French battleship Bretagne

The "Bretagne" was a battleship of the French Navy, and the lead ship of her class. She was named in honour of the French region of Bretagne, and was built by Arsenal de Brest.

Construction

Her keel was laid down on 1 July 1912, and she was launched on 21 April 1913. She was completed in September 1915 and carried a main armament of ten of the new 340 mm main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and one amidships centerline turret that could fire to both sides. These 340 mm main guns had come from the cancelled "Normandie"-class battleships.

The "Bretagne" was converted to partial oil firing over the years in 1921 to 1925, and further reconstructed from 1932 to 1934. While her new boilers gave 43,000 hp, this came with only a meager increase in speed to 21 knots.

ervice

Serving in the Mediterranean during both World Wars, the "Bretagne" sailed to Mers-el-Kebir after the Fall of France in 1940. The British had feared that the powerful French fleet would fall into Nazi hands, and were resolved to prevent this. Thus, after an ultimatum to surrender from the British battleships HMS "Valiant" and HMS "Resolution" and battlecruiser HMS "Hood" was refused, the "Bretagne" was blown up and sunk by naval gunfire from these three ships at Mers-el-Kebir on 3 July 1940, with the loss of 977 French sailors.

Salvaged in 1952, she was scrapped thereafter.

References

* Anthony Preston, An Illustrated History of the Navies of World War II (Bison Books Ltd., London, 1976) ISBN 0-600-36569-7
* [http://www.lostbattalion.com/t-bb_Bretagne.aspx French battleship Bretagne: Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel] (HTML) Accessed 11 August 2007.

See also

* French ship "Bretagne" for other ships of the same name
* List of shipwrecks in 1940

External links

* [http://www.the-blueprints.com/modules/bpview/bpview.php?nr=8300 Profile drawing of the battleship Bretagne (HTML)]