French destroyer Milan

For other ships with the same name, see French ship Milan.

The French destroyer Milan was one of six Aigle-class destroyer (contre-torpilleurs) built for the French Navy during the 1930s.

Milan at anchor
History
France
Name	Milan
Builder	Arsenal de Lorient
Launched	13 October 1931
Completed	20 April 1934
Fate	Run aground after being struck by USS Massachusetts (BB-59) on 8 November 1942. Wreck scrapped post-war.
General characteristics
Class and type	Aigle-class destroyer
Displacement	2,441 t (2,402 long tons) (standard)
Length	128.5 m (421 ft 7 in)
Beam	11.8 m (38 ft 9 in)
Draught	4.4 m (14 ft 5 in)
Installed power	4 du Temple boilers 64,000 PS (47,000 kW; 63,000 shp)
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbines
Speed	36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range	3,650 nmi (6,760 km; 4,200 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph)
Crew	10 officers, 217 crewmen (wartime)
Armament	5 × single 138.6 mm (5.5 in) guns 4 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns 2 × triple 550 mm (21.7 in) torpedo tubes 2 chutes, 4 throwers for 44 depth charges

Service

Following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, Milan escorted two convoys carrying French troops of the Chasseurs Alpins to Namsos and Harstad between 18 April and 27 April.^[1] On 3–4 May 1940, Milan, together with the French destroyers Chevalier Paul and Tartu and the British destroyers Sikh and Tartar, made a sweep into the Skagerrak, but encountered no German shipping.^[2]

On 15 June she carried General de Gaulle from Brest to Plymouth on the first stage of his journey to London for talks with the British government.^[3]

After France surrendered to Germany, Milan served with the naval forces of Vichy France. She was at Casablanca in French Morocco when Allied forces invaded French North Africa in Operation Torch on 8 November 1942. She was in action against United States Navy TF 34 during the Naval Battle of Casablanca and was beached after sustaining a shell hit from USS Massachusetts (BB-59), and possibly other US ships. Older work on the subject have errantly attributed Milan's crippling to shell hits from the destroyer Wilkes, which had broken off action against Milan at least 25 minutes prior to the French ship being knocked out of the fight (which occurred shortly before 10:00), but French reports consistently list a 406mm (16 inch) shell among the damage Milan incurred, in addition to two more shells, probably 8 inch, that struck her immediately thereafter. Milan was underway at the time of the 16 inch hit,^[4] and if historian Vincent O’Hara and the museum Battleship Cove are correct in their interpretations of Massachusetts' log and their corresponding French records, this hit would qualify as the longest ship-to-ship hit by a battleship in history at between 26,000-28,000 yards.^[5][6][7]

Notes

1. Rohwer & Hümmelchen 1992, pp. 17–18
2. Rohwer & Hümmelchen 1992, p. 19
3. Montagnon, Pierre (2009). La France dans la guerre de 39-45. Paris: Pygmalion. ISBN 978-2-7564-0044-0.
4. Jordan, John (2011). Warship 2011. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-1844861330.
5. O'Hara, Vincent (2015). Torch: North Africa and the Allied Path to Victory. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. pp. 202–204. ISBN 9781612518237.
6. Le Masson, Henri (1969). Navies of the Second World War The French Navy Volume 1. London: Macdonald. p. 113. ISBN 0356023842.
7. Rohwer & Hümmelchen 1992, p. 175

References

• Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
• Jordan, John & Moulin, Jean (2015). French Destroyers: Torpilleurs d'Escadre & Contre-Torpilleurs 1922–1956. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-198-4.
• O'Hara, Vincent P. (2015). Torch: North Africa and the Allied Path to Victory. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-922-7.
• Rohwer, Jürgen; Hümmelchen, Gerhard (1992). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945. London: Greenhill Books. ISBN 1-85367-117-7.
• Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Revised ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-119-2.
• Whitley, M. J. (1988). Destroyers of World War Two: An International Encyclopedia. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-326-1.