French Battleship Richelieu enters New York City - February 1943

The Richelieu was a French battleship, a scaled-up version of the Dunkerque-class battleships and the lead ship of her class. Ordered in 1935, and designed to counter the Italian Littorio-class battleships, Richelieu was the first French 35,000-ton battleship and the first modern battleship built after the 1922 Treaty of Washington. She featured a main armament of eight 380 mm guns in two quadruple turrets in forward superfiring positions. Her armour and underwater protection were equal to her contemporaries, except for the Japanese Yamato-class battleships, but she was 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. She left Brest in northwestern France for Dakar in French West Africa (modern-day Senegal) in June 1940 to avoid capture in the shipyard where she was nearing completion. She served during World War II, first on the Vichy Regime side, notably fending off a 1940 Allied attempt on Dakar, then later joined the Allies in 1943. 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 served into the 1960s. Source: