French destroyer Maillé Brézé 1940
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | French destroyer Maillé Brézé | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1940 | Wikidata P793 significant event, point-in-time qualifier |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | destroyer | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Fire or explosion | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | France | Wikidata P8047 country of registry |
| Operator | French Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Conflict | World War II | Wikidata P607 conflict |
| Sea / ocean | Inner Seas | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Scotland | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 4 km from land |
| Position | 55.9633, -4.7507 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
Maillé Brézé was one of six Vauquelin-class destroyers (contre-torpilleurs) built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale) during the 1930s. The ship entered service in 1933 and spent most of her career in the Mediterranean, sometimes as a flagship. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, she was one of the ships that helped to enforce the non-intervention agreement. When France declared war on Germany in September 1939, all of the Vauquelins were assigned to the High Sea Forces (Forces de haute mer (FHM)) which was tasked to escort French convoys and support the other commands as needed. Maillé Brézé accordingly spent most of the next six months on escort duties. She played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign before she was lost in an accidental explosion in April 1940. Most of her crew survived the incident; her wreck was not salvaged until 1954 and was subsequently scrapped.
Diving & visiting
Greenockian May Watson recalled in an interview sixty years after the event that she clearly remembered being in an art class at school at the time, and "we just heard this tremendous bang and we all wondered what it was. It was a bang that we had never heard before, really dreadful. We were excited and afraid at the same time wondering what this big bang was". When she went home, she was told that "Some of the sailors were killed and others managed to swim to safety but even those sailors were badly injured in the blast. The sailors were brought ashore and were taken to halls in Greenock.
Location
- Recorded position: 55.9633, -4.7507 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Inner Seas
- Nearest coast: Scotland
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article French destroyer Maillé Brézé (1931) (revision 1379957788), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section and section(s) “Memories and memorials”; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- MV Captayannis 1974 · 2 km
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- HMS Cumberland 5 km
- HMS K13 1917 · 8 km
- Akka 1956 · 10 km
- HMS Seagull 1918 · 13 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
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- U-12 1939
- U-27 1939
- U-39 1939
- USS Sailfish 1939
- Artigliere 1940
- Bartolomeo Colleoni 1940
- German destroyer ZH1 1940
- German submarine U-15 1940
- HMS Acheron 1940
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
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