the vichy french government reestablished the fhm on 25 september after it negotiated rules limiting the force's activities and numbers with the italian and german armistice commissions. "le chevalier paul", "tartu" and "vauquelin" were assigned to the fhm on 15 november. after the allies invaded lebanon and syria on 8 june 1941, admiral françois darlan, minister of war and national defense in the vichy government, ordered "le chevalier paul" to carry ammunition for the french ships in beirut, french lebanon, departing on 11 june. he had requested permission from the germans and italians to do so via radio message which the british decoded and alerted them to the ship's mission and route. she passed the greek island of kastellorizo on 15 june and hugged the coast of turkey to try to avoid detection or interception by british forces on cyprus, but a british reconnaissance aircraft found her at 18:15 on 15 june. six fleet air arm fairey swordfish torpedo bombers of 815 naval air squadron attacked her off the syrian coast at 03:00 the next morning and torpedoed her at the cost of one swordfish shot down.