CASUALTY RECORD // September 23, 1940
Battle of Dakar
Estimated casualties — killed, wounded, captured, and missing — by side, with confidence labels per surviving record.
Casualties by side
1 sides catalogued · combined 203–393 estimated
État français
203–393
Medium-confidence figure
Battle context
The Battle of Dakar, conducted as Operation Menace in September 1940, was an Allied attempt to seize the strategically significant port of Dakar in French West Africa and install a Free French administration under General Charles de Gaulle in place of the pro-German Vichy French colonial government led by Pierre Boisson. The operation failed in its objectives, leaving the Vichy administration in control of the colony and denying the Allies both the port and a potential foothold in French West Africa. The defeat represented an early setback for de Gaulle's Free French movement, undermining its claim that French colonial territories could be rallied to the Allied cause, and it demonstrated the resilience of Vichy authority in West Africa at a critical early stage of the war.
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