French Heavy Cruiser Foch Under Construction
The Foch was a heavy cruiser of the Suffren class that saw service in the Second World War. She was the third vessel of her class, launched in 1929 and active until her scuttling in 1942.
She was originally intended to bear the name Louvois, after the Marquis de Louvois, the Minister of War under King Louis XIV. Marshal Ferdinand Foch died on 29 March 1929, one month before the ship’s launch, and she was renamed in his honour. The main gun turrets were named after places associated with Marshal Foch during the Great War.
Ordered on 1 March 1928 and built at the Arsenal de Brest, Foch was laid down on 21 June 1928 and launched on 24 April 1929. She incorporated several design changes from the earlier ships of the class. The shallow armoured belt was replaced by an armoured caisson over the machinery spaces, with increased protection on the magazine sides. The coal-fired cruising boilers were removed and replaced by additional oil fuel bunkers, which resulted in the second funnel being slimmer than those of the preceding vessels.
194 metres in overall length with a beam of 19.26 metres, she displaced 10,160 tonnes at standard load, rising to over 13,600 tonnes at full load. Three-shaft Rateau-Bretagne geared steam turbines gave a designed speed of 32 knots. Her armament comprised eight 203 mm guns in four twin turrets, supported by anti-aircraft guns of various calibres and six 550 mm torpedo tubes. She carried up to three floatplanes and was fitted with two catapults.
Foch entered service on 20 December 1931, assigned to the First Light Division at Toulon. She remained in the Mediterranean through the interwar years. On the outbreak of war in September 1939 she was at Toulon, and subsequently sailed to Dakar. In December 1939 she sailed as part of a Franco-British force which included HMS Neptune and HMS Hermes in search of the German raider Admiral Graf Spee following the engagement off the River Plate. The operation did not result in contact with the German vessel.
Her only use of main armament in combat came in June 1940. On the night of 13–14 June she took part in Operation Vado, the bombardment of Genoa and Vado, Italy, as part of the French Third Squadron. Half of the shells from the Vado group fell into the sea, and Foch suffered a steering malfunction on the return passage, though she reached Toulon without further incident.
Following the Franco-German Armistice of June 1940, Foch remained at Toulon under the Vichy administration. When German troops advanced on the port in November 1942, she was scuttled. She burned for several days and was considered a total loss. The Italians refloated the wreck on 16 April 1943 with the intention of repair, but work ceased when Italy surrendered later that year, and she was scrapped.