Foch

Foch is the third unit of the Suffren class. She was laid down on 21 June 1928, launched on 24 April 1929 and commissioned in 1931, the same year she entered in service and spent the interwar period in the Mediterranean. She participated in the search for the Graf Spee in the Atlantic before returning to Toulon. In June 1940, after the Franco-German Armistice she spent an inert period of guarding till November 1942, still in Toulon at that time and facing the Germans who arrived in the arsenal, the cruiser Foch was scuttled. She was then raised by the Italians in April 1943. She was originally to be named Lavois after the Marquis de Lavois, the Minister of War under King Louis XIV. However, Marshall Ferdinand Foch, France's most famous soldier during the First World War died on 29 March 1929 one month before her launch. She was then renamed Foch in his honour.