French cruiser De Grasse

De Grasse was an anti-aircraft cruiser of the French Navy, the first French vessel named for Francois Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse. Her hull was only about 28 percent complete when German forces captured it in June 1940, and in 1942 and 1943 Germany planned, then dropped, a conversion to a light aircraft carrier. The hull was launched in 1946, building paused again until 1951, and she was finished to a much modified anti-aircraft design at the Brest navy yard, with steam turbines on two shafts, 16 127 mm guns in eight twin turrets and a trial speed of about 33.8 knots. She was commissioned on 10 September 1956 and served as flagship of the Mediterranean squadron before being rebuilt in 1964 to 1966 as flagship for the nuclear tests in French Polynesia, where she supported six campaigns between 1966 and 1972. She was decommissioned in 1973 and scrapped at La Spezia in 1975.