French Battleship Jean Bart (1911) - Career

Career

Jean Bart was built by the Arsenal de Brest at Brest. Her keel was laid down on 15 October 1910 and was launched on 22 September 1911. She was completed on 19 November 1913 and finished her trials before World War I began the following year. Jean Bart escorted France, which was carrying the President of the French Republic, Raymond Poincaré, on a state visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia in July 1914. They were returning from Russia when World War I began, but made it to France without encountering German ships.

Shortly after the start of the war, the commander of the Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean decided to sweep the Adriatic, to surprise the Austrian vessels enforcing a blockade of Montenegro. The Anglo-French force, which included Jean Bart, succeeded in cutting off and sinking the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta in an engagement off Antivari on 16 August 1914, although her accompanying destroyer managed to escape. Jean Bart spent most of the rest of 1914 providing gunfire support for the Montenegrin Army until she was torpedoed by the submarine U-12 off Sazan Island on 21 December. The one torpedo struck her in the wine store just before the forward magazine. She was able to steam to Malta on her own for repairs that required three and a half months, but this attack forced the battleships to fall back to either Malta or Bizerte. After the French occupied the neutral Greek island of Corfu in 1916 the ships moved forward to Corfu and Argostoli, but their activities were very limited as many of their crews were used to man anti-submarine ships. In 1918, she served off Greece. Before the end of the war she was fitted with seven 75-millimetre (3 in) Mle 1897 anti-aircraft (AA) guns in single mounts. These guns were adaptations of the famous French Mle 97 75 mm field gun.

In April 1919, while Jean Bart was helping to defend Sevastopol from the advancing Bolsheviks, her crew mutinied, along with that of the France, but the mutiny collapsed when Vice-Admiral Jean-Françoise-Charles Amet agreed to meet the mutineers' main demand to take the ships home. Three crewmen were sentenced to prison terms upon her return, although the sentences were commuted in 1922 as part of a bargain between Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré and the parties of the Left. The ship returned to Toulon in 1920 and received the first of her two refits between 12 October 1923 and 29 January 1925. This included replacing one set of boilers with oil-fired boilers, trunking together her two forward funnels, increasing the maximum elevation of the main armament from 12° to 23°, removal of her bow armour to make her more seaworthy, the installation of a fire-control director, with a 4.57 metres (15.0 ft) rangefinder, atop the new tripod foremast, and the replacement of her Mle 1897 AA guns with four Mle 1918 guns and 24 8-millimetre (0.31 in) machine guns.

Jean Bart was refitted again between 7 August 1929 and 29 September 1931. This was much more extensive than her earlier refit as another set of boilers was converted to oil-firing, her direct-drive cruising turbines were replaced by geared turbines and her fire-control systems were comprehensively upgraded. A large cruiser-type fire-control director was added atop the foremast with a 4.57-m coincidence rangefinder and a 3-metre (9 ft 10 in) stereo rangefinder. The rangefinder above the conning tower was replaced by a duplex unit carrying two 4.57-m rangefinders and another 4.57-m rangefinder was added in an armoured hood next to the main mast. Two directors for the secondary guns were added on the navigation bridge, each with a 2-metre (6 ft 7 in) coincidence rangefinder. A 8.2 metres (26 ft 11 in) rangefinder was added to the roof of 'B' turret, the second one from the bow. Her Mle 1897 AA guns were exchanged for Mle 1918 guns and they were provided with three 1.5-metre (4 ft 11 in) rangefinders, one on top of the duplex unit on the conning tower, one on 'B' turret and one in the aft superstructure. Her condition was poor enough that she was not thought to be worth the expense of a third refit like those her sisters were given. She was hulked, disarmed and became a harbour training ship in 1936. She was renamed Océan that year to free her name for use by the new Richelieu-class battleship Jean Bart then being constructed.

The new Océan was captured intact by the Germans on 27 November 1942, the day the French Fleet was scuttled. The Germans used her for experiments with very large shaped charge warheads as delivered by the Mistel composite aircraft. She was sunk by Allied aircraft in 1944 and later raised for scrapping beginning on 14 December 1945.