French cruiser Châteaurenault (1898)

Class overview
Operators:  French Navy
Preceded by: Guichen
Succeeded by: Destrées class
Built: 1895–1902
In commission: 1902–1917
Completed: 1
Lost: 1
History
France
Name: Châteaurenault
Namesake: François Louis de Rousselet, Marquis de Châteaurenault
Laid down: 12 October 1895
Launched: 12 May 1898
Commissioned: 10 October 1902
Fate: Sunk by German submarine UC-38, 14 December 1917
General characteristics
Type: Protected cruiser
Displacement: 8,200 tonnes (8,070 long tons)
Length: 140 m (459 ft 4 in)
Beam: 18 m (59 ft 1 in)
Draught: 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in)
Installed power: 24,000 shp (17,897 kW)
Propulsion: du Temple-Normand small-tube boiler, direct-flame sub-version[1]
Speed: 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph)
Complement: 625
Armament:

Châteaurenault was a protected cruiser of the French Navy intended for commerce raiding. She was the first ship of the French Navy named in honour of François Louis de Rousselet, Marquis de Châteaurenault. Launched on 24 March 1898, Châteaurenault was commissioned in October 1902. In 1904, she was damaged after hitting a submerged rock. In 1910, she ran aground on Spartel, and had to be taken in tow by French cruiser Victor Hugo. From 1913, she was used as a school ship in Toulon.

Recommissioned at the outbreak of the First World War, Châteaurenault patrolled the Mediterranean. In 1917, she was used as a troopship, ferrying soldiers from Taranto to Itea. On 5 October 1917, she rescued survivors of the liner Gallia, torpedoed by the Imperial German Navy submarine U-35, and saved 1,200 men.

Sinking

On 14 December 1917, in the Mediterranean Sea at 38°15′N 20°22′E / 38.250°N 20.367°E / 38.250; 20.367, German U-boat SM UC-38, commanded by Hans Hermann Wendlandt,[2] met the convoy comprising Châteaurenault and her escorts Mameluck, Rouen and Lansquenet.[3] UC-38 approached and fired one torpedo at 06:47, striking Châteaurenault amidships. UC-38 then dived to 38 metres (125 ft), while Mameluck and Rouen rushed to the launching position of the torpedo, and Lansquenet started picking up people thrown overboard by the explosion. Châteaurenault requested her escorts to close in and evacuate Army personnel, which was completed by 07:26. The trawler Balsamine came to the rescue and made attempts to take Châteaurenault in tow.[3]

Rising to periscope depth, SM UC-38 saw Châteaurenault still afloat, and fired a second torpedo, which hit at 8:20; Châteaurenault foundered quickly, though the surviving crew aboard were rescued. Lansquenet, in the process of picking up her launches, rushed to the launching point and dropping 7 depth charges. One caused a slight leak in the submarine; Wendlandt ordered a dive to bring his ship below the area targeted by the depth charges, but a false manœuvre made UC-38 climb instead, and a second explosion caused a large leak, forcing Wendlandt to surface and abandon ship.[2][3]

SM UC-38 surfaced briefly and was immediately targeted by the guns of Mameluck, which continued her attack by launching several depth charges. SM UC-38 surfaced again, and this time both Mameluck and Lansquenet opened fire, hitting her several times and killing several of her crew as they abandoned ship. She sank at 08:40, and the French destroyers picked up the survivors.[2][3]

German sources claim that 25 men were rescued and 9 killed; a sailor of SM UC-38 claimed that 20 men were saved out of a 28-man crew; French enquiry reports 20 rescued and 5 confirmed dead out of a 27-man crew.[2] From Châteaurenault 1,162 men were saved by Rouen, Mameluck and Lansquenet, and by a number of trawlers who had rushed to the scene, amounting to most of the personnel aboard. The victims were those killed by the initial explosion and the consecutive flooding of watertight compartments.[3]

Notable passengers

Sir Ronald Ross, first British Nobel laureate for his discovery of the malaria vector, embarked at Taranto, Italy, on 13 December 1917 on his way to Salonika. Ross described the torpedo attack in his 1923 memoir:

"I shared an upper cabin with Colonel Plunket and had my coffee at 8am, while we were zigzagging into the entrance of the channel and was preparing to have my bath when there was a tremendous crash which nearly flung us down. When I went on deck there was some confusion but our ship, though motionless, was certainly not sinking fast...We were in a landlocked bay close to the Leucadian Rock (where Sappho is supposed to have drowned herself), the destroyers were alongside and the French soldiers were getting into them; but as our ship seemed to be all right I went down again to the cabin exasperated at losing my uncle’s gold watch! I never thought of a second torpedo!...Almost everyone had got into the destroyers, so I scrambled across a pontoon into the destroyer Mameluke, getting one leg wet, while a sailor threw my valise and despatch case across after me. Both destroyers then sheered off. Meantime several British ‘drifters’ had emerged from somewhere and were popping away at something; one came between us and the Chateau Renault as we sheered off. Then came another, and another, terrific explosion; and a few minutes later up went the stern of our old ship and down she went (with all my bedding, confound it, and gold watch)."[4]

Sir Ronald Ross' memoirs also recounts the moment the UC-38 was destroyed:

"Suddenly all the soldiers began pointing in one direction and one behind me said ‘Voyez monsieur’. There, 200 yards from us, was the deck of an emerging submarine. She had been touched by one of our depth-charges. Her crew were jumping off her deck into the sea, one after the other, as fast as they could like frogs. In another minute a storm of shells and shot ploughed up the water round her. The our captain yelled out ‘Asseyez vous’. We were going to fire off our own big gun...Our shell took effect; up rose the stern of the submarine and then slowly down she slid, as her victim had done, leaving a number of pink heads dotting the water – Boches clamouring to be saved. A Frenchman near me was handing round pistols to shoot at them, but our captain promptly stopped that. Boats went out and rescued 18 of the German crew; they came aboard naked and shivering but happy! For some reason we were all happy together."[5]

References

  1. ↑ Bertin, Louis-Émile (1906). Robertson, Leslie S., ed. Marine boilers, their construction and working, dealing more especially with tubulous boilers (2nd ed.). p. 435. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "UC 38 Sous-marin". Pages d’Histoire: Forum Marine (in French). 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Chateaurenault". Pages d’Histoire: Forum Marine (in French). 2009. Retrieved 28 March 2015.
  4. ↑ Ross, Sir Ronald (1923). Memoirs with a full account of the Great Malaria Problem and its Solution. London: John Murray. p. 520.
  5. ↑ Ross, Sir Ronald (1923). Memoirs with a full account of the Great Malaria Problem and its Solution. London: John Murray. p. 521.
  • Roche, Jean-Michel (2005). Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours, 1870-2006 (in French). Vol. II. Rezotel-Maury Millau. ISBN 9782952591713.
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