Somali (ship, 1944)
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The Somali was a 1943/44 in the United States built destroyer escort , one of six units of the Cannon-class destroyer escort that after its completion to the naval forces of the Free French Forces were borrowed (Forces Françaises Libres, FFL). The ship served under the classification changed several times in the French Navy until 1972 , most recently from 1968 under the name Arago .
Construction and technical data
Of the total of 72 ships built the Cannon-class, six out of the first of four construction series immediately after its completion under the terms of which came in March 1941 in force the US Lend-Lease Act passed (Lend-Lease Act) to the FFL, without having previously been commissioned in the US Navy . These were the ships with the US IDs DE-106 to DE-111. The Somali, until its surrender as USS Somali (DE-111) , was the last of the six. It was in the Dravo Corporation in Wilmington (Delaware) on 23 October 1943 laid Kiel , was there already on February 12, 1944 by Stack and was passed on April 9, 1944, the FFL.
,_in_January_1944_(80-G-44445).jpg)
The ship was, like all units of the class, 93 m (overall) or 91 m ( waterline ) long and 11.2 m wide and had a draft of 3.5 m . The water displacement was 1260 t (standard) or 1646 t fully equipped. Four 16-cylinder four-stroke marine diesel engines from GM , model 278A with steel pistons, with a total output of 6000 hp enabled a top speed of 21 knots with two screws . The range was 10,800 nm at a cruising speed of 12 knots. The crew consisted of 15 officers and 201 men.
The armed Somali with three 3-inch L / 50 22 Mark rapid fire guns , a twin Flak of the type 40 mm Bofors Mark 1, eight to ten 20-mm-Oerlikon -Flak Mark 4 and three 53,3cm- torpedo tubes . For submarine -combat the ship was equipped with a Hedgehog launcher Mark 10 and 144 grenades and eight depth charges Mark 6 that could be dropped on two flow racks.
history
The Somali was in its acquisition by FFL on April 9, 1944 as "torpilleur" with the identification made T-53 into service. In August 1944, the ship took part in the landing of the Western Allies on the French Côte d'Azur between Toulon and Cannes ( Operation Dragoon ) and otherwise served as escorts in the Mediterranean until the end of the war .
In August 1945 the Somali was relocated to French Indochina , where it was stationed in Saigon from October and was used to restore French colonial administration. In particular, she was involved in the so-called "nettoyage" in December 1945 in the Nhà Bè district and in the areas along the Soài Rạp, Vaico and Binh Trung rivers in the vicinity of Saigon, and then until January 1946 in monitoring the Halong -Bay on the Tonkin coast . In late January 1946 she took part in Operation Gaur, the retaking of Nha Trang in southern Annam .
On March 24, 1946, the ship returned to Toulon. On October 14, 1946, it became the property of the French Navy and was given the new identification T-23. In 1948 it was reclassified as a frigate and given the identification F03. This became F703 in 1951. It was not until April 21, 1952, that the ship was finally ceded to France as part of the Mutual Defense Assistance Program and then deleted from the Naval Vessel Register (NVR) of the US Navy on May 4, 1952 .
In 1956 the Somali was disarmed and reclassified as a test ship, with the new identification A607. It now served military research and experimental purposes. After the French overseas territory of French Somali Coast (Côte française des Somalis) in 1967 in territory of the Afars and Issas (Territoire of the Afars et des Issas) had been renamed, a change of the ship's name was necessary. The Somali therefore received the name Arago on April 1, 1968 ; the identifier remained unchanged A607. Now named after the astronomer and physicist François Arago (1786-1853), she was the third ship of the French Navy with this name, after a submarine and an auxiliary cruiser .
On August 31, 1972, the ship was formally returned to the United States. It remained in France for a few more months and was then sunk as a target ship in the Mediterranean.
Footnotes
- ↑ Corbesier from the FFL continued as Sénégalais ; Cronin , continued as Algeria ; Corsley , continued as Tunisia ; Marocaine , continued as marocaine ; Hova , continued as Hova ; and Somali , continued as Somali , from 1968 as Arago .
- ↑ A = auxiliary; German auxiliary ship.
Web links
- [www.navsource.org/archives/06/111.htm Navsource Online: Destroyer Escort Photo Archive - Somali (DE 111)]
- Les bâtiments ayant porté le nom d'Arago , French, with a photo of the ship