French frigate Sénégalais
1943 Cannon-class destroyer escort
Yser, originally named Sénégalais, was a destroyer in the French Navy during World War II and the French Navy post-war. The ship was originally built as USS Corbesier (DE-106), an American Cannon-class destroyer escort named for Antoine Joseph Corbesier, for more than 40 years the beloved swordmaster of U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen. The name Corbesier (DE-106) was cancelled 24 September 1943 so it could be used for USS Corbesier (DE-438).
History
During World War II, Corbesier was transferred to the Free French Naval Forces under lend lease on 2 January 1944, and renamed Sénégalais. Ownership of the vessel was transferred to France on 21 April 1952 under the Mutual Defense Assistance Program. She was renamed Yser about that same time.
World War II
In the night on 2/3 May 1944, U-371 was spotted recharging her batteries on the surface off Djidjelli on the Algerian coast. The area was swamped with six escorts from the convoy GUS-38 and three aircraft squadrons. At 01.18 hours on 3 May, the U-boat managed to damage Menges with a Gnat in the stern. The other vessels hunted the U-boat until the early morning of 4 May, when its commander had to surface his boat and save his crew, but at 04.04 hours he still fought back and also damaged the FFL Sénégalais (T 22) with a Gnat before scuttling the U-boat.
The public source identifies “French frigate Sénégalais” as 1943 Cannon-class destroyer escort. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around French, frigate and Sénégalais.
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This entry incorporates text from “French frigate Sénégalais” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.