The British fire ceased after less than twenty minutes, which limited the damage inflicted; Somerville hoped to minimize the damage done to Franco-British relations. Work on the ship began almost immediately; at 20:00, Gensoul ordered the crew to recover the dead and wounded while damage control teams stabilized the ship. Those not engaged in either work—some 800 men—were sent ashore. Half an hour later, he radioed Somerville that the ship had been largely evacuated. By the next morning, the fires had been suppressed and work to plate over the shell holes in the hull had begun. Wounded crewmen had been evacuated to a local hospital. Gensoul expected that the ship would be ready to sail for Toulon for permanent repairs within a few days and informed his superior, Admiral Jean-Pierre Esteva ("Amiral Sud", the commander of naval forces in North Africa) as much. Esteva in turn issued a statement to that effect to the press in Algeria, which had the unintended effect of informing the British that "Dunkerque" had not been disabled permanently. Churchill ordered Somerville to return and destroy the ship; Somerville, hoping to avoid civilian casualties now that the ship was beached directly in front of the town of Saint André, secured permission to attack using only torpedo bombers.