For the first French battleship with this name, see French battleship Jean Bart (1911)

French battleship Jean Bart (1911)

Jean Bart was the second ship of the s, the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She was completed before World War I as part of the 1910 naval building programme. She spent the war in the Mediterranean and helped to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser on 16 August 1914...

.

The Jean Bart was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 of World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 named for the seventeenth-century seaman, privateer, and corsair Jean Bart

Jean Bart

Jean Bart was a Flemish sailor who primarily served the French crown as naval commander and privateer.-Early life:...

.

Derived from the Dunkerque class

Dunkerque class battleship

The Dunkerque class was a new type of warship of the French Navy built during the 1930s, labeled as 'fast battleships'. Not as large as other contemporary battleships, they were designed to counter the threat of the German pocket battleships of the Deutschland class. They had a specific main...

, Jean Bart (and her sister ship Richelieu) were designed to counter the threat of the heavy ships of the Italian Navy

Regia Marina

The Regia Marina dates from the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 after Italian unification...

. Their speed, shielding, armament, and overall technology were state of the art, but they had a rather unusual main battery armament arrangement, with two 4-gun turrets to the bow and none to the stern.

Jean Bart was laid down in December 1936, and she was launched on 6 March 1940. Barely 75% completed, her steam engines never having been worked before, she was taken out of St. Nazaire's dry dock

Dry dock

A drydock is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform...

 by Captain Ronach and steamed to Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

, in June 1940 in order to escape the advance of the German army

Wehrmacht

The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...

 in France. Only one of her two 380 millimetres (15 in) main turrets had been installed by then. The second turret, with only two of its four naval guns, was loaded onto a cargo ship. The cargo ship was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

. Her 152 millimetres (6 in) secondary battery was also non-installed, and it was replaced by anti-aircraft guns. Like other French naval and military forces in North Africa, the Jean Bart was under the control of the Vichy French government.

On 8 November 1942, during Operation Torch

Operation Torch

Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....

, the French fleet in Casablanca was attacked by American warships and warplanes from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4). The Jean Bart engaged the battleship USS Massachusetts

USS Massachusetts (BB-59)

USS Massachusetts , known as "Big Mamie" to her crewmembers during World War II, was a battleship of the second South Dakota-class. She was the seventh ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the sixth state, and one of two ships of her class to be donated for use as a museum ship...

 (BB-59) in a gun battle. The Jean Bart suffered hits from several aerial bombs and 16-inch (406 mm) shells. On the 10th, the Jean Bart opened fire again on the cruiser USS Augusta

USS Augusta (CA-31)

USS Augusta was a Northampton-class heavy cruiser of the United States Navy, notable for service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean during World War II, and for her occasional use as a presidential flagship carrying both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman under wartime conditions...

, much to the surprise of the American naval officers - who thought that the Jean Bart had been silenced as a result of heavy damage. This gunfire drew action from the warplanes of the USS Ranger, and the Jean Bart suffered two more hits by 500 pounds (226.8 kg) bombs. These opened a leak in her hull, forcing her Captain to run her aground. Combat was over by that evening, and along with the rest of French forces in North Africa, she surrendered and then took sides with the Allies of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.
Soon, it was suggested that the Jean Bart be sent to the USA and completed there (her sister ship, Richelieu, had already undergone a refitting there), but that proved to be impossible. The notion of converting the Jean Bart into an aircraft carrier was studied, but was found to be impractical. For the next two years, the unfinished battleship remained stranded in Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

 harbour.

The Jean Bart returned to France in 1945, and she was completed in 1952, under an updated design influenced by lessons from experience with battleships in the previous war. The Jean Bart took her part in the Suez Canal Crisis off Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

in 1956, but engaged in no ship-to-ship combat. She was put into reserve in 1957, and then she was decommissioned in 1961. The hulk of the Jean Bart was scrapped in 1969.

External links

• Caractéristiques principales (in French) Schematics of a turret
• Galerie de photos (in French) Photographs
• Maritimequest Jean Bart Photo Gallery