Maillé-Brézé -  (D627)

maille breze meretmarinecomThe T-47-class destroyer « Maillé-Brézé » is named after Jean Armand de Maillé, Marquis de Brézé, Duc de Fronsac, who lived from 1618 to 1646. He is the son of a Marshal of France and the nephew of Cardinal de Richelieu. He was born in Saumur, which is the sponsor city of the Maillé-Brézé.

Jeans Armand de Maillé, was Colonel to 15 years old, General of the Galleys to 20 and Grand Admiral to 24. He participated in eight campaigns of war at sea and was killed at the age of 27 at the naval battle of Orbitello. He carried the offensive spirit to such a degree that his death left the French Navy disoriented for a while.

Two warships have already been called “Maillé-Brézé”. One during the seventeenth century and the second, a 2400 tons destroyer, built in 1930 was accidentally destroyed in 1940.

The Maillé-Brézé is part of a series of 18 destroyers built after WW2 at Arsenal de Lorient in Lorient.

She was commissioned on May 4, 1957. During its ten first years of service, it had an important activity in the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. From 1967 to 1968, it was sent to Lorient to be transformed into an anti-submarine warfare ship. On April 3, 1968, he was assigned to Brest to be part of the Escadre de l’Atlantique.

Disarmed, the ship was handed over to the association “Nantes Marine Tradition”. It was towed to Nantes in 1988 where it became the first French naval museum of this magnitude.

Nantes' commercial port, has built many merchant, pleasure and war ships during the past. Among these, three destroyer similar to the “Maillé-Brézé” were built in Nantes:

Le Cassard
Le Tartu
Le Guepratte

More than 2,300 ships were designed and built by the shipyard of the city. What could be more natural than seeing the Maillé-Brézé representing and reminding the rich history of shipyards in Nantes.



Museum info:
Address: Quai de la fosse, 44000 Nantes, France
Phone: + 33979183351
Maillé-Brézé's website 
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