Warship Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019: The avenger of Toulon

Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1833-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2019: The avenger of Toulon

U.S. Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-202752

Here we see the Marine Nationale’s Bretagne (Brittany)-class dreadnought (cuirasse d’ escadre) Lorraine in Casablanca Harbor on 13 November 1943, when she was the only afloat French battleship in the world capable of fighting—a sobering thought when you remember that the country counted over 20 battleships in their fleet in WWI. Laid down in 1912 to mix it up with the potential battleships of the Italian, Austrian and Imperial German fleets in the looming…