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Further Reading

Jeanne d'Arc

The Jeanne d'Arc is the Porte-hélicoptères [helicopter carrier] that replaced the traditional cruiser of the same name as the naval training ship of the French Navy in 1964. Jeanne d'Arc has no sister ships, and has not been much altered in her years of service with the French Navy.

After the 2010 "désarmement" of Jeanne d'Arc, the projection and command ship of the Mistral class are now loaded in turn to provide training at sea. The Marine Nationale ship "Jeanne d'Arc" ship, performed her last return to Brest, her home port, on 27 May 2010. The mythical ship, which had trained thousands of cadets, was then disarmed and deconstructed. The last campaign of the "Jeanne d'Arc" led her these past six months on the American continent, before ultimate stopovers Honfleur and St Malo and a last arrival in Brest Harbour. The oldest vessel of the Navy, launched in 1964 and which since then trained some 6,400 cadets, was in pre-retirement since 2004. "Jeanne" was no longer pushing its machines at full steam to preserve its mechanical systems, its sonar was out of service, and dozens of coats of grey paint covering her hull badly camouflaient her obsolescence.

The helicopters joined the dock at the naval base on 31 May 2010, the date which will began her disarmament. There, fuel, ammunition, rations, documentations and spare equipment were landed. At the end of these operations, the ship officially left the naval action force of 120 combat and support vessels, and passed under the authority of the maritime prefect of Brest. Then the Navy conducted the "condemnation" of Jeanne d'Arc, an administrative procedure which "débaptised" the ship and gave it a hull number, starting with Q. The "Clemenceau" in its time had thus become the Q790. A public market was then launched to establish "the inventory of potentially hazardous materials" necessary to prepare for the removal of asbestos and the deconstruction of the ship. The ship contained significant amounts of asbestos. Here two or three years later, a second deconstruction public market will be open for the dismantling of several old ships of the Navy including the Jeanne who will be stored pending in the Brest naval base.

Of 182 meters length and with a displacement of 12,000 tons, the "Jeanne d'Arc" is propelled by four boilers supplying two turbines with vapor, and can reach a speed of 28 knots (50 km/h). Its armament initially consists of its capacity of carryings of helicopters of all types, which constitute its true system of weapons. The "Jeanne d'Arc" also has six Exocet sea-to-sea missile launchers (offensive armament antI - ships). The two triple Exocet missiles are fitted on the deck in front of the bridge. The four turrets with 100 mm guns are used for self-defence anti-air and anti-surface. Other euqipent includes a sonar (detection anti- underwater and torpedes) as well as electronic warfare equipment (detection and identification of the electromagnetic emissions).

The school of application of the naval officers was created in 1864. Before this date, the naval officers leaving the Naval college were divided on the buildings of the fleet in order to acquire there practical knowledge which could not have been taught to them. The will to maintain them grouped in order to give them a homogeneous teaching, within a building dedicated to their hands-on training led to the creation of the school of application. The officer-pupils, during a program which allows them the discovery of many countries, improve their practice of the quarter to the sea, and of guard to damping, carry out many exercises, take part in the life of the services of the building, and are able, at the end of the campaign, to carry out the building by themselves under all the aspects of the responsibility for a naval officer: head of a service, person in charge of control nautical, responsible for the correct operation for the propulsion, person in charge of the use of the weapons, etc.

Five ships already bore the name of the JEANNE d'ARC; among those, two were used as training ship: the armoured cruiser (1901-1933) of 11,300 tons, and the cruiser-school (1931-1964) of 9,200 tons. This last was the first with being especially built to be used as a school. The new Jeanne d'Arc, was built by the arsenal of Brest from 1959-1961, and put afloat on 30 September 1961. With the provisional name of the RESOLUE, it entered active service on 16 July, 1964. The same day, it took the name of Jeanne d'Arc.

With another combat ship, the GEORGE-LEYGUE in 1999-2000, she set up the School Group of application of the Officers of Navy and carries out each year a several month campaign around the world starting from Brest. The 1998-1999 campaign was completed on 09 April 1999, after a voyage of 32,885 miles nautical, that is to say 50,193 km or 93 times the Paris-Brest distance. During this circumnavigation of the world, the "Jeanne d'Arc" and "George Leygues" made 13 stopovers including two technical stopovers and two stopovers for the assistance of the Central American population.

The personnel of the "Jeanne d'Arc" had the occasion to go to the help of the victims of Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the East coast of Central America in November 1998. Diverted on November 6, the "Jeanne d' Arc" was present from the 13 to November 22 in Central America for the humane mission of baptized assistance operation "Cormorant". Each day, seven teams made up of two doctors, a male nurse and of an interpreter carried assistance to the populations. The road ways being impracticable, the helicopters of the building conveyed help. In 8 days, 2,000 medical consultations were carried out, 59 tons of food food were héliportées in the villages disaster victims of Honduras and Guatemala.

The helicopter carrier embarks a detachment of Flotilla 22S and a detachment of the Light Aviation of the Army (ALAT). The Jeanne d'Arc received the parraignage towns of Domrémy, Nancy, Orleans, Rouen and Vaucouleurs. Intended missions, in times of peace, are to be used as school ship, while putting to work an air grouping of helicopters, and in times of war to be used as a anti-submarine and attack helicopter carrier.