Gascogne

Gascogne was a heavily modified Richelieu-class battleship. With a slightly more common gun placement of main armament serperated fore and aft of the super structure, as opposed to the Richelieu’s all forward armament.

Commissioned Early 1939, the Gascogne was still undergoing preliminary weapons testing when war broke out.

French military leaders, believing that the Maginot Line would keep the Germans at bay, and fearing a Japanese invasion of her colonies, the decision was made to deploy her to the Pacific Ocean.
Under the command of *Capitaine de Vaisseau* Charles Chereau, Gascogne was deployed as flagship to the Pacific Ocean alongside the heavy cruiser Charles Martel, the Gascogne was to protect French Interests in the East Indies, primarily the French Colony of French Indochina (Present day Vietnam).

She relieved the antiquated and obsolete battleship Toursville, which would be sunk by the Graf Spee when returning to France.

## Pacific Service:

Gascogne arrived in the Port of Saigon in May of 1940. The population of French Indochina had become extremely divided, between 'Pro-France' vs 'Pro-Japan' forces. Many of the poorer Vietnamese desired liberation, and saw the Japanese as liberators, while many of the wealthier Vietnamese saw Japan as worse oppressors then the French.

And that ultimately, France rule would be the lesser of two evils. So as Gascogne sailed into Saigon, she was met with mass protest and counter protest from Vietnamese. Under going refueling, Gascogne was scheduled to leave port and begin conducting protective patrols of French Indochina waters.

French Admiral François Darlan had been convinced by several military Analysts, that Japan would not attack Indochina for at least another 2-3 years, or until the war in China had ended. Leaving France with enough time to combat the German Invasion. As such, the entire Pacific French Fleet stationed out of Indochina was essentially just the Gascogne and heavy cruiser Charles Martel, with miscellaneous smaller auxiliary ships.

   However, the evening of Gascogne entering port, Japanese forces invaded French Indochina from the north. When word reached Saigon the next morning, the Gascogne set sail to provide Artillery support.

For 5 days, Gascogne and Charles Martel fired approximately 200 15 in shells and 400 9 in rounds a day on Japanese forces, returning to Saigon to have their Barrel liners replaced nightly. Regardless, Japan managed to enter Hanoi on the eve of May 21, 1940, where Gascogne fired the remainder of her 200 rounds.

Out of ammunition for her main armament, Gascogne sailed back to Saigon to await a convoy to arrive with 15in shells along with more barrel liners.

After sitting in port for 2 days, Japanese sympathizers in Saigon passed along information saying that Gascogne would be in port for at least another week.

## Attack on Saigon

On the morning of May 24, 1940, shortly after Charles Martel had departed to continue firing on Japanese positions, Japanese aircraft from the IJN Izu appeared over the horizon.

The first wave was compromised of 2 squadrons of Aichi D3A dive bombers, which managed to land 8 bomb hits, and lighting the Gascogne on fire. Thick black smoke billowed over the deck of the Gascogne, leading to many AA crews being forced to flee their posts as smoke enveloped their position and leaving them unable to breath. Whatever crews that were still at their posts, had their views obstructed by the thick black smoke rolling off the ship.

French fighters (flying antiquated D.500 fighters) from the nearby air strip took off, but due to the vast amounts of black smoke pouring off the Gascogne, a following flight of 2 dive bomber squadrons were undetected from from the fighters.

During a subsequent torpedo run, the Gascogne was unable to fend off the bombers, leading to 10 torpedos striking the Gascogne. However only 5 of the torpedoes detonated. Up to this point, IJN Izu had exclusively been launching dive bombers against Chinese positions, and during the rush to arm torpedo bombers, some crew had forgotten to arm the torpedoes.

Gascogne suffered 3 Torpedo explosions to her Port side, and an addition 2 torpedoes to her starboard side.

French fighters, while managing to shoot down 2 of the Nakajima B5N, only had a range of 400 miles, and were unable to pursue the B5N.

With Torpedo bomber pilots reporting back stating that Gascogne had been sunk, the IJN Izu turned away, not knowing where the Charles Martel was. (In reality, Charles Martel was 20 km away, having turned around to defend Saigon).

However, in Saigon, Gascogne's condition continually worsened. Her pumps were unable to keep up with the vast flow of water, and damage control parties were greatly hampered by the deck fire. As her list increased past 8 degrees, Captain Chereau gave the order to have Gascogne driven aground onto a shallow sandbar along the coast of the port entrance to avoid Gascogne's loss.

Only with the assistance from the Charles Martel would the fire be able to be put out 12 hrs later. By the time the fire had finally ended, 300 French servicemen had died, with another 500 suffering injuries (many of them being severe burns) during the attack and aftermath. With the Gascogne crippled and essentially a non-floating duck, Captain Charles Chereau gathered his crew on deck.

While there was initially plans to attempt to patch, and raise the Gascogne, during the damage report, it was discovered that the Gascogne was essentially an above water loss. The torpedoes had blown such large hulls into the hull, and combined that with forces of the bow riding up onto the shallow, the structural integrity of the ship was completely loss. The entire keel of the ship was cracked in the center of the ship.

With no time or resources to raise or repair the ship, and little chance of French Forces holding the Japanese back, Captain Chereau gave the men the option to either leave aboard the Charles Martel, bound for France, or to stay and fight to the last man. The Gascogne was essentially an above water loss- the torpedoes had blown such large holes into the hull, that the structural rigidity of the ship was severely compromised.

Out of the 750 remaining able bodied men, not a single man elected to 'abandon' their ship. With the transport carrying the her remaining secondary armament and her AAA still had plenty of ammunition. Additionally, a warehouse on shore was known to contain extra guns, gun linings and over 2000 rounds of 13.5in rounds and powder bags. The result of decades of gradual build up, the result was a perfect armory.

The wounded received initial treatment, before being sent aboard an Auxiliary Transport to sail for Burma to where the wounded could get treatment without risk of capture, before returning to France.

## Preparation for the Last Stand

Using a heavy duty lift crane barge, the crew removed the 380mm guns, and replaced them with the 340mm guns. The hope was the reducing of gun size and the subsequent reducing of recoil would prevent the Gascogne's main guns ripping the ship in half from the lateral forces.

Regardless, additional precautions of dumping dredged sand along the side of the hull to help prevent the ship ripping itself apart. The sand was slopped to encase the entire hull, not only did this serve to cushion the ship, but also served as additional defense from torpedoes beyond torpedo nets. By pure luck, the Gascogne was broadside to the city, allowing her perfect access to firing into the city and beyond.

Engineers and Mechanics from the Gascogne and Charles Martel worked around the clock to scavenge parts of the ruined superstructure and remains of several 100 mm and the single 152 mm secondary mounts destroyed during the attack.

Furthermore, engineers attacked Charles Martel with vengeance, stripping her of a lot her armament and sensors to be used as parts donor. Several of her 100 mm secondary turrets, and her aft 152mm turret were removed and used to replace the secondaries lost to the fire. One 240 mm gun, with much modification, was able to be placed onto the barrette of the original 152 mm.

The other 2 240 mm guns were placed on top on the top of the ship where the superstructure had been. Engineers had removed much of the mangled structure, and plated over the rest (including her funnel).

Much of Charles Martel AA armament was stripped, and crammed onto the hulk of Gascogne where ever there was space. The only AA to remain on Charles Martel was the (4 x 2) 37 mm guns, along with several of her 25 mm guns.

The modifications to Gascogne were completed in a shocking 3 weeks. Once completed, Captain Charles Chereau asked for volunteers from the Charles Martel to help man the added weaponary and to replace those killed and wounded in the initial air attack. However, the entire crew of the Charles Martel (pardon the captain and several top officers) volunteered to stay aboard the Gascogne.

Wanting to save the Charles Martel, a skeleton crew compromised of Charles Martel crew was ordered to leave with the Charles Martel.

Charles Martel stayed in Saigon for another week, being moored directly alongside the Gascogne and being used for her facilities to make additional modifications and improvements to the Gascogne.

On the morning of July 2nd, 1940, the first booming echos of heavy artillery were heard. With this, the Charles Martel was quickly prepared for departure.

## The Final Stand of the Gascogne

In the most valiant actions of the war, Gascogne and her crew of 1400 men were facing off a Japanese army compromising of 40,000 men. The additional forces in the area were 500 soldiers , and whatever French soldiers who had been fighting the running battle. Additionally, the Saigon Air strip had a single squadron of 24 obsolete D.500 fighters. Whatever redundant members or extra crew members who had volunteered to stay behind were ordered into the city to fight the Japanese there.

Additionally, while the city had been evacuated, approximately 750-1000 Anti-Japan civilians elected to stay and fight.

While Hanoi had been captured a month earlier, the Japanese expanded south to capture the entire colony, with news of war atrocities committed by them passing ahead of them.

With the Japanese attacking from the north of the city, the Gascogne faced west to east, with her bow actually faced west, with the center line pointing towards France. Allowing Gascogne to fire broadside to the city and the mountains beyond. To prevent casualties, several areas were identified as perfect ambushing locations, and marked as such to prevent friendly fire.

At 2:00 PM on July 3rd, the Gascogne fired her main artillery on Japanese forces beyond the city. A D.500 served as spotter, leading to initially devastating results. The improvised conversion to 13.5 in turrets had awful firing patterns, with shells landing as much as 2 miles apart from one another, when fired at a target only 10 miles away. However, the pure amount of shells being fired still led to high casualties among Japanese attackers.

For the next couple hours, Gascogne fired round after round into the mountains, delaying the Japanese entry into the city. However, Japanese heavy artillery started firing on the Gascogne. Initial damage was light, as many of the AA and secondary positions on the port side of the ship had been enclosed and reinforced with additional armor.

With nothing penetrating the Gascogne, the idea of Gascogne succeeding in staving off the Japanese was viable, and morale was high.

Japanese torpedo bombers, launched from the mainland attempted to torpedo the Gascogne, but anti-torpedo nets thwarted these attacks. As the battle continued into the night, the Japanese retreated to prevent further casualties.

At 4:00 AM, the Air strips radar detected another wave of bombers. Readying the AA, it turned out to be dive bombers. While dive bombing had been a huge part of the damage to the Gascogne, her superstructure had already been destroyed, and nearly anything flammable had been removed from the armor reinforced deck.

Japanese Frogmen had cut the torpedo nets surrounding the ship. Later that day, the Japanese attempted another torpedo attack, just for the torpedoes to harmlessly bury themselves in the slopped sand surrounding Gascogne.

By the end of the second attack, Japanese forces had already lost 12 aircraft to the Gascogne's AA defenses.

Becomingly increasingly frustrated, Japanese Commanders resorted to increasingly desperate attempts. Several torpedo bombers were fitted with modified fuel tanks, which were then dumped along the ship, before being lit on fire by HE shells from Artillery.

While this attack did cause the first fatal casualties aboard the Gascogne, the overall damage to the ship was minimal. A network of sprinklers pumping water from the river had been set up along the ship to extinguish any fires that would be lit, and in the case of this attack, simply washed the burning fuel off the ship. Any parts not washed off, extinguished themselves once the fuel had burned up.

The next attack was much more cunning. 16.1in AP naval shells were loaded into bomb casings, and loaded onto Torpedo bombers. The effect being akin of a (admittedly super low velocity) 16.1in shell being dropped directly onto the deck.

This attack was the first to cause damage to the ship. The attack destroyed the forward 152 mm turret of the Gascogne, and destroyed one of the 240 mm turrets from the Charles Martel.

Another bomb landed alongside the ---- TBC