2ET.1 trainer
Béarn was
commissioned on 5 December 1927, although she did not enter service until 1 May 1928. The ship was assigned to the (1st Battleship Squadron) of the (1st Squadron) in the Mediterranean. A week later the carrier loaded aboard 's (French Naval Aviation) reconnaissance
squadron and the bomber squadron , both equipped with
Levasseur PL.4 aircraft. That evening
Béarn embarked a three-man
senatorial commission on a fact-finding trip to
Corsica and
French Tunisia that lasted until the 20th. On 27 May , equipped with
Lévy-Biche LB.2 fighters flew aboard for a cruise to the Atlantic and the
English Channel, visiting ports in
French Morocco en route. On 20 June
Béarn participated in an exercise where the attacked the defenses of
Lorient and conducted
amphibious landings. She was present during a naval review in
Le Havre when the fleet was reviewed by the
President of France,
Gaston Doumergue on 3 July. The squadron visited ports in
Normandy, during which time a LB.2 was forced to
ditch, before returning to
Brittany on 20 July. The squadron departed for
Toulon on 29 July, although
Béarn was diverted to
Santander,
Spain, to be visited by King
Alfonso XIII. After a short visit to
French Algeria, the ship returned to Toulon on 4 August.
André Jubelin, a future admiral and pioneering naval aviator, served aboard the ship during this time, although he had not yet qualified as a pilot. It was during this cruise that the drawbacks of the carrier's low speed became apparent. When operating with the fleet she had to turn into the wind to launch two aircraft and it took her an hour and a quarter at a speed of to rejoin the squadron, despite its low cruising speed of .
Béarn made a short training cruise to Corsica and French North Africa between 12 October and 9 November to qualify pilots. Limited by shortages of aircraft (the LB.2s were unserviceable) and experienced pilots, 7C1 only flew two
Dewoitine D.1 fighters, 7S2 three PL.4s and 7B1 had four PL.4s. Between them the three squadrons mustered only seven pilots. In December the carrier began a short refit that angled the forward flight deck 4.5 degrees downwards as the first step in allowing aircraft to land over her bow. In addition, the primitive sandbag arresting gear was replaced by two prototypes of mechanically operated arresting gear. After the refit was completed in May,
Béarn used her CAMS 37 seaplanes to conduct trials evaluating the visibility of the submerged submarine on 4–16 May. The ship participated in exercises in the Western Mediterranean and off the coast of Morocco from 27 May to 10 July. A few months later the carrier cruised down the Atlantic coast of Morocco, flying a few reconnaissance missions in southern Morocco in late October to intimidate any rebellious Berber tribesmen and visiting
Dakar,
French West Africa,
Madeira and the
Canary Islands. During this voyage a single
Wibault 74 fighter was tested. During
Béarns refit from December 1929 to April 1930, the downward angle of the stern was changed to match the 4.5 degrees of the bow. On 8 May the carrier had aboard 10 D.1s, 5 LB.2s, 16 PL.4s and 3 CAMS 37s. Two days later she participated in the naval review of the by Doumergue in
Algiers that commemorated the centenary of the
French conquest of Algeria. Upon her return to Toulon on 14 June, the LB.2s were replaced by D.1s, pending delivery of the Wibault 74s on order. At the end of December 7B1 began practicing simulated torpedo drops. The
Levasseur PL.7 torpedo bomber had been delivered to 7B1 when
Béarn accompanied the on its North African cruise from 8 May to 24 June. She was refitted at the end of the year. The
Levasseur PL.10 had replaced the PL.4 in 7S1 by April 1932. On the third of that month, the ship was visited by
François Piétri,
Minister of National Defense. At this time 7C1 was having its new Wibault 74s modified and could not participate in the squadron's
Eastern Mediterranean cruise from 15 April to 25 June. They made their first deck landings on 20 July. The ship was transferred to the (2nd Battleship Squadron) in October. The following month an inspection criticized the carrier's combat readiness as she was limited to a speed of . In 1933 the strength of each squadron was increased from six aircraft to nine, except for the fighter squadron which increased to ten. During the 1st Squadron's cruise to North Africa from 3 May to 24 June,
Béarns squadrons practiced searching for and attacking enemy ships from a land base in mid-May and used
Oran, French Algeria, for target practice a few days later. A few months later, 7B1's PL.10s practiced attacking
battleships escorted by
destroyers on 20 July. A few weeks later, the carrier participated in a naval review by
Pierre Cot,
Minister of Air, on 5 August.
Béarn was out of service from August to November, during which time 7S1 converted from PL.10s to the PL.101, an improved version of the same aircraft.
1934–1935 reconstruction By January 1931
Béarn was in bad shape due to the jamming of the center elevator's clamshell doors and the poor state of her boilers; by October studies were being undertaken for a major reconstruction to include replacement of the boilers, modifications to the forward elevator and replacement of the 75 mm guns by the newer and more powerful
Canon de Modèle 1927 AA gun. Cost and feasibility studies were also ordered to investigate the possibilities of replacement of the direct-drive turbines with geared models, fitting torpedo bulges and better horizontal protection against the increased threat from land-based aircraft. If she was fitted with geared turbines and new boilers for , the designers estimated that the carrier would have a speed of , although installation of bulges would cost over a knot () and increase displacement by about . The improvement in speed would not be enough to allow
Béarn to operate with the new
fast battleships and it was not possible to upgrade the ship's horizontal protection. The (Navy Minister) did not believe that it was worthwhile to invest a large sum of money in a 20-year-old hull and only authorized 25 million francs to be spent on replacing the boilers with six of the latest
du Temple boilers, enlargement of the and removal of the charthouse and the torpedo tubes. Furthermore, the ineffectual 8 mm machine guns were replaced by six twin mounts of the
Mitrailleuse de Modèle 1929 machine gun, the high-angle directors were upgraded and new rangefinders were fitted for the AA guns. The reconstruction began in February 1934 and lasted until November 1935. During her machinery trials on 26 August,
Béarn averaged with five of her six boilers lit. In March, a
Potez 565 took off from
Béarn, the first time a twin-engined aircraft had ever operated from an aircraft carrier. The ship made one last training cruise with the 1st Squadron to French North Africa from 8 May to 24 June before her transfer to the (2nd Light Squadron) of the became effective on 1 October. She was initially based at
Brest, but was transferred to
Cherbourg on 27 November and participated in a training cruise to Madeira and French West Africa from 13 January to 26 February 1937. After returning home, she conducted tests with a
LeO C.30 autogyro in late March.
Béarn participated in a naval review in Brest for the ,
Alphonse Gasnier-Duparc, on 27 May. The following month, her aircraft began training for night operations. For the 1938 training cruise of the ,
Béarn only embarked 7S1 and 7B1 squadrons. They exercised off the
Azores, Madeira and the Moroccan Atlantic coast while visiting
Lisbon,
Portugal. During this cruise, a PL.101 towed a target for twilight anti-aircraft gunnery training and then landed aboard the carrier in the dark without incident. This was the first French night carrier landing made out of range of land.
Béarn received a brief refit from late July to 25 September; the work was accelerated as tensions rose during the
Munich Crisis in September. On 1 October the ship's squadrons were redesignated: 7C1 became AC1, 7B1 became AB1 and 7S2 became AB2. During an exercise in November, AB1 had six aircraft and AB2 had nine. In October and November, AC1 began deploying the
Dewoitine D.373 fighter, with three pilots making the first successful deck landings during this time.
Béarn was refitted from 20 January to 5 April 1939, which included retubing some of her boilers. During a storm on 22 January, the ship broke loose from her
moorings, but she was caught by
tugboats and temporarily docked at Laninon, Brest. Beginning in early 1939, AC1 began receiving the Dewoitine D.376, a version of the 373 with folding wings. The folding mechanism took an hour to operate and its use was abandoned by the carrier's crew since her elevators were big enough to handle the fighters with their wings spread. In July
Béarn conducted deck-landing trials for the prototypes of the
Loire-Nieuport LN.401 dive bomber and
Vought V-156F dive bombers purchased from the United States.
World War II The day after the French declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939,
Béarn received orders to fly off her aircraft. On 5 October, the carrier was nominally assigned to Force L, together with the battleship and three
light cruisers, which was tasked with searching the
West Indies for the German cruiser
Admiral Graf Spee. In reality the carrier remained in Brest, conducting anti-aircraft exercises and beginning the process of being modified to serve as a tanker for
Breguet 521 Bizerte and
Laté.523 flying boats. Although the modifications principally consisted of an addition of a boom to support a refuelling hose, the work lasted from October to April 1940. While docked at Laninon on 23 March, two crewmen were severely injured when blasting work nearby on a new slipway caused the front of the carrier to be struck by numerous pieces of rubble.
Béarn was ordered to Toulon on 13 April to begin deck landing training for AB1 and 2S3. The former was equipped with
Vought V-156Fs and the latter had Levasseur PL.101s, but was supposed to convert to Loire-Nieuport LN.411 dive bombers in May. The ship arrived on 18 April and began training with the pilots of AB1 five days later. Training continued until the German
invasion of France on 10 May when AB1 was ordered north. The carrier returned to Toulon the following day to off-load the equipment of both squadrons and was ordered to prepare for a mission of long duration beginning on 18 May. That day,
Béarns crew loaded 3,880 cases of the
Bank of France's
gold bullion weighing and valued at 9,241,000,000 francs. The gold was intended to pay for armaments purchased from the United States under its
"Cash and carry" policy which allowed US companies to supply arms to belligerents while still retaining American neutrality – a practice that favored Britain and France. The carrier was escorted through the Mediterranean and to the Atlantic coast of Morocco by the destroyers , , and as well as
maritime patrol aircraft. After a brief stopover in Casablanca to refuel on 21 May, her escort was reinforced with a pair of s until the 25th when
Béarn rendezvoused with the light cruisers and west of Madeira, which were transporting bullion themselves, and took over the escort mission. The
flotilla arrived in
Halifax, Canada, on 1 June.
Post-French Armistice to 1945 Béarn began loading aircraft ordered from American manufacturers on 3 June, including 15 new
Curtiss H-75A-4 fighters, 25
Stinson 105 utility aircraft, and 6
Brewster Buffalo fighters intended for the
Belgian Air Component. Sold as surplus by the US Navy, 44
Curtiss SBC Helldiver biplane dive bombers arrived on 15 June and were loaded that day. The carrier and ''Jeanne d'Arc'' departed the next morning, bound for Brest. The ships did not hear the French High Command's order to divert to
Fort-de-France, on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, broadcast on 18 June, but did hear the repeat message on the 20th, after Brest had already been occupied by the Germans. They arrived at Fort-de-France on 27 June and became one of a dozen or so French ships that were effectively interned at Martinique—at U.S. insistence—to prevent their use by Germany. The carrier's aircraft were unloaded ashore on 19 July and the
M2 Browning machine guns aboard the fighters were removed to be used to bolster the anti-aircraft defenses of the French ships;
Béarn received a dozen of the weapons. Many of the aircraft were later destroyed either by exposure to the elements or scavenging. Rising tensions with
Thailand and
Japan over French Indochina beginning in September caused the Vichy Government to open successful negotiations with the Americans to allow the delivery of
Béarns aircraft and supplies to Indochina, but this was rejected by the
German Armistice Commission which had to approve all Vichy French movements. The commission did approve the transfer of the aircraft and supplies to Africa, but this was rejected by the Americans. The ship made brief deployments to
Guadeloupe in May and August 1941. When her hull was being scraped on 6 December, a
diver discovered that one propeller blade had fallen off. In March 1942, all of her 37 mm AA guns were dismounted and transferred to land installations. On 19 April, due to the return to power of the pro-German politician
Pierre Laval, the United States pressured (
Admiral)
Georges Robert, High Commissioner of the Republic to the Antilles, to immobilize the ship; negotiations lasted until 14 May as Robert required that the carrier be able to move in case of hurricanes, but he finally agreed and the German Armistice Commission concurred on the 22nd. As part of the agreement,
Béarn transferred two-thirds of her fuel to an
oil tanker and had four of her six boilers disabled. The ship transferred three of her 75 mm AA guns to the naval base in June. She may have also transferred her forward 155 mm guns to the base around this time. The Vichy Government ordered that the ships in the Antilles be sabotaged on 5 May, but Robert procrastinated following the order, despite reiterations on 12 and 19 May. That day the carrier was run aground near the entrance to the port; one compartment flooded when the hull was pierced by wreckage. On 15 June,
Béarn was reduced to special reserve. Robert ordered her propulsion machinery compartments flooded on 3 July as a further act of sabotage, but this likely would have caused her to
capsize so the turbines and boilers were filled half-full of seawater. When her aircraft were surveyed in June, 27 Stinsons and 10 Curtis Hawks were still serviceable for service in North Africa. The French Antilles joined the Free French when the destroyer arrived in Martinique on 14 July.
Béarn was refloated on 8 September, after she had been pillaged of equipment by the other units based in Martinique, although one dynamo and a steering motor were refurbished to facilitate her tow to Puerto Rico that began on 27 September and ended three days later when she arrived at
Ensenada Honda. The next several months were spent refurbishing her propulsion machinery and electrical equipment. The carrier began post-refit trials on 17 November, but they were unsuccessful as she had to be towed back to the dockyard. After repairs and further testing,
Béarn steamed to the
Todd Shipyards facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, arriving on 3 December. Given her age and limitations, the French did not wish to begin a long and costly conversion into an
escort carrier, but settled for a faster and cheaper conversion into an aircraft transport. Shortages of materials, skilled labor and the difficulties of working with French equipment caused the conversion to take much longer than expected. By May virtually all of the propulsion and auxiliary machinery had been removed to be overhauled with the shipyard expecting all of the work to be completed by 1 September 1944. The did not believe that estimate; its concerns were borne out when a more realistic estimate of 15 December was made on 20 June. Even that date was missed by several weeks as work finally ceased on 30 December. One of the major changes made during the conversion was that her original armament and fire-control equipment was replaced by four 38-caliber
5-inch (127 mm) Mk 37 dual-purpose guns in single mounts where the 155 mm guns had formerly been, twenty-four
guns in six quadruple mounts, one each at the bow and stern and the remaining guns in sponsons on the side of the hull, and twenty-six
Oerlikon guns in individual mountings. Four Mk 51 directors were added to control the 5- and 1.1-inch guns and SA-2
early-warning and SF surface-
search radars were installed on the island.
Béarn stowed 300 rounds per gun for the 5-inch guns, 2,210 for each 1.1-inch gun and 8,862 rounds for each Oerlikon. Other changes included the removal of the middle elevator, the addition of a crane on the port side of the flight deck and the replacement of her diesel generators by a pair of 300-kW
General Motors generators. The protective coal was removed and the coal bunkers were converted into oil tanks, which increased her fuel capacity to . The ship departed New Orleans on 30 December, bound for
Portsmouth, Virginia, where she was docked on 8–19 January 1945 to fix issues that arose on the voyage. On 24 February
Béarn conducted speed trials and reached . She spent the next month
working up and was declared ready on 26 February.
Béarn had to wait for the arrival of 230 additional crewmen before she could steam to New York City to pick up her cargo on 3 March. This included 148 American soldiers and sailors, 88 aircraft and 85 cases of material that totalled . Twenty-six
North American P-51 Mustang fighters and three
Douglas SBD Dauntless dive bombers were stowed inside the hangar with fourteen P-51s and forty-one
Republic P-47 Thunderbolts on the flight deck. The ship also embarked a four-man US Navy liaison detachment.
Béarn steamed from New York on 7 March as part of Convoy CU 61. Early on the morning of 13 March, the transport briefly lost power during heavy weather and collided with the
troop ship . The impact killed 68 soldiers and 1
Naval Armed Guardsman aboard the troop ship and
Béarn had 1 crewman missing, 3 killed and 7 wounded. Both ships suffered hull damage and the transport had her starboard forward guns disabled. They both sailed to
Ponta Delgada, Azores, for emergency repairs and arrived there on the 22nd.
Béarn received permanent repairs at Casablanca from 15 March to 18 July. Despite this, she required further repairs which she received at
Gibraltar on 22–30 July. After sailing to Oran on 31 July, the ship loaded 535 personnel, of material and part of a damaged
Bréguet 730 flying boat bound for Toulon, where she arrived on 3 August. She then loaded 1,378 men of the (13th Demi-Brigade of the
Foreign Legion), 280 airmen and 275 vehicles that she ferried to Algiers on the 9th and then transported 174 legionnaires to Oran four days later.
Béarn was refitted there from 13 August to 9 September.
Postwar service ,
British Ceylon, October 1945 As part of the French attempt to reassert their colonial rule in Indochina,
Béarn ferried men, supplies and material, including 215 vehicles and 9
LCVP landing craft from
Marseille to French Indochina, arriving at the latter on 21 October 1945. The ship departed for British
Singapore on 26 November and arrived two days later. In December 1945,
Béarn transported fourteen ex-British
Landing Craft Assault (LCAs) and six LCVPs from Singapore to Vietnam, and contributed a shore party to man them in the s (river flotillas). As
Chinese Nationalist troops began withdrawing from Northern Vietnam in early 1946, the ship ferried some
Piper L-4 Grasshopper liaison aircraft and three ex-Japanese
Aichi E13A floatplanes of , together with 15 LCAs and 1
Landing Craft Support, to the
Haiphong area at the beginning of March. The transport's medical facilities were used to treat the wounded until her departure on the 11th. When she reached
Saigon three days later, they were transferred to hospital there.
Béarn sailed for
Manila, capital of the
Philippines, on 19 March to load supplies and returned on 11 May after demobilizing some of her long-term crew. The ship spent the next month ferrying supplies and material between ports in Indochina. On 10 June, she loaded 450 troops, including 419 wounded men, aboard and departed for Toulon. Slowed by boiler problems en route, the transport arrived on 23 July and was assigned to the special reserve on 1 October. On 9 December 1948
Béarn was assigned to the (Anti-Submarine Action Group (GASM)) as its flagship. This initially consisted of a group of dedicated anti-submarine ships, the (GBS) and a group of submarines, the (GSMD), with the transport serving as a submarine tender. The GBS was disbanded on 15 September 1950 and the GSMD reverted to its original name, (1st Submarine Flotilla), on 1 October. By 1952, only the five-inch guns remained aboard. The number of crewmen berthed aboard
Béarn fluctuated, but it averaged about 800 men, which taxed the ship's cooking and sanitation facilities. In 1955, she became the first ship in the to be fitted with a television receiver. The GASM was disbanded on 10 October 1960 and the ship was relegated to service as a barracks ship, although she retained her torpedo workshop. Her maintenance costs kept rising to the point that it became cheaper to build a barracks for the submarine crews in 1966.
Béarn was condemned and renamed
Q 419 on 31 March 1967. The ship was sold for scrap on 4 September and towed to
Savona, Italy, four days later to be broken up. Over the course of her long career,
Béarn never launched her aircraft in combat. ==Notes==