French aircraft carrier Béarn

Béarn

Béarn in 1935
History
France
Name:	Béarn
Namesake:	Béarn
Builder:	La Seyne
Laid down:	10 January 1914
Launched:	April 1920
Commissioned:	May 1927
Struck:	21 March 1967
Fate:	Scrapped
General characteristics
Type:	Aircraft carrier
Displacement:	22,146 long tons (22,501 t) (standard) 28,400 long tons (28,900 t) (full load)
Length:	182.6 m (599 ft 1 in) (o/a)
Beam:	35.2 m (115 ft 6 in)
Draft:	9.3 m (30 ft 6 in)
Installed power:	22,500 shp (16,800 kW) (turbines) 15,000 ihp (11,000 kW) (reciprocating engines)
Propulsion:	2 × Parsons geared steam turbines 2 × reciprocating steam engines 4 × shafts
Speed:	21.5 kn (39.8 km/h; 24.7 mph)
Range:	7,000 nmi (13,000 km; 8,100 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement:	865
Armament:	Original: 8 × 155 mm (6.1 in)/50 cal guns (8 × 1) 6 × 75 mm (3.0 in)/50 cal anti-aircraft guns (6 × 1) 8 × 37 mm (1.5 in) anti-aircraft guns (added 1935) 16 × 13.2 mm (0.52 in) anti-aircraft machine guns (6 × 1) (added 1935) 4 × 550 mm (22 in) torpedo tubes After 1944 Refit: 4 × 127 mm (5.0 in)/38 cal dual-purpose guns 24 × 40 mm (1.57 in) anti-aircraft guns (6 × 4) 26 × 20 mm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft
Armor:	Main Belt: 8 cm (3.1 in) Flight Deck: 2.5 cm (1.0 in)
Aircraft carried:	35-40 1939: 10 × Dewoitine D.373, 10 × Levasseur PL.7 and 9 × Levasseur PL.10

Béarn was an aircraft carrier which served with the Marine nationale (French Navy) in World War II and beyond. Béarn was commissioned in 1927 and was the only aircraft carrier produced by France until after World War II, and the only ship of its class built. She was to be an experimental ship and was slated for replacement in the 1930s by two new ships of the Joffre class. She was generally comparable to other early carriers developed by the major navies of the world. However, France did not produce a further replacement and as naval aviation lagged in France, Béarn continued to serve past her time of obsolescence. In 1939, she ended her career as an experimental ship, but after the defeat of France in June 1940 she was docked at Martinique, where she remained for the next four years. Eventually she was sent to the United States for a refit which ended in March 1945, allowing her to serve briefly before the end of the war as an aircraft transport. Her career ended in 1967 when she was finally dismantled. Over the course of her long career, Béarn never launched her aircraft in combat. She was named after the historic French province of Béarn.

Béarn was originally designed as a Normandie-class battleship; she was laid down at the Société Nouvelle des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée shipyard in La Seyne on 10 January 1914. The outbreak of World War I in August 1914 interrupted work, which was halted for the duration of the conflict. By that time, work on Béarn had not significantly progressed: her hull was only 8–10 percent complete and her engines were only 25 percent finished. Her boilers were 17 percent assembled, and her turrets were at 20 percent completed. The incomplete hull was launched in April 1920 to clear the slipway, though the Navy had not yet decided what to do with it.

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