Beograd-class destroyer

The ''Beograd'' class of destroyers consisted of three ships built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy in the late 1930s, a variant of the French . was constructed in France and and were built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In January 1940, ''Ljubljana'' struck a reef off the port of Šibenik, and was still under repair when the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced in April 1941. During the invasion, ''Zagreb'' was scuttled to prevent its capture, and the other two ships were captured by the Italians. The Royal Italian Navy operated ''Beograd'' and ''Ljubljana'' as convoy escorts between Italy, the Aegean Sea, and North Africa, under the names ''Sebenico'' and ''Lubiana'' respectively. ''Lubiana'' was lost in the Gulf of Tunis in April 1943; ''Sebenico'' was seized by the Germans in September 1943 after the Italian surrender and was subsequently operated by the German Navy as ''TA43''. There are conflicting reports about the fate of ''TA43'', but it was lost in the final weeks of the war.

In 1967, a French film was made about the scuttling of ''Zagreb''. In 1973, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded the two officers who scuttled ''Zagreb'' with the Order of the People's Hero.

Background

Following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the conclusion of World War I, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (KSCS) was created. Austria-Hungary transferred the vessels of the former Austro-Hungarian Navy to the new nation. The Kingdom of Italy was unhappy with this, and convinced the Allies to share the Austro-Hungarian ships among the victorious powers. As a result, the only modern sea-going vessels left to the KSCS were 12 torpedo boats, and it had to build its naval forces almost from scratch.

The name of the state was changed to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929. In the early 1930s, the Yugoslav Royal Navy ( sh-Latn, Kraljevska mornarica; sh-Cyrl, Краљевска морнарица; KM) pursued the flotilla leader concept, which involved building large destroyers similar to the World War I Royal Navy V and W-class destroyers, and drew on the experience of the French Navy during the Adriatic Campaign of World War I. In the interwar French Navy, these ships were intended to operate with smaller destroyers, or as half-flotillas of three ships. The Royal Yugoslav Navy decided to build three such flotilla leaders, ships that could reach high speeds and would have long endurance. The endurance requirement reflected Yugoslav plans to deploy the ships to the central Mediterranean, where they would be able to operate alongside French and British warships. This resulted in the construction of the destroyer in 1930–1931. Soon after she was ordered, the onset of the Great Depression meant that only one ship of the planned half-flotilla was ever built.

Despite the fact that other two planned large destroyers were not going to be built, the idea that ''Dubrovnik'' might operate with a number of smaller destroyers persisted. In 1934, buoyed by a special credit of 500 million dinars for an enlargement and modernisation program, the KM decided to acquire three such destroyers to operate in a division led by ''Dubrovnik''. The ''Beograd'' class was a variant of the French , which had a strong main battery hampered by a slow rate-of-fire and combined with a weak anti-submarine suite. The French design was also top heavy, and the forward section of the hull was too narrow resulting in a wet forecastle in any sea state. These characteristics were combined with limited endurance.

The name ship of the class, , was built by ''Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire'' at Nantes, France, whereas the remaining ships of the class, and , were built by '' Jadranska brodogradilišta'' at Split, Yugoslavia, under French supervision. Two more ships of the class were planned, but not built. The ''Jadranska brodogradilišta'' shipyard at Kraljevica was responsible for the construction and delivery of boilers and other machinery.

Description and construction

The ships had an overall length of , a beam of , and a normal draught of . Their standard displacement was , increasing to at full load. ''Beograd'' was powered by Curtis steam turbines, and ''Zagreb'' and ''Ljubljana'' used Parsons steam turbines. Regardless of the turbines used, they drove two propellers, using steam generated by three Yarrow water-tube boilers. Their turbines were rated at and they were designed to propel the ships at a top speed of , although they were only able to reach a practical top speed of in service. They carried of fuel oil, which gave them a radius of action of . Their crews consisted of 145 personnel, including officers and enlisted men.

Main armament consisted of four Škoda L/46 superfiring guns in single mounts, two forward of the superstructure and two aft, protected by gun shields. Secondary armament consisted of four Škoda L/67 anti-aircraft guns in two twin-gun mounts, located on either side of the aft shelter deck. The ships were also equipped with two triple mounts of torpedo tubes and two machine guns. Their fire-control systems were provided by the Dutch firm of Hazemayer. As built, they could also carry 30 naval mines.

Ships

Service

At the time of the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, only ''Beograd'' and ''Zagreb'' had been commissioned, with ''Ljubljana'' being brought into service three months after the war started. Their only significant pre-war task was undertaken by ''Beograd'' in May 1939, and involved the transportation of a large portion of Yugoslavia's gold reserve to the United Kingdom for safekeeping. On 24 January 1940, ''Ljubljana'' ran into a reef off the Yugoslav port of Šibenik. The hull side was breached and despite efforts to get the ship into the port, it sank close to shore, and some of the crew swam to safety. One crew member died, and the captain was arrested pending an investigation.

When Yugoslavia was invaded by the German-led Axis powers on 6 April 1941, ''Beograd'' and ''Zagreb'' were allocated to the 1st Torpedo Division at the Bay of Kotor along with ''Dubrovnik'', but ''Ljubljana'' was still under repair at Šibenik. On 9 April, ''Beograd'' and other vessels were tasked with supporting an attack on the Italian enclave of Zara on the Dalmatian coast, but the naval prong of the attack was aborted when ''Beograd'' suffered engine damage from near misses by Italian aircraft. She returned to the Bay of Kotor for repairs. ''Beograd'' and ''Ljubljana'' were captured in port by Italian forces on 17 April, but on the same day, two of ''Zagrebs officers scuttled her to prevent her capture, and were killed by the resulting explosions.

In Italian service, ''Beograd'' and ''Ljubljana'' were repaired, re-armed, and renamed ''Sebenico'' and ''Lubiana'' respectively. ''Sebenico'' was commissioned into the Royal Italian Navy in August 1941, and ''Lubiana'' in October or November 1942. They both served mainly as convoy escorts between Italy and the Aegean and North Africa, with ''Sebenico'' completing more than 100 convoy escort missions over a two-year period. Neither ship was involved in any notable action. On 1 April 1943, ''Lubiana'' was either sunk off the Tunisian coast by British aircraft, or ran aground in the Gulf of Tunis and was lost. ''Sebenico'' was captured by the Germans in Venice after the Italian Armistice in September 1943 in a damaged condition. She was repaired, re-armed, and renamed ''TA43'' and entered service in the '' Kriegsmarine'' (German Navy). ''TA43'' served on escort and mine-laying duties in the northern Adriatic Sea, but saw little action. One source states that she was damaged by artillery fire on 30 April 1945 at Trieste and then scuttled, with others suggesting she was scuttled on 1 May.

In 1967, a French film, '' Flammes sur l'Adriatique'' (Adriatic Sea of Fire) was made, portraying the scuttling of ''Zagreb'' and the events leading up to it. In 1973, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded the Order of the People's Hero to the two officers who scuttled ''Zagreb''.

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{{Yugoslav Ships , state=collapsed

Destroyer classes
France–Yugoslavia relations