Wednesday 16 January 2013

Graveyard of a Fleet...

Rooting through some family papers I recently came across a batch of small photograph prints, largely of scuttled warships, that my Grandad picked up somewhere on his travels as a member of the Merchant Navy during or after WW2. I have scanned them and converted them to black and white from sepia before enhancing them as appropriate.

Thanks to help from David Manley they have been identified as photos of the French fleet at Toulon which was scuttled in November 1942 which the Germans tried to seize when they occupied Vichy. I have no idea why my Grandad had these photos but having quickly trawled the internet, despite finding some similar photos here, I haven't found these specific ones, so I thought they might be worth sharing...

Battleship Dunkerque in dry dock
Dunkerque class battleship Strasbourg
Bretagne class battleship Provence left and seaplane tender Commandante Teste right
Vauquelin class destroyers Kersaint and Vauquelin
Vauquelin class destroyers Kersaint and Vauquelin again
Suffren class cruiser Colbert
La Galissonnière class cruiser La Marseillaise
Funnels of the Vauquelin class destroyer Vauquelin
Heavy cruiser Algérie

2 comments:

  1. Excellent find and well worth posting!

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  2. Stunning! Thanks so much for posting - lost images of an often overlooked event - excellent job, well done to your Grandad!

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