The French battleship Dunkerque, anchored at Spithead. May 1937

The short lived French battleship Dunkerque, a rather beautiful answer to the German Deutschland-class cruisers which appeared in 1929. Dunkerque and her sister Strasbourg were full-sized battleships by WWI standards. While they couldn’t compete with the latest designs of peer nations the very well designed Richelieu-class appeared in 1935 to do that, leaving the Dunkerque-class as fearsome cruiser hunters.

Dunkerque was seriously damaged by the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir in July 1940, she was hit four times by 15″ shells from HMS Hood and beached. The British returned to finish her off and since she was beached in front of a village Admiral Somerville opted to use torpedoes. One struck a depth charge laden patrol boat moored alongside Dunkerque and the subsequent explosion tore both ships apart. It was the end of a very short career.

After temporary repairs finally made her again seaworthy, she left for Toulon almost two years later in February 1942. There the Germans tried to seize her, so the French scuttled her, in a drydock. They also set her afire, leaving not much of a ship for the Italians to then seize. They in turn cut the barrels down so the French couldn’t somehow repair what was left. Then the Italians surrendered and the Germans took ownership, removing the bow to float the wreck out of the drydock. During this time the Allies bombed her on several occasions. The remaining 15,000 tonnes of the once 27,000 tonne battleship, renamed Q56, was eventually condemned and sold for demolition on 30 September 1958.

@qsy-complains-a-lot