French destroyer Milan

The French destroyer Milan was one of six Aigle-class destroyer (contre-torpilleurs) built for the French Navy during the 1930s.

Service
Following the German invasion of Norway in April 1940, Milan escorted two convoys carrying French troops of the Chasseurs Alpins to Namsos and Harstad between 18 April and 27 April. On 3–4 May 1940, Milan, together with the French destroyers FRENCH DESTROYER Chevalier Paul and FRENCH DESTROYER Tartu and the British destroyers HMS Sikh (F82) and HMS Tartar (F43), made a sweep into the Skagerrak, but encountered no German shipping.

On 15 June she carried General de Gaulle from Brest to Plymouth on the first stage of his journey to London for talks with the British government.

After France surrendered to Germany, Milan served with the naval forces of Vichy France. She was at Casablanca in French Morocco when Allied forces invaded French North Africa in Operation Torch on 8 November 1942. She was in action against United States Navy TF 34 during the Naval Battle of Casablanca and was beached after sustaining a shell hit from USS Massachusetts (BB-59), and possibly other US ships. Older work on the subject have errantly attributed Milan's crippling to shell hits from the destroyer USS Wilkes (DD-441), which had broken off action against Milan at least 25 minutes prior to the French ship being knocked out of the fight (which occurred shortly before 10:00), but French reports consistently list a 406mm (16 inch) shell among the damage Milan incurred, in addition to two more shells, probably 8 inch, that struck her immediately thereafter. Milan was underway at the time of the 16 inch hit, and if historian Vincent O’Hara and the museum Battleship Cove are correct in their interpretations of Massachusetts' log and their corresponding French records, this hit would qualify as the longest ship-to-ship hit by a battleship in history at between 26,000-28,000 yards.