French destroyer Maillé Brézé (1931)

A sister-ship of the Maillé Brézé
History
France
Name:	Maillé Brézé
Namesake:	Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé, Duc of Fronsac
Ordered:	1928-29 Programme
Builder:	Ateliers et Chantiers de St Nazaire-Penhoet
Laid down:	October 1930
Launched:	9 November 1931
Commissioned:	6 April 1933
Fate:	Lost by accidental explosion, 30 April 1940, Greenock, Scotland
Status:	Scrapped, 1956
General characteristics
Class and type:	Vauquelin-class destroyer
Displacement:	2,441 t (2,402 long tons) (standard) 3,120 t (3,070 long tons) (full load)
Length:	129.3 m (424 ft 2.6 in)
Beam:	11.8 m (38 ft 8.6 in)
Draft:	4.4 m (14 ft 5.2 in)
Installed power:	64,000 PS (47,000 kW; 63,000 shp) 4 du Temple boilers
Propulsion:	2 shafts 2 geared steam turbines
Speed:	36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range:	3,000 nmi (5,600 km; 3,500 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Crew:	12 officers, 224 crewmen (wartime)
Armament:	5 × single 138.6 mm (5.5 in) guns 4 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) anti-aircraft guns 2 × twin 13.2 mm (0.5 in) anti-aircraft machineguns 1 × triple, 2 × twin 550 mm (21.7 in) torpedo tubes 2 chutes for 16 depth charges 40 mines

Maillé Brézé was a Vauquelin-class destroyer built for the French Navy during the 1930s. She was lost in an accidental explosion during World War II.

On 30 April 1940, at 14:15, as Maillé Brézé was anchored at the Tail of the Bank off Greenock, a torpedo tube misfunctioned and launched an armed torpedo on the deck, setting fire to the fuel tanks and the forward magazine, which however did not explode.

At 15:15, the crew abandoned ship due to the danger of explosion, except for numerous sailors trapped in the mess hall. Around 16:30, a few sailors returned to the ship to flood the aft magazine, and by 19:30 the fire was controlled by the Greenock firemen. By that time, Maillé Brézé was so low in the water that she began sinking before she could be towed, and she went down with those still trapped in the forward part. The accident killed 25 and wounded 48.^[1]

She was raised in 1954 and broken up by 1956.^[2] The wreck currently visible opposite Greenock (and thus not to be confused with the Maillé Brézé) is that of the MV Captayannis which sank in 1974.

Memorials

The memorial to the Free French forces on the Lyle Hill in Greenock is often wrongly said to be for the Maillé Brézé but there is no mention of her or her crew at all either on or near it, the sinking having occurred before the Free French forces came into being a few months later. There is a somewhat more modest memorial to the lost crew of the Maillé Brézé at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey, England.^[3]

Notes

1. U-Boat.net
2. Buxton, Ian (1992). "Question 6/89". Warship International. Toledo, OH: International Naval Research Organization. XXIX (1): 101. ISSN 0043-0374.
3. French Destroyer Maille Breze - Memorial

References

• Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
• Jordan, John & Moulin, Jean (2015). French Destroyers: Torpilleurs d'Escadre & Contre-Torpilleurs 1922–1956. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-198-4.
• Whitley, M. J. (1988). Destroyers of World War Two. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-326-1.

External links

• The Tragedy of the Maillé Brézé
• Maille Breze
• Maillé-Brézé