Original Item. Only One Available. La Grandière was one of a dozen Bougainville-class avisos built for the French Navy during the 1930s. The ships were designed to operate from French colonies in Asia and Africa. She was ordered as Ville d'Ys, but was completed as La Grandière in 1940. The ship survived the Second World War to see service in the Cold War.

This is an interesting French naval cap, often called a “Bachi”, with a white cover and cap tally for the French aviso “La Grandière”. The cap is in fair but worn shape overall with some tearing and damage, but French naval caps are very difficult to find in any condition, especially those with ship tallies and not the basic universal tally.

The Bougainville-class avisos were intended for service in the French colonial empire in austere conditions. They had an overall length of 103.7 metres (340 ft 3 in), a beam of 12.7 metres (41 ft 8 in), and a draught of 4.15 metres (13 ft 7 in). The ships displaced 1,969 tonnes (1,938 long tons) at standard load and 2,600 tonnes (2,600 long tons) at deep load. The superstructure, decks, and the upper plating of the hull was made from armor-steel plates 5–6 millimetres (0.20–0.24 in) thick to better resist small arms and machine gun bullets. Their crew consisted of 14 officers and 121 ratings in peacetime.

Admitted to active service on June 20, 1940, the La Grandière was immediately assigned to the Levant naval division and based in Beirut. It left this assignment in April 1941 to be integrated into the "Ocean Patrols", escorting and protecting French convoys off the coast of French West Africa. On June 27, during a refueling, he saved a seaplane whose floats were punctured.

On July 27, 1942, it sailed from Toulon in company with the submarine Archimède for Oran, then Casablanca where it resumed its escort duties in the Atlantic. On September 3, it was interrupted by an American attack on the Moroccan coast. It was caught up in Operation Torch. The crew remained at their battle stations for 72 hours, engaging enemy ships four times with their 138mm guns and enduring seven air attacks. On November 8, the La Grandière had to set sail between the 406 mm shell bursts of the USS Massachusetts, picking up the survivors (including the captain) of the torpedo boat Fougueux. It managed to shoot down one of the aircraft attacking the Primauguet and was itself heavily attacked that evening. On the 9th, the La Grandière disabled one of the aircraft bombing the Jean Bart while it was in port. In total, 4 sailors were killed and 21 wounded, 10 of them seriously.

The cap tally is a bit loose and the cap is quite sunken. There is a chinstrap string held on by two buttons, and the cap retains the red pom pom on the top, held in by two prongs. We have not attempted to remove the white cover. 

Ready to display.