French battleship Liberté (1905)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
|
| Career (France) |  |
|---|---|
| Namesake: | Liberty |
| Builder: | Chantiers de la Loire, Saint-Nazaire |
| Laid down: | 1902 |
| Launched: | 16 April 1905 |
| In service: | 1908 |
| Fate: | Destroyed by accidental detonation of her magazines, 25 September 1911 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Liberté class battleship |
| Displacement: | 14 900 tonnes |
| Length: | 134 m |
| Beam: | 24.25 m |
| Draught: | 8.40 m |
| Propulsion: | 3 steam engines, 22 boilers, 20 500 HP |
| Speed: | 19.4 knots |
| Range: | 8000 nm at 12 knots |
| Endurance: | 900 tonnes of coal |
| Complement: | 25 officers, 715 men |
| Armament: |
4 × 305mm/40 Modèle 1893 guns (twin) |
| Armour: | Belt: 280 mm |
The Liberté was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy
The Liberté was commanded by capitaine de vaisseau Louis Jaurès.
On 25 September 1911, as the Liberté was moored in Toulon harbour, an accidental explosion at the bow at starboard started a fire in the 194 mm magazines, which quickly spread to the rest of the ship, in spite of the efforts of the crew and attempts at flooding the magazines. At 5:53 PM, the main magazines detonated, destroying the ship and killing 200 of her crew. People on the neighbouring ships and in the port were also killed and maimed, yielding a total count of around 300 killed.
The loss hit the French opinion particularly harshly because of the high human toll, of the large military value of the Liberté, and because it was the latest of a long series of accidental fires due to chemical instability of the ammunition, which had culminated four years earlier with the explosion of the Iéna.
The wreck was raised on 25 February 1925 and scrapped.
