinian Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Meeting at a Rome cafe

Abu Iyad, al-Omari and Abu Daoud met soon after the assassination. Al-Omari proposed launching attacks against Israeli embassies and consulates, but Abu Iyad said that would put the resistance in a confrontation with the countries hosting those missions.

The three would meet again later at a cafe in Rome. Abu Iyad angrily said the IOC was continuing to ignore the Palestinian athletes. Al-Omari replied: “Since they are insisting on ignoring us, then why don’t we try to infiltrate the Olympic Village to kidnap Israeli athletes?” Abu Iyad thought he was crazy. Abu Daoud also noted that the majority of Israeli have received military training so overpowering them would be a challenge.

Abu Iyad went quiet as he mulled over the idea. “We could take hostage the Israelis and demand the release of several of our prisoners from Israel. It’s not a bad idea,” he remarked. He turned to Abu Daoud to say: “Munich is on your way to Bulgaria.”

So, the planning for the Munich operation got underway. Abu Daoud asked Abu Iyad to speak to Abu Mazen about securing funds for the operation.

Abu Daoud couldn't persuade the Bulgarians to hand him weapons, who demanded that they communicate with an official authority, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization or Fatah. Abu Iyad intervened, but the Bulgarians then demanded that the weapons head to the Middle East, not Europe.

Abu Daoud lies wounded after an assassination attempt in Warsaw in 1981. (Getty Images)

Scouting visits

Meanwhile, Abu Daoud was trying to scout the Olympic Village. He met a Palestinian woman who spoke some German and he pretended to be a Brazilian who wanted to get inside the village to meet some friends. The German guard sympathized with him and allowed them inside. Abu Daoud would return again with the executor team, Youssef Nazal and Mohammed Mosalha.

In the village, Abu Daoud approached a woman who happened to be Israeli, and he asked her if he could point her in the direction of where the Israeli team was staying. He told her that he was interested in Israel and wanted to learn more about the country and relay that information back to his family in Brazil.

Abu Daoud, Nazal and Mosalha, all pretending to be Brazilians, scouted the area where they will carry out the operation. The planning took weeks of meetings, training and trips between Athens, Madrid, Sofia, Geneva, Beirut and Libya’s Tripoli. The biggest hurdle they needed to overcome was how to smuggle the weapons to Munich.

Lebanese ‘wife’

Abu Iyad instructed Abu Daoud to wait for him at Frankfurt airport on August 24, 1972. Abu Iyad arrived with a Lebanese lady, Juliet, who was pretending to be his wife. At customs, the German officer ordered Abu Iyad to open his luggage, which was carrying the weapons, for inspection.

Abu Daoud became more nervous. But Abu Iyad, with some feigned annoyance, opened the luggage and began taking out his “wife’s” undergarments, which embarrassed the officer, who quickly allowed the luggage through without further inspection. Abu Daoud and Abu Iyad then took a taxi to their hotel.

Abu Iyad transported the weapons to Germany with the help of his Lebanese “wife”. (Getty Images)

Finishing touches

The remaining members of the executor team flew in from Tripoli. They stayed at three hotels and were provided with tracksuits, as well as bandages and biscuits should the hostage-taking take some time.

The Olympic Games opened on August 26 and the planners waited for the games to get underway and for security to become somewhat lax before they could carry out the attack.

Abu Daoud said a meeting was held in Beirut ahead of the operation to ensure that the attack would not be seen as an act of revenge, but rather as a political message and that blood would not be shed except during extreme moments.

The plans were now complete: The attackers would enter from the fence surrounding the Village and head to building 31 where the Israeli team was staying. They would try to take as many Israelis as possible hostage. Mosalha was tasked with carrying out the negotiations. He would hand over a list of over 200 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

The hostages would then be flown to a Middle Eastern country, preferably Egypt, which would demand that a prisoner swap be held with Israel, added Abu Daoud.

German security forces try to enter the location where the hostages are held in the Olympic Village. (Getty Images)

Night of the operation

Abu Daoud gave the order to carry out the attack on September 4. The attackers, dressed in tracksuits and concealing their weapons in their bags, met by the village fence. As they were about the climb over, they heard a raucous that turned out to be American athletes who had been staying out late drinking. They were sneaking into the village. Abu Daoud recalled that the athletes helped the attackers over the fence not knowing that they were intruders.

Abu Daoud returned to the hotel and waited for news of the attack to make it on the news. Abu Daoud said that had the operation been a failure, the team would meet again at the train station. The operation was set to begin at 4:30 in the morning and by 8:00 news of the attack had made it to the media, captivating the world.

The kidnappers’ helicopter is destroyed during the gunfight at a military airport near Munich. (Getty Images)

Meir’s government refused to negotiate with the kidnappers. The German government ambushed the attackers as they made their way to the airport ahead of being flown to Egypt. The ensuing gunfight left five of the kidnappers, nine hostages and a German policeman dead. Two Israeli athletes were killed in the initial raid of where they were staying.

‘Wrath of God’

Soon after, Meir’s government agreed to operation “Wrath of God” that led to the assassination of several Palestinian officials and diplomats – some of whom had nothing to do with the Munich operation. Israel succeeded in killing several of its targets except for the masterminds.

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Features

How a Surgeon Kept a Sudan Hospital Functioning on the War’s Front Line

Dr. Jamal Eltaeb checks a patient at Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)
Dr. Jamal Eltaeb checks a patient at Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)
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How a Surgeon Kept a Sudan Hospital Functioning on the War’s Front Line

Dr. Jamal Eltaeb checks a patient at Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)
Dr. Jamal Eltaeb checks a patient at Al Nao Hospital in Omdurman, on the outskirts of Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)

For three years, Dr. Jamal Eltaeb made excruciating choices. Who should live and potentially die? Should he operate without the right medicines if it might save someone's life? How would he find fuel to keep the hospital's lights on?

As Sudan 's war raged around him, only one decision was easy: Keep working.

The orthopedic surgeon was leading Al Nao hospital in Omdurman, just outside the capital, Khartoum, as control of the urban area shifted between Sudan's army and paramilitary fighters. As the front line moved closer and the hospital overflowed with patients, some colleagues lost their nerve and left.

The soft-spoken Eltaeb was a rare surgeon who remained. Even as the hospital was bombed more than once. Even as most medical supplies ran out.

“I weighed the options of staying here, and taking care of your patients and helping other people that need you as a skilled surgeon, rather than choose your own safety,” he told The Associated Press in an interview.

He is one of countless Sudanese who have pitched in to help as the world largely looks elsewhere, distracted by conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine. He has seen the bodies behind the estimates of tens of thousands of people killed, and what it means — day to excruciating day — when the United Nations warns his country's health system is near collapse.

Nearly 40% of Sudan's hospitals no longer function. Many have been stripped for parts or used by armed groups as bases. Sudan’s army has since retaken the capital, and Al Nao remains one of the area's only functioning health centers.

Oxygen canisters and hospital beds at a war-damaged section of Al Shaabi Hospital in Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)

Some operations were done on the hospital floor

Walking through the complex, the 54-year-old showed AP journalists the remnants of some of the hardest months of his life.

Over there was a window that was struck, killing the relative of a patient. And there in the courtyard was the last tent standing of the many erected during the peak of the conflict to accommodate mass casualties.

“We were working everywhere, in tents, outside, on the floor, doing everything to save patients’ lives,” he said.

The work earned Eltaeb the $1 million Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which honors individuals who risk their lives to save others. He gave some of the money to medical and humanitarian groups around the world.

Before the war, staffers said, Al Nao was a quiet hospital with its nearly 100 beds empty much of the time. But when fighting began in Khartoum and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces captured swaths of the city, patients hurried in.

Eltaeb's own hospital elsewhere closed shortly after the war began in April 2023, and he moved to Al Nao. By July, most of the staff had fled, leaving him in charge.

He and a handful of employees and volunteers struggled to keep the place running. Electricity was out for weeks as the facility relied on the army to supply fuel for generators. Medicines like antibiotics and painkillers ran out.

‘From that moment, we knew that we are a target’

In August, a month after Eltaeb took charge, the hospital was hit for the first time.

“From that moment, we knew that we are a target ... And from that time, they didn’t stop targeting us,” he said. The RSF later struck the hospital three more times.

Normality had crumbled. A father of three, Eltaeb sat in his office and handed out sweets to a steady stream of patients and staff vying for his attention.

Decisions were nearly impossible. On a particularly harrowing day in late 2024, he and his team scrambled to triage over 100 wounded people after a strike hit a nearby market. Eight of them died.

“You choose ... as if you can choose who is going to live and who is going to die,” he said.

The day only got worse. Eltaeb had to decide whether to amputate on children without full anesthetic because they were bleeding heavily and he didn't have time to transport them to the operating room.

Using local anesthetic, he removed an arm and leg of a 9-year-old boy and a leg of his 11 year-old sister.

He now scrolls through photos of such surgeries on his phone, attempting to explain to the world a horror few can grasp.

A member of the military media accompanied the AP during the visit, including during interviews. The AP retains full editorial control of its content.

A guard walks through a war-damaged section of Al Shaabi Hospital in Khartoum, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (AP)

Volunteers delivered supplies by bicycle

The hospital relied on volunteers to keep supplies coming. They would post what they needed on social media, and pharmacists would provide the keys for their long-closed shops and allow volunteers to take medicines and other items for free.

One volunteer, Nazar Mohamed, spent months riding around Omdurman, often on a bicycle, delivering supplies while explosions echoed.

Other donations came from organizations and individuals abroad. A network of Sudanese doctors overseas provided remote advice on coping with mass casualties or what to do when antibiotics or anesthesia ran low.

The hospital's remaining staffers got creative, making beds and crutches out of wood and using clothes instead of gauze for makeshift splints.

The war moves on and support does, too

Fighting has shifted away from the Khartoum area. Some funding-strained organizations that supported Eltaeb's hospital now assist places more in need.

He said there is enough money until June to pay salaries and keep generators running, but they will need some $40,000 a month for the hospital to function.

While some countries have pledged support to help Sudan's reconstruction, there's concern the war with Iran might divert attention and resources.

Hospitals that were hit harder than Al Nao lie in ruins and need much more.

Across town, Dr. Osman Ismail Osman, director of Al Shaabi hospital, said the several hundred thousand dollars the government has provided is a drop in the bucket.

The RSF occupied his hospital during the war. Dusty, broken medical equipment worth millions of dollars is piled up, and chunks of concrete are scattered with metal beds.

The goal of opening the badly damaged hospital for emergency referrals within weeks is ambitious, but medical workers like Eltaeb have learned how to approach the impossible.

“I believe I did my best as a doctor as a Sudanese,” the surgeon said.

Features

Dealing with the Dead in the Ruins of Sudan’s War

This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows Sudanese Ali Gebbai, a volunteer responsible for handling burial procedures for unidentified bodies in the capital, Khartoum, examines one of the unidentified corpses at the mortuary of Omdurman's Al-Nao Educational Hospital. (AFP)
This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows Sudanese Ali Gebbai, a volunteer responsible for handling burial procedures for unidentified bodies in the capital, Khartoum, examines one of the unidentified corpses at the mortuary of Omdurman's Al-Nao Educational Hospital. (AFP)
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Dealing with the Dead in the Ruins of Sudan’s War

This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows Sudanese Ali Gebbai, a volunteer responsible for handling burial procedures for unidentified bodies in the capital, Khartoum, examines one of the unidentified corpses at the mortuary of Omdurman's Al-Nao Educational Hospital. (AFP)
This photo taken on April 18, 2026 shows Sudanese Ali Gebbai, a volunteer responsible for handling burial procedures for unidentified bodies in the capital, Khartoum, examines one of the unidentified corpses at the mortuary of Omdurman's Al-Nao Educational Hospital. (AFP)

At a makeshift morgue in Khartoum, engineer turned mortician Ali Gebbai clicked through a spreadsheet of the dead. Thousands of entries, each with a photo and burial site, keep a harrowing record of Sudan's war.

Every time the team of volunteers finds a body, they post to social media and wait 72 hours in the hopes that the victim's loved ones will come across the picture and claim the person.

"We photograph every body. We check if there's anything in their pockets to help us identify them, and we mark the spot where we buried them," Gebbai told AFP.

It was a blazing April day and a dead woman lay on the ground of the small, air-conditioned room in the Sudanese capital, her brown-speckled thobe pulled over her face and body.

If no one came to identify her, the team would prepare a clean white shroud, wash her according to Muslim custom and bury her nearby.

It is all anyone in Khartoum can hope for by way of a morgue. And it is far more than what most victims of Sudan's war receive: a shallow grave, hastily dug into the dirt where they fell.

The conflict, now in its fourth year, between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has no confirmed toll, though it has killed at least tens of thousands, and aid workers give estimates of more than 200,000.

"It's disheartening, all these estimations. When you have a population not knowing what has happened, that trauma and the impact cannot be overlooked," Jose Luis Pozo Gil, the International Committee of the Red Cross's deputy Sudan chief, told AFP.

In the year since the army recaptured Khartoum, authorities have exhumed and reburied "around 28,000 people", Hisham Zein al-Abdeen, head of forensic medicine at Sudan's health ministry, told AFP. And they have only cleared a little over half the capital.

Gebbai said he and his teams have buried 7,000 dead since the war began.

Ethnic massacres in Darfur, meanwhile, have killed thousands of people at a time, and this year alone at least 700 died in drone strikes on Kordofan.

- Morgues destroyed -

Across the country, there is nowhere to store the dead, and no way to count them.

During the worst massacres, when firebombs tear through mosques and markets, rescuers routinely run out of shrouds. The dead are buried where they lay, wrapped in their own clothes or plastic bags, often in villages with no clinic to speak of, much less a morgue that can send information to a central authority.

Zein al-Abdeen, one of only two forensic doctors in Khartoum, said the capital's morgues "were already full before the war".

According to the ICRC, Khartoum's four morgues were all forced out of service by the war, but the dead remained inside.

"When we went inside the Omdurman morgue, there were still many bodies. And there hadn't been any electricity for a long time -- you can imagine the state," Pozo Gil said.

The Omdurman morgue was "completely destroyed" in a strike, Zein al-Abdeen said, its compressors looted while bodies lay rotting everywhere they looked.

His team has been exhuming Khartoum's dead for a year, focusing on "those buried in shallow graves, in public spaces, in sewers and along the Nile".

As bullets flew and artillery arched over the river to crash into homes and hospitals, trapped civilians could not reach the next street over, much less the cemetery. So people buried their loved ones in courtyards, at playgrounds and on street corners.

Over three years, it turned Khartoum into an open-air graveyard.

"That leaves a mark on society, it destroys human dignity and it normalizes death," Zein al-Abdeen said.

The same is true for the rest of Sudan: in Darfur, where pools of blood could be seen in satellite images; in al-Jazira, where bodies were dumped in canals; and in Kordofan, where killer drones still stalk civilians.

- Finding the missing -

Most of those exhumed and reburied in Khartoum are identified, Zein al-Abdeen said, by families who buried their loved ones themselves but needed authorities to give them a proper resting place.

But many are not. From every anonymous body, authorities remove a small bone or a piece of hair, in hopes they will one day be identified. But Sudan has no working DNA labs to test the samples, and nowhere to store them until then.

"The safest place to keep the DNA samples is buried separately in the ground, and marked clearly," Zein al-Abdeen told AFP, "or we'll exhume the bodies again later."

According to the ICRC, there are at least 11,000 missing persons in Sudan.

"We know that the lack of closure for families leaves an open wound. In any kind of recovery in the future, in order to find closure, to rebuild trust, the issue of the missing has to be addressed," Pozo Gil said.

Gebbai the mortician spoke with steely-eyed resolve, but it began to crack when he remembered one young man.

"He was looking for his father and his uncle for over a year. When he came to us, he found out they had both been shot dead in the street in the early weeks of the war. It broke him, he collapsed and cried for a long time."

But at last, at least, he could visit their graves.

Features

A Lesson from 1915 … Why the Strait of Hormuz Can’t be Taken by Force

FILE PHOTO: Strait of Hormuz map is seen in this illustration taken April 15, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Strait of Hormuz map is seen in this illustration taken April 15, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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A Lesson from 1915 … Why the Strait of Hormuz Can’t be Taken by Force

FILE PHOTO: Strait of Hormuz map is seen in this illustration taken April 15, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Strait of Hormuz map is seen in this illustration taken April 15, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

The debate over reopening the Strait of Hormuz represents one of the most sensitive issues in politics and security. As questions continue to grow about why US President Donald Trump did not take practical steps to remove the obstacles blocking the vital passageway, this discussion sheds light on the nature of the military challenges that make any attempt to open it by force extremely dangerous, especially given the presence of non traditional threats such as naval mines and warfare.

The answer as to why nothing has been done to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is simple, according to The Independent.

As his advisers will have told Trump before he attacked Iran, it is almost impossible to clear a passage through a minefield when the shoreline is held by the enemy, without being prepared to take significant casualties. And this, it seems, the US is not prepared to do.

It is one thing to bomb a less technologically sophisticated enemy from the air, but quite another to get involved in a real fight at sea level with an opponent who has been planning this form of asymmetric warfare for a very long time.

 

A satellite image shows a fleet of small boats at sea, north of the Strait of Hormuz near the Kargan coast, Iran, April 22, 2026. European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via REUTERS

According to the British newspaper, history gives a stark lesson on why America needs to tread warily – a page from the First World War.

It was March 1915. The “straits” concerned were the Dardanelles – the narrow passage linking the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and giving access to Istanbul. The Turks were the defenders, the British and the French the attackers.

They were in the middle of a shooting war. A vital waterway, which would normally be open for the world’s commerce, was closed because of the actions of Türkiye, the bordering power. The coastline was heavily defended, and there was a high probability that mines had been laid to block the channel.

A decision was made by the British and French that the straits were to be reopened by force – and a very considerable force was assembled for that purpose.

It comprised no fewer than 14 “capital” ships (in those days “battleships” and “battlecruisers”) supported by escorts and a large force of minesweepers.

The plan was a good one. The capital ships would stand off in clear water and bombard the shore defenses. When these had been silenced, the minesweepers would go ahead and sweep another clear area.

The capital ships would then move forward again into swept water and recommence their bombardment – successive waves of big ships moving up, but always into water which had been swept for mines. In this way, the whole channel would be cleared, and the straits reopened.

The big push commenced on 18 March 1915. To start with, it all went well. Four capital ships – HM ships Queen Elizabeth, Agamemnon, Lord Nelson and Inflexible – formed the first attacking line.

The second line was composed of four French ships, Gaulois, Charlemagne, Bouvet and Suffren. They, in turn, were to be supported by six more British ships – HM ships Ocean, Irresistible, Albion, Vengeance, Swiftsure and Majestic – which would form a third line to pass through and relieve the French in line two.

The bombardment was started by the RN ships in line one at 11am. By 12.20pm, the French ships of line two had steamed through the first line to take up their advanced positions.

By 1.45pm, the fire from the shore batteries had slackened under the onslaught of the guns of the eight capital ships, and it was deemed safe enough to send in the minesweepers for the next phase. The third line of six ships was also called up to move the force forward.

However, 15 minutes later, everything started to go wrong. FS Bouvet hit a mine, and in a matter of minutes, she capsized and sank. There were only 75 survivors out of a ship’s company of 718.

The action continued. HMS Irresistible of the third wave was bombarding the forts when she, in turn, struck a mine at 3.14pm. She developed a severe list but continued with the action until she hit another mine, and her main engines were put out of action completely.

An attempt was made to take her in tow, but the situation was hopeless, and the order was given to abandon ship. More than 600 men were taken to safety.

 

The Epaminondas ship is seen during seizure by the Revolutionary Guard Corps in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran, in this image obtained by Reuters on April 24, 2026. Meysam Mirzadeh/Tasnim/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Meanwhile, shortly after 4pm, HMS Inflexible struck a mine. She remained capable of steaming slowly and was ordered to withdraw. However, she had a 30ft x 26ft hole below the waterline and had to be beached to save her from sinking. She was later towed to Malta for repairs and was out of action for three months.

After these disasters, Vice-Admiral John de Robeck, the British admiral in charge of the Allied naval forces during the crucial stages of the campaign, finally decided that the waters which had been considered to be safe and swept of mines were anything but.

Accordingly, at 5.50pm, less than seven hours into the operation, he signalled a “General Recall” to withdraw the ships and return to the safe waters outside the straits.

Fifteen minutes later, at 6.05pm, HMS Ocean struck another mine, developed a major list and was deemed not to be capable of being saved. The ship’s company were taken off and she was left to her fate. Both Irresistible and Ocean later sank.

Fourteen major warships had attempted to force the straits. Within four hours, three of them had been sunk and one had been so badly damaged that she was out of action.

This one day of disaster was the end of trying to take the Dardanelles passage by solely naval means. The attempt was never repeated.