On November 27, 1942, French sailors at Toulon scuttled their own fleet rather than hand it to the Germans. This History Hit documentary reconstructs Operation Lila, the Nazi plan to seize the French Navy after the Allied invasion of North Africa forced Hitler to occupy the Vichy free zone, and the secret counter-order that sent over 85 warships, including the battleship Strasbourg, to the harbor floor. Interviews and archival material trace the impossible position of Admiral Jean de Laborde and the Toulon commanders, caught between loyalty to Vichy, fear of the Germans, and pressure from the Allies to sail for North Africa instead. Firsthand sailor testimony describes opening valves and setting charges on their own ships in the hours before German tanks reached the docks. The film lays out the political calculations inside the Vichy regime that led to the order, and treats the scuttling as what naval historians call the largest deliberate self-destruction of a fleet in history.