French destroyer Le Malin

Le Malin underway, circa 1940
History
France
Name	Le Malin
Ordered	23 May 1931
Builder	Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée, La Seyne-sur-Mer
Laid down	16 November 1931
Launched	17 August 1933
Completed	1 May 1936
Commissioned	20 December 1935
In service	8 June 1936
Reclassified	As a light cruiser, 28 September 1943
Stricken	3 February 1964
Fate	Scrapped, 1977
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Le Fantasque-class destroyer
Displacement	2,569 t (2,528 long tons) (standard) 3,417 t (3,363 long tons) (deep load)
Length	132.4 m (434 ft 5 in)
Beam	12 m (39 ft 4 in)
Draft	4.5 m (14 ft 9 in)
Installed power	4 water-tube boilers 74,000 PS (54,000 kW; 73,000 shp)
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbines
Speed	37 knots (69 km/h; 43 mph) (designed)
Range	2,900 nmi (5,400 km; 3,300 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	11 officers, 254 sailors (wartime)
Armament	5 × single 138.6 mm (5.5 in) guns 2 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns 2 × twin 13.2 mm (0.52 in) AA machine guns 3 × triple 550 mm (21.7 in) torpedo tubes 2 × chutes for 28 depth charges 40 × mines

Le Malin ("The evil one / The clever one / The Devil") was one of six Le Fantasque-class large destroyers (contre-torpilleur, "Torpedo-boat destroyer") built for the Marine Nationale (French Navy) during the 1930s. The ship entered service in 1935 and participated in the Second World War. When war was declared in September 1939, all of the Le Fantasques were assigned to the Force de Raid, tasked with hunting down German commerce raiders and blockade runners. Le Malin and two of her sister ships were based in Dakar, French West Africa, to patrol the Central Atlantic for several months in late 1939. They returned to Metropolitan France before the end of the year and were transferred to French Algeria in late April 1940 in case Italy decided to enter the war. Le Malin played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign in late April. After returning to the Mediterranean, she screened French cruisers several times as they unsuccessfully hunted for Italian ships after Italy declared war in June.

After most of French Equatorial Africa had declared for Free France in August, Le Malin and two of her sisters escorted a force of cruisers sent to Dakar in September to intimidate the colonies into rejoining Vichy France. The British and Free French sent a force to persuade French West Africa to join the Free French and the Battle of Dakar began when the garrison rejected their entreaties. The destroyers were given a defensive role, laying a smoke screen to protect the cruisers as they engaged the British ships. Le Malin was refitting in Casablanca, French Morocco, when the Allies invaded French North Africa in late 1942. Badly damaged during the attack and captured afterwards, the ship required temporary repairs before she was sent to the United States for permanent repairs and modernization in mid-1943. She returned to the Mediterranean at the beginning of 1944 where she spent the rest of the year searching for Axis shipping with two of her sisters. In between raids, the ship provided naval gunfire support during Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France in mid-1944. Le Malin had her bow severed during a collision in December and repairs took almost a year to complete.

The ship was only intermittently active for the rest of the 1940s, but was modernized to serve as an escort for French aircraft carriers in 1951. She accompanied one of them to French Indochina to provide support for the French forces there before returning in mid-1952 and was reduced to reserve upon her return. After many years in secondary roles, Le Malin was stricken in 1964 and became a floating breakwater before her hulk was finally scrapped in 1977.