Richelieu (ship, 1939)
Richelieu , 1943
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The Richelieu was a French battleship from the Second World War named after the French statesman and Cardinal Richelieu . She was the lead ship of the Richelieu class of the French Navy . The Richelieu had a very eventful history, because she got caught between the fronts several times, but was not destroyed because the opponents were always interested in taking over the ship.
Planning and construction
It was considered to be a technical masterpiece “built directly from the drawing board”. It was clearly superior to the ships of the Italian and British navies, which were a few years older. The battleship Richelieu (or the class) was built as a response to the first two ships ("1st series") of the Italian Littorio -class Littorio and Vittorio Veneto .
The Richelieu was laid down in 1935, one year after the Littorio class. In response to these French ships, Italy built the improved “2. Series “of the Littorio class, the ships Roma and Impero (the Impero was not completed, however).
Outwardly, it marked the concentration of the heavy artillery in the two front towers and the middle artillery on the side and behind the superstructures. These four-of-a-kind storms were a specialty and were first implemented in a similar form a few years earlier on the two battleships of the Dunkerque class . The purpose of this arrangement was to keep the length of the belt armor (and therefore its weight) as short as possible. However, this carried the risk that the two heavy towers could be put out of action together by an unfortunate chance hit. Nevertheless, the Richelieu, with its sister ship Jean Bart , which was only completed years later, is one of the battleships with the largest percentage of armor in the total displacement.
history
On January 17, 1939, the Richelieu was brought into the water by first floating in the building dock. After her equipment she carried out test drives from mid-January 1940 to June 13, 1940 and reached 32 knots. In the planning for the war against Germany it initially played no role, so that it was not yet fully operational when the French defense collapsed.
Unlike her sister ship Jean Bart , which had fled from Saint-Nazaire to Casablanca with still missing main armament , the Richelieu had, according to British knowledge, taken 380 mm shells on board in Brest on June 18, 1940 before using her own machines left for Dakar just 24 hours before German troops were to enter . Other sources report that the French cruiser Georges Leygues had ammunition and spare parts for the Richelieu on board when it entered Dakar.
Breakthrough attempt
When an agreement to hand over all French ships to Great Britain failed, the British Admiralty decided to eliminate what it considered to be the most dangerous of these ships as a possible threat. It was feared that Richelieu and Jean Bart would pose an enormous threat if they fell into the hands of the Germans, along with Bismarck , who was about to be completed . In order to prevent this, it should first be ensured that they could not reach French Atlantic ports that were under German control, or that they could not reach French ports on the Mediterranean that were controlled by the Vichy regime . On June 24th, the British commander of the aircraft carrier HMS Hermes , Captain Onslow, tried to convince the commanding officer of the Richelieu , Marzin, to sail to Freetown in order to have his crew supplied and paid for at British expense. This was taken as an insult and an invitation to desert , and on June 25, 1940, Captain Marzin signaled to the Hermes that the Richelieu wanted to change anchorage and would therefore start the engines. In fact, the battleship ran together with the destroyer Fleuret in the Atlantic . When the British noticed the escape, it was too late for an effective pursuit, and a dispatched aircraft could only follow the French naval formation until 5 p.m. The British admiralty then received instructions from the cabinet to track down the Richelieu and possibly also the Jean Bart and to board them with minimal use of force .
While British ships were being sent out to track down the Richelieu , the Vichy government tried to radio the commander to return. Eventually she was discovered by the heavy cruiser HMS Dorsetshire . The Richelieu ultimately obeyed French orders and returned to Dakar. The order to "board" the battleship was finally withdrawn by the British Admiralty. On her return to Dakar, the pursuing Dorsetshire was denied access to the port by the French authorities.
Raid
After British naval forces attacked French ships at their berths in Mers-el-Kébir and Oran on July 3, 1940 during Operation Catapult , six British sailors, led by Lieutenant Commander Richard Bristowe, succeeded in protecting the Steer the darkness with a motorboat unnoticed to the stern of the Richelieu and sink several depth charges onto the flat harbor floor. However, as a result of the insufficient water depth, they did not explode. Then six attacked torpedo bomber of Hermes , the Richelieu on. Only one of the six torpedoes dropped exploded and tore a 7.5 x 6 m hole in the hull, three compartments were flooded and serious damage was done to the rudder and the four propellers of the battleship. Although the ship could only be repaired poorly, a comprehensive repair in the port facilities of Dakar with their limited shipyard capacities was not possible.
Operation Menace
After Free French forces convinced the British that they had many supporters in the colony, a plan was developed to take Dakar over from Vichy France.
On Monday, September 23, 1940, a British naval formation, consisting of the battleships HMS Barham and HMS Resolution , four cruisers, six destroyers and several transports with British and Free France troops, arrived off Dakar. The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal was still available to provide support.
After a delegation that wanted to deliver an ultimatum in written form with a motorboat was driven away by gunfire, the battle began. According to contradicting statements, either the Allies opened fire immediately after the rejection of the ultimatum, according to Allied statements, the Richelieu began to fire first together with the coastal batteries .
At 6 a.m. on Tuesday, General Charles de Gaulle radioed an ultimatum to the Governor of Dakar, Pierre Boisson, to surrender the city and ships to Free France or to be attacked by superior Allied forces. A negative answer was given immediately.
In the course of the battle, the Richelieu was damaged by a 381 mm shell and two close hits from aerial bombs; it scored a few hits itself before a mistake in Tower B led to a serious explosion. By using new grenades with a powder that was intended for the 330 mm guns of the Dunkerque class, the shell exploded in the barrel, in which the entire gun barrel tore off immediately at the seam to the turret and the lock into the interior of the turret was blasted off. An investigation later revealed that the bottom section of the 380 mm grenade had not withstood the pressure of the hot powder gases.
When it appeared that Dakar would not voluntarily switch to Free France, but instead continued to stick to the Vichy regime, the allied association finally turned away. In addition to two lost submarines and a destroyer belonging to the defenders, numerous shells had struck the city of Dakar, killing over a hundred civilians.
Only on April 24, 1941, the Richelieu was provisionally made seaworthy again. Only 14 tubes were ready to fire (including three 380 mm guns), ammunition was very limited and fuel was also very scarce. In spite of this, combat exercises were held and technical upgrades were carried out, including the installation of the first experimental radar systems (ME140 / 126).
In the service of the Allies
After French ships at Casablanca initially opposed the US units with heavy losses that wanted to land in North Africa as part of Operation Torch , an agreement was finally reached between Admiral François Darlan and General Dwight D. Eisenhower . Following Darlan's instructions to end the resistance, Governor Boisson surrendered Dakar to the Allies on November 23, 1942.
The Richelieu moved to New York City on the orders of General Giraud to repair the damage in 1940 , where she was greeted with gun salutes and visits from dignitaries. After two years of inactivity in unclear political circumstances, the long layover of the battleship for the upcoming repair and modernization work exerted strong psychological pressure on parts of the crews who had actually wanted to participate in the war as quickly as possible.
When the tensions between the leading personalities of the French on the side of the Allies, Generals Giraud and de Gaulle, then finally openly in the New York press and the officers of the Richelieu were denounced as "friendly to Germany" , more than 100 sailors deserted around them to join the Gaullists in London. Ultimately, only energetic American intervention put an end to the power struggles, and the Richelieu's readiness for action was ensured.
The Richelieu was massively upgraded in the USA. The fire control station for the anti-aircraft guns, as well as the range finders for the secondary artillery, were removed during the renovation. Various radar systems have been added. The fire control received a British Type 284 P for the main artillery and two British Type 285 P / ABU for the middle artillery with an anti-aircraft barrage retrofit (antennas on the housings of the range finders). The antenna of the British 281B aerial search radar was mounted on the mast above the foremar, with a 243Q for IFF , in front of and below an American SG for sea search. After all, there was an American SF in a weather protection dome on the armored command post and an American SA-2 with a curtain-mounted BLI as a combination search radar on the main mast. The own IFF identifiers were two type 235P and one type 253 British design and a BK American design. The on-board radio was converted to the American TBS (antennas in the masts).
The catapult and aircraft hangar on the aft ship have been removed and the ship's anti-aircraft armament has been reinforced.
The Richelieu never officially entered service. In 1940 this was not done, despite limited operational readiness. Even after the renovation in New York, "availability" was only declared on October 10, 1943. In November 1943 she was officially declared "on duty" retrospectively, without specifying the exact date for this.
First she was assigned to the British Home Fleet in Mers-el-Kébir on November 14th and then moved to Scapa Flow until November 20, 1943 , from where intensive training took place. The first combat mission against German units off the Norwegian coast took place on February 10-12, 1944. The next day, via Rosyth and numerous other intermediate stations, the transfer via the Mediterranean and Suez Canal to the Far East fleet in Trincomalee , where it arrived on April 10, 1944 and was used intensively against Japanese bases as part of TF 69/70 in the following period. During Operation Crimson she was involved in the destruction of the Japanese airfield and the port facilities on Sabang , during which she fired 81 380 mm shells on the Japanese positions on July 25, 1944 .
She ran back to Algiers at the end of September 1944 before arriving in Toulon on October 1 for a stay at the shipyard. This was her first visit to France after 52 months abroad . It was not until March 1945 that she returned to the Pacific to take part as part of Task Force 63 in operations against the Japanese garrisons on Sumatra and the Nicobar Islands . In May 1945, she led one of two surface combat groups that hunted the Japanese cruiser Haguro . Your last missions in World War II were operations against Singapore , which ended with the surrender of Japan in September 1945.
Use after 1945
After the Second World War, the Richelieu was used in the Indochina War. On October 3, 1945, she landed parts of the 5th e regiment d'infanterie coloniale (RIC) in South Vietnam . These troops, led by Major General Leclerc , were supposed to break through the siege ring around Saigon . From mid-October it was used as a security for convoys before it dropped troops again on November 17 and bombed Nha Trang . At the end of December 1945 she left Indochina for France.
The End
The ship was reclassified as a residential ship and stationary training ship in 1958 and was used for special training for reservists and for some NCO careers. This use ended on September 18, 1965, and the ship was tendered for scrapping, with the Italian shipyard "Cantieri Navali Santa Maria" in La Spezia being awarded the contract. On September 30, 1967, the ship was deleted from the fleet list, reclassified as ship no. "Q 432" and towed to Italy after the purchase agreements were concluded. Her last voyage lasted from August 25 to September 8, 1968, on which the Dutch deep-sea tug Rode Zee brought her to La Spezia, where from October 1968 a total of 37,500 tons of scrap metal were extracted. Last minute attempts to keep the Richelieu as a museum ship were unsuccessful.
One of their guns of the type 380mm / 45 Modèle 1935 was preserved and is now in Brest on the Penfeld river near the “Pont de la Recouvrance” bridge.
The French aircraft carrier put into service in April 2001 was initially to be baptized with the name Richelieu , but was soon given the name Charles de Gaulle .
literature
- Robert Dumas: Le cuirassé Richelieu 1935–1968. Marines édition, Bourg-en-Bresse 1992, ISBN 2-909675-00-9 .
- René Sarnet, Eric Le Vaillant: Richelieu. Marines édition, Nantes 1997, ISBN 2-909675-32-7 .
- Eric Gille: Les bâtiments de ligne de 35000 tonnes type Richelieu. In: Cent ans de cuirassés français. Nantes 1999, ISBN 2-909675-50-5 , p. 143 ff.
- Ives Buffetaut: La carrière du Richelieu de 1943 à 1945. In: Gilles Garidel (Ed.), Marines Hors Serie Spécial: Marine Française 1943–1945. Bourg-en-Bresse 1995, p. 61 ff.
- For use in World War II: Paul Auphan, Jacques Mordal: The French Navy in World War II. US Naval Institute, Annapolis 1959.
- About the renovation in New York: René Sarnet, Eric Le Vaillant: Le Richelieu ira à New York. MARINES guerre & commerce, Vol. 48 (March / April 1997), p. 15 ff. (With historical color photos).
- On the aircraft on board: Lucien Morareau: Le Loire 130. Lela Presse, Outreau 2006, ISBN 2-914017-38-3 , with details on the use especially on the Richelieu p. 144 ff.
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ GA Titterton, David Brown: The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean. Volume I: September 1939 - October 1940. 1st edition 2002, Routledge, ISBN 0714651796 , p. 32.
- ↑ a b c Emil Lengyel: Dakar - Outpost of Two Hemispheres , Lengyel Press, 2007, ISBN 140676146X , page 87 ff.
- ^ A b David Brown: The Road to Oran. Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2004, ISBN 0714654612 , pp. 119-130.
- ↑ French name of the rank "capitaine de vaisseau".
- ^ A b Winston Churchill: Their finest hour. Houghton Mifflin, Reissue 1986, ISBN 0395410568 , p. 210.
- ↑ Francois Denoue: Military French. Lulu Pr, 2008, ISBN 1409725286 , pp. 278-279.
- ^ Naval War College Review. Summer 2006, Vol. 59 No.3, Naval War College Press, pp. 111-112.
- ^ Emil Lengyel: Dakar - Outpost of Two Hemispheres. Lengyel Press, 2007, ISBN 140676146X , p. 90 ff.
- ^ A b Robert Mengin: No laurels for de Gaulle. Ayer Co Pub, 1971, ISBN 0836981022 , pp. 128–129 ff.
- ^ William H. Garzke, Robert O. Dulin: Battleships. US Naval Inst Press, ISBN 1557501742 , p. 330.
- ^ Samuel Eliot Morison : History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Volume 2: 002, University of Illinois Press, 2001, ISBN 0-252-06972-2 , pp. 239-240.
- ↑ Gladys Arnold: One Woman's War. A Canadian Reporter with the Free French. Goodread Biography, 1988, ISBN 0-88780-154-4 , p. 142.
- ^ Henri De Kerillis: I Accuse de Gaulle. Dodo Press, 2007, ISBN 1-4067-1095-4 , Chapter 8 “The Richelieu”.
- ^ Robert Dumas: Le cuirassé Richelieu 1935-1968. Bourg-en-Bresse 1992, pp. 40, 41, 104, 105; René Sarnet, Eric Le Vaillant: Richelieu. Nantes 1997, pp. 182-188, 442.
- ↑ Illustrated Directory of Warships of the World: From 1860 to the Present. Motorbooks Intl, ISBN 0-7603-1127-7 , pp. 92-93.
- ^ Robert Dumas: Le cuirassé Richelieu 1935-1968. Bourg-en-Bresse 1992, p. 8.
- ↑ Very detailed information on the history of operations at: Sarnet / Vaillant: Richelieu. Nantes 1997, pp. 198-336.
- ↑ John Winton: Sink the Haguro! the last destroyer action of the Second World War. Saunders of Toronto Ltd, 1981, ISBN 0-85422-152-2 .
- ↑ L'histoire du Richelieu. netmarine - private website, viewed August 12, 2009
- ^ Peter Neville: Britain in Vietnam: Prelude to Disaster. 1945–6: Prelude to Disaster. Routledge Chapman & Hall, 2007, ISBN 0415358485 , p. 96.
- ↑ Maurice Vaïsse, Alain Bizard: L'Armée française dans la guerre d'Indochine (1946–1954) adaptation or inadaption. P. 275.
- ↑ French Navy Battleships - private website, viewed August 10, 1945 ( memento of November 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Sarnet / Le Vaillant (see bibliography), p. 427.
- ↑ Gille (see bibliography), p. 146.
- ↑ Sarnet / Le Vaillant, pp. 428–431.
- ↑ Sarnet / Le Vaillant, p. 446; Dumas, p. 60.
- ^ Website of the French Senate, viewed August 13, 2009