Richelieu

[shipstamps]

Algeria issued in 1949 a pair of stamps in aid of a French naval charity, the Oeuvres Sociales de la Marine that exists to help distressed families of naval and merchant seamen. The 10 francs + 15 francs value shows the French battleship Richelieu. This ship was launched on January 17. 1939, at Brest, her displacement tonnage is 35,000 (42,000 tons fully loaded) and she carries a complement of 1,670. In 1943 she was refitted at the U.S. Navy Yard, New York. She is 794ft. long and 108.7ft. in breadth, has a speed of 30 knots and a main armament of eight 15in nine 6in. and 12 3.9in. guns.
SG288 Sea Breezes 11/51

[D. v. Nieuwenhuijzen]

Build by Brest Navy Yard, Laid down:22 October 1935, Launched:17 January 1939
Commissioned:June 1940 / October 1943
Class and type: Richelieu-class battleship, Displacement:35,000 tons (standard)
47,548 t (full load) Length:247.80 m (813') Beam:32,92m. (108') Draught:9.75m. (32')
150,000 hp. (110,000 kW.) 4 Parsons geared turbines, 6 Indret Sural boilers, 30 kn. Range:8,500 nautical miles (15,740 km) Complement:70 officers, 1,550 men.
Armament:8 × 380 mm (15")/45 Modèle 1935 guns in quadruple mounts at bow
9 × 152 mm (6" secondary (3 × 3 mounted aft) 12 × 100 mm (3.9") anti-aircraft guns (6 × 2)
Before 1943 refit 37 mm AA gun, 13.2 mm Hotchkiss machine guns
After 1943 refit 56 40 mm Bofors Anti-Aircraft (14 × 4) 48 20 mm Oerlikon AA cannons
Armour:Belt: 343 mm (13.5") Decks: 50 to 170 mm (2.0 to 6.7") Turrets: 445 mm (17.5")
Aircraft carried:3 flying boats (Loire 130)
Aviation facilities:2 catapults, crane, 4 aircraft hangar (before refit)

Richelieu was a French battleship and the lead ship of her class. She was a scaled-up version of the previous Dunkerque class.

Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian Littorio-class battleships, Richelieu was the first French 35,000-ton battleship. She was also the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 380 mm (15") guns in two quadruple turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armour and underwater protection were equal to most contemporary craft; only the Japanese Yamato-class battleships were superior. She was, however, limited by a weak anti-aircraft artillery suite and optical-only fire control. In trial runs, her speed was a little higher than her European contemporaries, and only surpassed by the U.S. Navy's modern, fast battleships.

In June 1940 she was nearing completion in a shipyard in Brest in northwest France. To avoid capture she left the yard for Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal). She served during World War II, first on the Vichy Regime side, notably fending off a 1940 Allied attack on Dakar. In 1943 she switched to the Allied side. After refitting in New York Navy Yard, she operated with Royal Navy forces in the Indian Ocean in 1944 and 1945. She took part in the return of French forces to Indochina in 1945, and continued to serve into the 1960s.
She was based in Brest. From 25 May 1956, she was used as an accommodation ship in Brest, and was placed in reserve in 1958. Richelieu was condemned on 16 January 1968 and renamed Q432. She was scrapped by Cantieri Navali Santa Maria of Genoa in September 1968. One of her guns is on display in the harbor of Brest.

(Somaliland 2011,1500 a. StG.?)
Internet.