French Aircraft Carriers 1910-2000
288 pages
RAdm R G Melly
John Jordan, perhaps best known as the editor of the annual Warship volume, is an acknowledged expert on the Soviet Navy. However, for this book, he has again co-authored with Jean Moulin to continue his exploration of the 20th century French Navy, adding to his earlier books detailing the service histories and specifications of French cruisers and destroyers. He has also co-authored books on French battleships and armoured cruisers, so his credentials as an expert on the Marine Nationale are well burnished. For this volume, he has elected to detail the design and development of carriers between 1910 and 2000, recognising that many of the concepts never left the drawing board, due to politics, funding, or the intervention of war. His co-author, Jean Moulin is himself an accepted expert on French carriers, and his knowledge and extensive records are reflected in this latest text.
Initially, the Marine Nationale explored the use of airships, seaplanes and wheeled aircraft to fulfil its operational needs, before quickly settling on aircraft. At the start of WWI, there were just 14 aircraft in naval aviation, but this number had increased to 1,135 by the date of the Armistice.
The first true carrier, the Béarn, entered service in May 1928. She had been repurposed from a Normandie class battleship and had a displacement of 25,355 tonnes, with a nominal air group of 36 aircraft. With a limited speed of just 20 knots, she was effectively obsolescent at the start of WWII but survived the conflict and was not stricken from the strength until 1967. She was quickly followed by the innovative, purpose-built, 10,000-ton seaplane carrier, the Commandant Teste; this ship survived the British attack on Mers-el-Kébir but was subsequently scuttled in Toulon, when the Germans occupied southern France. She was stricken in 1950.
Interwar planning was influenced by the terms of the 1922 Washington Treaty and the London Conference of 1930. No fewer than 16 designs for carriers were undertaken, with only the final one resulting in orders for two, 18,000-ton carriers, the Joffre and the Painlevé. Whilst the Joffre was laid down in 1938, the war interrupted, and she was never completed. During and immediately after the war, carrier designs continued to be developed, but there was a recognition that the wartime damage to naval infrastructure and limited funding were considerable constraints. An order placed in 1947 for a new carrier, the Clemenceau, was almost immediately cancelled, and it was decided to pursue carrier loans from the British and the Americans. Four carriers were subsequently acquired (two from the UK and two from the USA), and these performed sterling service, enabling the French to meet their operational commitments and to inform their own designs.
Armed with this recent operating experience and aware of the latest developments, the French then finally commissioned their own 22,000-ton carrier design, incorporating an angled flight deck, resulting in the Clemenceau (laid down in 1955) and the Foch (laid down in 1957).
The book finishes with a chapter detailing the acquisition of the Charles de Gaulle, France’s 37,500 tonne nuclear-powered carrier (laid down in 1987 and completed in 2000) and an epilogue outlining plans for a further, larger nuclear-powered carrier to replace Charles de Gaulle, when she decommissions in 2038.
For each ship in commission, technical specifications and a detailed service history are provided, amply complemented by photographs and line drawings. The aircraft deployed in the embarked air groups are not neglected, and the product is a compelling and eminently readable account of the Marine Nationale’s efforts to grow and maintain a credible carrier capability. The resulting book must surely be the go-to English language reference book for French carriers.
