France:
Destroyer
Maillé Brézé burning and sinking after one of her own torpedoes detonated onboard her. Off Greenock, Scotland, 30 April 1940.
On 30 April 1940, at 14:15, as
Maillé Brézé was anchored at the
Tail of the Bank,
Firth of Clyde off
Greenock, Scotland, a torpedo tube malfunctioned while undergoing maintenance and launched an armed torpedo onto the deck which struck the aft end of the forecastle. The detonation set fire to the fuel tanks and the forward
magazine, which however did not explode. At 15:15, the crew abandoned ship due to the danger of explosion, except for numerous sailors trapped in the mess hall. Around 16:30, a few sailors returned to the ship to flood the aft magazine, and by 19:30 the fire was controlled by the Greenock firemen. By that time,
Maillé Brézé was so low in the water that she began sinking before she could be towed, and she went down with those still trapped in the forward part. The accident killed 37 and wounded 47 crewmen. Although the ship was well off the main shipping channel when she sank, by 1953 the
Ministry of Transport was concerned about unstable ammunition and leakage of her remaining fuel oil and requested that the
Admiralty assess the feasibility of raising the wreck. After cutting away most of her superstructure to reduce the weight of the
silt-filled ship, her hull was first lifted on the night of 3/4 August 1954. After grounding her on a nearby beach where 40 long tons (41 t) of ammunition and 500 long tons (508 t) of fuel oil were removed, the ship was refloated and towed to
Port Glasgow on 15 September where she was broken up
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