French battleship Richelieu
Richelieu in September 1943 after her refit
| |
History | |
---|---|
France | |
Name | Richelieu |
Namesake | Cardinal de Richelieu |
Builder | Arsenal de Brest |
Laid down | 22 October 1935 |
Launched | 17 January 1939 |
Commissioned | 1 April 1940 |
Decommissioned | 1967 |
Stricken | 1968 |
Fate | Broken up, 1968 |
General characteristics Original configuration | |
Class and type | Richelieu-class battleship |
Displacement |
|
Length | 247.85 m (813 ft 2 in) |
Beam | 33.08 m (108 ft 6 in) |
Draft | Full load: 9.9 m (32 ft 6 in) |
Installed power | |
Propulsion | |
Speed | 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph) |
Range | 9,500 nautical miles (17,600 km; 10,900 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
Complement | 1,569 |
Armament |
|
Armor |
|
Aircraft carried | 4 × Loire 130 seaplanes |
Aviation facilities | 2 × catapults |
General characteristics 1943 refit | |
Displacement |
|
Draft | Full load: 10.68 m (35 ft) |
Complement | 1,930 |
Sensors and processing systems |
|
Armament |
|
Richelieu was a French fast battleship, the lead ship of the Richelieu class. Built as a response to the Italian Littorio class, Richelieu and its sister ship Jean Bart were based on their immediate predecessors of the Dunkerque class: they used the same unconventional arrangement that grouped their main battery forward in two quadruple gun turrets. They were scaled up to accommodate a much more powerful main battery of eight 380 mm (15 in) guns (compared to the 330 mm (13 in) guns of the Dunkerques), with increased armor to protect them from guns of the same caliber.
Richelieu was
Damaged in both attacks, the ship was slowly repaired before eventually being turned over to Free French control after the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942. After being sent to the United States for repairs and an extensive modernization, the ship served with the British Home Fleet in early 1944 before being deployed to the Eastern Fleet for operations against the Japanese in the Indian Ocean. These included several bombardment operations and in May 1945 she was present during the Battle of the Malacca Strait, though she was too far away to engage the Japanese force.
Richelieu was part of the force that liberated
Design
When in 1934
Richelieu displaced 37,250 long tons (37,850 t)
She was armed with eight
Service
Construction
The contract for Richelieu was awarded to the
By the outbreak of
World War II
Under Vichy control: 1940–1942
With German troops advancing across France by mid-June, the Navy decided to evacuate Richelieu to
On arriving in Dakar, an uneasy situation confronted Richelieu while armistice negotiations were still underway. The commander of French naval forces in the region,
On 25 June, Marzin received word that the French government had signed the
After returning to port, work began to prepare the ship for action as quickly as possible. Marzin ordered that a stockpile of 330 mm propellant charges that had been stocked for the battleship
British attack on 8 July 1940 and repairs
The component of Catapult that targeted Richelieu consisted of the carrier Hermes, which joined the cruisers HMAS Australia and Dorsetshire off Dakar. On 4 July, the day after the British had attacked Mers-el-Kébir, Plançon ordered the submarines Le Glorieux and Le Héros to attack Dorsetshire while it cruised off the port. He also instructed the coastal batteries to open fire if she closed to within 15 km (9.3 mi), though Dorsetshire remained at a distance. Marzin moved Richelieu to a position near the island of Gorée, pointed south so that the ship's main battery could aim at any vessels that approached Dakar. The British had intended to send Force H to Dakar after the attack on Mers-el-Kébir, but the need to return to destroy Dunkerque forced the British to resort to Hermes; on 7 July, the sloop HMS Milford was sent to contact Plançon and issue the ultimatum to either surrender his ship to British control or be sunk.[12][13]
Marzin prepared his ship to sortie the next morning; he intended to use the eight rounds loaded in his main guns to attack Hermes. Other forces in Dakar were put on alert and Le Héros again sortied to assist in the attack. While the French preparations were ongoing, the British sent a motorboat from Milford to drop four
Later that afternoon, tankers came alongside and began pumping oil out of the ship's bunkers to reduce her draft, but water continued to leak into the hull through the cable tunnels. Pumps attached to the ship helped to control the flooding, but the hoses repeatedly pulled loose as Richelieu rose and fell with the waves. To further complicate the effort to repair the ship, Dakar lacked a dry dock sufficient to accommodate Richelieu; the battleship could not simply be drained and plated over. Instead, damaged bulkheads had to be patched and pumped out individually; by 28 August, some 1,300 t (1,300 long tons) of water remained aboard the ship. Heavy use of the pumps caused frequent breakdowns, which further slowed work. In his report on the attack and subsequent repairs, Marzin criticized faulty design and construction practices that hindered damage control efforts, including insufficient pumping equipment, poor quality control for the welding of bulkheads, and a failure to ensure that critical components like the turret trunks were watertight.[16]
While work to control and reverse the flooding was ongoing, other repairs were necessary to return the ship to operational status. The fire-control directors needed to be re-seated in their tracks, wiring that had been damaged by flooding or leaking fuel oil had to be replaced, and several of the electrical generators, which had been badly shaken by the blast, needed to be rebuilt. Given the limited ability to repair the damage to the ship, Marzin focused efforts on ensuring that the main and secondary batteries could be effectively used, even if the ship could only be employed as a static
Workers in the local shipyard scavenged metal from other ships in the harbor to fabricate an 11.5 m (38 ft) square patch to cover the torpedo hole, which was planned to be installed by 10 September. This would allow the rear
Battle of Dakar
While repairs were being carried out in August, the British began preparations for another attack, code-named Operation Menace. British
The British believed that the arrival of Force Y indicated that the French were aware of Operation Menace, but de Gaulle decided to proceed with the attack regardless. While Force Y steamed south, two of the three cruisers were intercepted by British cruisers and forced to fall back to Dakar, arriving there again on 20 September, by which time the destroyers had arrived. On 22 September, the liner SS Banfora was due to arrive with a load of 380 mm shells, and as a result, French search aircraft were arrayed to the north to cover the liner's approach; they were completely surprised by the arrival of the Anglo-Free French force on the morning of 23 September. A small party of Free French troops sent to rally the port to de Gaulle was repulsed with machine-gun fire and Richelieu's 100 mm guns fired warning shots toward the Free French aviso Savorgnan de Brazza shortly after 07:00. On the approach of the sloops Commandant Dominé and Commandant Duboc at 08:10, Richelieu again fired warning shots from her 100 mm guns. The British warships approached the port and came under fire from the coastal batteries, leading the Anglo-Free French commanders, de Gaulle and Vice Admiral John Cunningham to conclude that they would have to directly attack the port if the operation was to succeed.[20][21][22]
Barham and Resolution opened fire on Richelieu at 11:05, but poor visibility hampered the British shooting and they checked fire after twenty minutes, having inflicted only splinter damage to the cruiser Montcalm and the destroyer Le Malin. The French coastal batteries hit several of the cruisers and destroyers, but Richelieu was moored facing north, which prevented her from taking part in the initial duel. After the British withdrew, Marzin used tugboats to turn the ship far enough to enable her to bring her main battery to bear. The defenses of Dakar were now alerted. The Free French then attempted to land further east at Rufisque, but were repulsed. The British and Free French withdrew to regroup for another attack the next day. Between 06:25 and 08:00 on 24 September, the British launched three strikes with Swordfish and Blackburn Skua bombers. They scored no hits on Richelieu because of poor visibility, and near-misses caused no damage. In return, Richelieu's gunners claimed three of the six aircraft that were shot down, and damaged another. Ninety minutes later, the British battleships and two heavy cruisers approached and fired their 380 mm main batteries at Richelieu.[20][23][24]
Richelieu returned fire at 09:40, but her No. 7 gun was destroyed by a shell that detonated in the barrel and the No. 8 gun was also badly damaged. This was first traced to the use of the remanufactured propellant from Strasbourg, but a later inquiry in 1941 found the explosions were caused by a flaw in the design of the shell base.[25][26] Guns 5 and 6 remained in action but failed to score any hits. At 09:57, one of Richelieu's secondary guns hit Barham. In return, the British ships inflicted only minor splinter damage before breaking off at 10:07. The French had counted some 160 shells landing near the ship. The French laid smoke screens to obscure Richelieu before the British returned to the action at 12:53, initially targeting a destroyer before bombarding the port for the next 30 minutes. Richelieu was not hit and, from 12:56, she fired guns 5 and 6 at the British cruisers, quickly straddling one of them and convincing them to disengage. She fired four 380 mm shells at Barham at 13:11–13:12 but failed to score a hit, though both British battleships were hit several times by coastal batteries. After disengaging for the day, de Gaulle decided to abandon the operation, but Cunningham convinced him to allow a final attempt the next morning. In the meantime, Marzin decided to transfer the crews from turret 2 to turret 1, which also required moving the shells and propellant between magazines.[27][28]
As the British approached on the morning of 25 September, Marzin decided to engage Barham with his main battery and Resolution with his 152 mm guns. While the British were approaching their bombardment positions, Richelieu shot down a reconnaissance plane shortly before 07:00. She opened fire at 09:04 with her main battery, firing two shots that fell short, and the coastal guns and Force Y cruisers followed suit shortly thereafter. While the British battleships were turning to unmask their rear guns, the submarine
From 29 September, the battlecruiser HMS Renown and escorting destroyers were detached from Force H to patrol off Dakar, as the British believed Richelieu would be transferred to metropolitan France for repairs. The British ships remained in the area until 1 October when it became clear the ship would not be moved.[31]
Repairs and defection to Free France
Repair work resumed immediately. The hit from Barham did little serious damage to the ship, but it nevertheless caused extensive deformation of interior bulkheads, the armor deck was forced down where the shell hit it, and the uptakes from the boilers were damaged. Wiring in the area was also cut by fragments and needed to be replaced. On 10 October, the workers attempted to attach the patch that had been manufactured, but it did not work; it did not create a watertight seal, which meant the compartments could not be pumped out. The patch was abandoned in the hopes that the cofferdam, then nearing completion, would work. The cofferdam was modeled to conform to the hull and was built with an interior void that could be used as a ballast tank so it could be floated in position and sunk in place. The cofferdam was ready by late December, which allowed the hull to be pumped dry and then sealed with welded plates and cement; the hull was finally sealed by 28 February 1941. Further repairs were hampered by the German Armistice Commission, which attempted to slow progress to prevent the ship from returning to full operational status. They blocked the shipment of new guns or a new propeller shaft, and severely constrained the transfer of other equipment. During this period, on 27 February, CV Deramond replaced Marzin as the ship's commander.[32]
As repairs were carried out, the ship saw little activity through late 1942 apart from engaging unidentified aircraft on 28 July and 29 September 1941 and 26 February and 12 May 1942.[33] During this period, in April 1941, the ship received the first radar set installed on a French battleship. And in July, her Loire seaplanes finally arrived; tests with the catapults were conducted in October.[34] On 10 April 1942, the ship conducted a test firing with gun No. 6 to demonstrate that the shell design problem had been corrected; all six shells were fired without incident. On 8 November, American and British forces landed in French North Africa (code-named Operation Torch), which prompted the Germans to invade the rest of Vichy France, which in turn led Darlan to defect to the Allies with the rest of the fleet.[33]
The United States Navy sent a group to evaluate the ships under Darlan's control to determine which should be modernized in the United States. The only French battleship still in service, Richelieu was an obvious candidate. The US Navy had not initially been interested in repairing Richelieu; while the Germans and Italians retained a number of powerful battleships, the United States had recently commissioned or would soon complete eight fast battleships, more than sufficient to cover US requirements for the Pacific War and to send to Europe to reinforce the Royal Navy. In addition, repairing and modernizing a ship the size of Richelieu would require significant resources that could be used for other purposes. But pressure from Britain and the Free French convinced the Navy to agree to the project. For France, she was the only surviving modern battleship and thus a major symbol of national prestige, while the British had long sought to acquire the vessel to stiffen the Mediterranean Fleet, which at that time had just two new battleships to oppose their three Italian counterparts.[35]
She ran sea trials from 25 to 29 January 1943 to evaluate the state of her engines, which had not been used since July 1940. Her aircraft facilities and anti-aircraft armament were removed during the evaluation period, as they would be replaced by US equipment. On 30 January, she departed Dakar with Montcalm, bound for New York City, where both vessels would be modernized. Richelieu steamed at a speed of 14 kn (26 km/h; 16 mph) and her rudder had to be held to seven degrees to account for the hull deformation. The ships arrived on 11 February and on the 18th, Richelieu was taken into Dock No. 5 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to begin the modernization.[33][36]
Free-French career: 1943–1945
Refit in New York City
Political tensions between the United States and France played a major role in determining how much Richelieu would be modernized. The US Navy refused to transfer the latest radar equipment on the basis that it was too sensitive to be released. As a result, much of the improvement was limited to the installation of a new anti-aircraft battery of the latest US weapons and auxiliary equipment in addition to a thorough overhaul and permanent repairs to the torpedo damage. Three shifts of workers, totaling some 2,000 men, worked on the ship twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for five months to rush the ship back into service. The modifications to the ship increased her displacement by about 3,000 t (3,000 long tons). While the ship was being modernized, CV Lambert replaced Deramont as the ship's commander on 29 April.[37]
The ship's armament required extensive repairs and modifications to bring Richelieu up to modern standards. First, three of the eight main battery guns had to be replaced, which required removing the turret roof. Since the gun cradles were undamaged, the guns were simply replaced by barrels taken from Jean Bart, which had been recovered at Casablanca during Operation Torch. The shell handling equipment of both the primary and secondary guns was thoroughly overhauled, with wiring being replaced and the shell and propellant lifts being rebuilt—the latter had never been made to function correctly while the ship was in Dakar. Ammunition for the primary and secondary guns was now a problem, as the source, factories in France, was occupied by German forces. Drawings of the plans for the 380 mm shells were prepared in Dakar and forwarded to the United States, where a contract to produce 930 shells was ordered from Crucible Steel. American 6-inch/47 Mk 16 shells were used as a starting point to supply the 152 mm guns, as they were the same caliber and required relatively minor modifications for use in the French weapons.[38]
Her 100 mm guns were retained, but her light anti-aircraft battery now consisted of fifty-six
Richelieu's tower foremast was heavily reconfigured; the upper main battery director, which had never been operational and had been removed to allow the ship to clear the
To repair the hull, the concrete was broken up and removed, the sections that had been most badly damaged by the torpedo were stripped of all fittings, and deformed bulkheads and plating were cut out. After more than two and a half years without being dry-docked in a tropical port, the hull needed maintenance beyond simply repairing the torpedo damage, though given the conditions to which it had been subjected, it was in fairly good condition. It was sandblasted and those sections of plating that exhibited pitting had new plates welded over the top. The starboard propeller shafts also required repairs: the mounting brackets were straightened, but the inboard shaft was too badly damaged and had to be replaced. Bethlehem Steel fabricated a replacement that was installed in June. The bottom row of portholes were closed off, as the increase in displacement pushed them closer to the waterline.[41]
Beginning in late August and continuing into mid-September, Richelieu began firing trials in the Chesapeake Bay; firing the main battery forward on 29 August revealed the need for a blast screen to protect the forecastle 20 mm guns, as the test accidentally destroyed two of the guns and their ammunition lockers. With her normal displacement now at 43,600 t (42,900 long tons) and her hull slightly bowed (possibly caused by the torpedo hit), Richelieu began machinery trials in late September. On 25 September, the ship reached her new top speed of 31.5 kn (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph), cruising at that speed for thirty minutes, despite the deformation of her hull and the significant increase in displacement. The following day, she steamed for six hours at 26.5 kn (49.1 km/h; 30.5 mph), for two hours at 28.9 kn (53.5 km/h; 33.3 mph), and finally for fifty minutes at 30.2 kn (55.9 km/h; 34.8 mph).[42]
As completed, the ship's displacement had grown to 43,957 t (43,263 long tons) normally and 47,728 t (46,974 long tons) fully loaded; draft correspondingly increased to 9.22 m (30.2 ft) and 10.68 m (35 ft), respectively. Compared to her original wartime crew of 1,569 officers and men, Richelieu was now to be manned by a total of 1,930, amounting to 86 officers, 287 petty officers, and 1,557 men. The major increase in complement was largely the result of the additional anti-aircraft guns and radar systems. The ship conducted further trials into October, and on the 14th the ship was finally ready to get underway for European waters.[43]
In European waters
Escorted by the destroyers USS Tarbell and Ellet, Richelieu departed the US on 14 October, nominally bound for Gibraltar. The destroyers departed while underway, allowing Richelieu to keep up a speed of 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) in heavy seas. The ship stopped in the Azores, Portugal, where she met the French destroyers Le Fantasque and Le Terrible and the British destroyer Active, which was limited to a speed of 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph); Active quickly left the group, which proceeded not to Gibraltar, but to Mers El Kébir. There, she replenished supplies; it had been intended to deploy the ship with the Mediterranean Fleet, but Italy had surrendered in September, removing the threat posed by the Italian Littorio-class battleships. Richelieu was instead sent north to join the Home Fleet, which included the four surviving King George V-class battleships. When Richelieu departed the Mediterranean, Cunningham, now the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, recommended to the Admiralty that she be fitted with gunnery radars. The ship was escorted by the destroyers HMS Musketeer and HMS Scourge, and on arrival in Scapa Flow, Admiral Bruce Fraser, the Home Fleet commander, inspected the battleship on 24 November. Work began immediately on installing a Type 284 gunnery radar while the ship began an intensive period of training to acclimate the ship's crew to operating with British units.[44]
The ship saw little activity over the winter of 1943–1944 until February 1944, when she took part in
The ship accordingly steamed to Greenock to take on fuel and ammunition, before cruising south to the Mediterranean with an escort of three British destroyers. She stopped in Algiers on 26 March to take on additional supplies; there, she was visited by General Henri Giraud and Admiral André Lemonnier. Richelieu thereafter departed for the Suez Canal, steaming at a speed of 25 kn (46 km/h; 29 mph); while underway, she began to experience significant boiler problems. The boiler blowers were not providing sufficient oxygen, so the boilers were not fully burning the fuel. As a result, the boiler tubes quickly became fouled and caused overheating. Richelieu stopped in Aden for repairs to the boiler tubes, but the problem was not corrected.[47]
First deployment with the British Eastern Fleet
On entering the
The next major operation conducted by the Eastern Fleet, Operation Transom, was timed to coincide with American operations in the Central Pacific to keep the attention of the Japanese fleet based in Singapore focused away from the American fleet. For this operation, the target was the major base at Surabaya, which also had significant oil refinery facilities. The Eastern Fleet got underway on 7 May and stopped to refuel on 15 May before arriving two days later. The strike proceeded uneventfully for Richelieu and on 18 May the American contingent detached to rejoin the main American fleet in the Pacific while the Eastern Fleet returned to Trincomalee, arriving on 27 May. Two days later, Richelieu, Queen Elizabeth, and six destroyers steamed to Colombo to rest their crews. While there, Richelieu was visited by Admiral Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander of the South-East Asia Theatre. On 31 May, CV Merveilleux du Vignaux replaced Marzin as the ship's commander.[50][51][52]
Somerville planned another raid for mid-June:
The Eastern Fleet departed on 22 July and reached the target on the morning of 25 July; the carriers launched their
By this time, Richelieu was beginning to suffer from reduced speed, the result of continued boiler trouble and
Second deployment with the British Eastern Fleet
On 23 January 1945, Richelieu left Casablanca for Gibraltar, arriving there two days later to have her hull cleaned and repainted. The French sought to deploy an independent task force consisting of Richelieu, the four light cruisers still in service, and four destroyers, with a view toward reestablishing French control in
For the next few weeks, Richelieu was occupied with shooting drills with her primary and secondary batteries and tests for the anti-aircraft radars and command systems. Now assigned to Force 63 of the East Indies Fleet, Richelieu sortied on 8 April to take part in Operation Sunfish, another bombardment of Sabang while aircraft scouted possible landing beaches near the city of Padang on the coast of Sumatra. The ships allocated for the operation consisted of Richelieu, Queen Elizabeth, two heavy cruisers, two escort carriers, and five destroyers. Early on 11 April, the two battleships, one of the cruisers, and three destroyers bombarded the island while the other vessels conducted the reconnaissance operation. Richelieu fired seven salvos with her main battery and used her secondary guns to once again silence the coastal battery on the island. Japanese aircraft launched a poorly-coordinated attack on the battleships but they failed to score any hits. After further carrier operations around Padang, the fleet returned to port on 20 April.[61][62]
The next major operation followed a week later. Operation Bishop, a strike against Japanese airfields in the
A decrypted Japanese radio signal revealed that the cruiser
On arrival, the ship took on additional ammunition and fuel, and over the coming weeks, she underwent repairs to her boilers and took part in shooting practice. The bombardments carried out earlier in the year had revealed excessive dispersion of the main battery shells, particularly if both guns on one side of the turret were fired at the same time. The crew at that time was unable to determine the cause of the problem, though tests with the remanufactured Strasbourg charges reduced the problem. On 3 June, the destroyer
Postwar era
Immediately after the surrender of Japan, French and British forces began their attempts to reassert control in their Japanese-occupied colonies. On 7 September, Richelieu got underway in company with the British battleship Nelson to take part in Operation Zipper, the amphibious landing on Sumatra. Two days later, Richelieu detonated a magnetic mine, though she suffered only minor damage; the force of the blast pushed in some hull plates by 10 to 12 cm (3.9 to 4.7 in) and inflicted minor shock damage to the lighting system, but the vessel remained with the fleet. After landing the troops with no opposition, Richelieu moved to Singapore on 11 September to participate in Operation Tiderace, the liberation of the city, the following day. She returned to Trincomalee on 16 September before getting underway again on 27 September, bound for Indochina. She steamed with Le Triomphant as escorts for the transport ships Queen Emma and Princess Beatrix, which carried French soldiers to restore colonial rule in Indochina. French rule was opposed by the Viet Minh, and on arrival Richelieu was used to support the forces ashore in a variety of capacities: she served as a staging area, hospital, artillery support, and troop transport. She also contributed a landing party to the forces fighting to reassert French control.[69][70][71]
Richelieu, Le Triomphant, and Le Fantasque took part in Operation Mapor at Nha Trang from 20 to 26 November, providing heavy fire support to soldiers fighting in the area. By this time, a French squadron consisting of the aircraft carrier Béarn and the cruisers Gloire, Suffren, and Émile Bertin had arrived in mid-October, allowing Richelieu to be returned to France. Before leaving, Richelieu sent her four single 40 mm guns and most of her 20 mm guns ashore, along with a considerable stockpile of ammunition for the guns and 152 mm shells. She departed on 29 December and arrived in Toulon on 11 February 1946, thereafter taking part in the transport effort to send French soldiers back from France to North Africa. With that completed, she steamed north to Cherbourg, arriving to be dry-docked on 16 March. Repairs lasted until 20 July, and consisted of replacing the starboard propeller, correcting the hull damage from the mine in September 1945, and thoroughly overhauling her boilers.[69][72]
With the repairs completed, Richelieu sailed to Britain to carry the crew for the aircraft carrier
The Force d'Intervention was reactivated for another cruise in early 1948; the three constituent groups rendezvoused at Toulon and then conducted training exercises off North Africa. While in Mers-el-Kébir, the ship was slightly damaged while being moored in the port. Following the conclusion of the maneuvers, the force was disbanded and Richelieu steamed north to Brest, arriving on 29 May. The ship was in need of a thorough refit, and she was dry-docked in Cherbourg from August to September to survey the work that would be needed to be done. Jaujard left the ship and her crew was reduced to 750 men. Since the French naval budget was in a very limited state owing to the wrecked French economy in the immediate postwar years, Richelieu's refit was postponed to allow the funds to be used to complete Jean Bart instead. Richelieu was accordingly placed in reserve on 1 April 1949. The refit eventually began on 1 January 1950 and lasted until 24 October 1951, and it included a thorough overhaul of her propulsion machinery, replacement of her worn main and secondary battery guns, and repairs to her anti-aircraft battery, along with other modifications.[76]
During the refit, it was decided that the ship's anti-aircraft battery was too dated to allow the ship to operate in the era of jet aircraft; coupled with the need to update the ship's radar and electronics and install more capable command spaces, the costs would have been prohibitively high for the French Navy. Instead of fully modernizing the vessel, the navy decided to employ Richelieu as a training ship in the gunnery school in February 1951. After completing the refit, the ship underwent trials in November that involved firing nine rounds per gun from the main battery; this would be the last time Richelieu fired the 380 mm guns. Beginning in May 1952, the ship was based in Toulon as the flagship of CA Champion, and she spent the next few years conducting shooting practice with the secondary and smaller weapons to train the fleet's gunners. Another refit followed from October 1953 to February 1954. This involved replacing the British gunnery radar with a French-built set.[77]
For the first and last time of either of their careers, Richelieu and Jean Bart cruised together on 30 January 1956. The ship's career as a sea-going gunnery ship ended in February, when she was
Footnotes
Notes
Citations
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 94–97.
- ^ a b c Roberts, p. 260.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 99–101.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 99.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 98, 122.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 123–124.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 124–125.
- ^ a b c Rohwer, p. 29.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 125.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 125–126.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 72, 126.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 126.
- ^ a b Rohwer, p. 32.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 127.
- ^ Williams, pp. 93–94.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 128, 137.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 137–138.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 138–139.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 139–141.
- ^ a b c d Rohwer, p. 42.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 141.
- ^ Williams, pp. 109–114.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 141–142.
- ^ Williams, pp. 137–139.
- ^ Dumas, pp. 77–78.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 143, 149.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 143–145.
- ^ Williams, p. 140.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 147.
- ^ Williams, pp. 152–154.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 43.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 125, 147–149.
- ^ a b c Jordan & Dumas, p. 150.
- ^ Dumas, pp. 34, 50.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 150, 181.
- ^ Dumas, pp. 37, 50.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 125, 181–182, 186.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 186–187.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 186–188.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 186, 188–189.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 182.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 186, 188.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 189.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 190.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 190–191.
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 307, 313.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 192.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 192–193.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 319.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 193–194, 199.
- ^ Lepotier, pp. 204–205.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 323.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 194.
- ^ Lepotier, pp. 206–207, 209–214.
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 334, 344.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 194–195.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 195.
- ^ Lepotier, p. 217.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 196.
- ^ Lepotier, pp. 195–217.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 197.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 408.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 198–199.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 412.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 199.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 417.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 199–200.
- ^ Sarnet & Le Vaillant, pp. 325, 329.
- ^ a b Jordan & Dumas, pp. 200–201.
- ^ Sarnet & Le Vaillant, pp. 330–334.
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 429, 432.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 432.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 201–204.
- ^ Lepotier, pp. 285–289.
- ^ Dumas, pp. 43, 74.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 204–205.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, pp. 205–206.
- ^ Jordan & Dumas, p. 206-8.
- ^ Dumas, p. 60.
References
- Dumas, Robert (2001). Le cuirassé Richelieu 1935–1968 [The Battleship Richelieu 1935–1968] (in French). Nantes: Marines édition. OCLC 248848350.
- Jordan, John & Dumas, Robert (2009). French Battleships 1922–1956. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-034-5.
- Lepotier, Adolphe (1967). Les Derniers Cuirassés [The Last Battleships] (in French). Paris: Éditions France-Empire. OCLC 491030583.
- Roberts, John (1980). "France". In Gardiner, Robert & Chesneau, Roger (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp. 255–279. ISBN 978-0-85177-146-5.
- Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945 – The Naval History of World War Two. London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-59114-119-8.
- Sarnet, René & Le Vaillant, Eric (1997). Richelieu (in French). Nantes: Marines édition. ISBN 978-2-909675-32-9.
- Williams, John (1976). The Guns of Dakar: September 1940. London: William Heinemann Ltd. ISBN 978-0-434-86630-4.
External links
- Media related to Richelieu (ship, 1939) at Wikimedia Commons
- Maritimequest Richelieu photo gallery