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De Grasse was the first ship built
for the French Line after World War One.
With a shortage of materials at that time
and a strike in England, her maiden
voyage from Le Havre - New York was
delayed until August 21st 1924. The
French Line operated De
Grasse on that run alongside their
larger ships, the 23,666-ton
France launched in 1910 and the
34,569-ton Paris launched in 1916.
The arrival of the French Lines
79,280-ton Normandie on the
Atlantic run in 1935 led to De
Grasse undergoing a refit in 1938
to make her more suitable for cruising.
Following the outbreak of World War Two
in September 1939, De
Grasse was laid up at New York for
a few months before being returned to
Bordeaux/France in May 1940. The decision
to return her to France soon proved to be
a serious miscalculation as she fell into
the hands of the advancing Germans. After
the German forces were forced to retreat
in 1944, they sank De
Grasse in shallow waters at
Bordeaux to create a blockade.
After the war had come to an end,
De Grasse was raised and
towed to Saint Nazair to undergo repairs
and an extensive rebuild. She returned to
the Atlantic run in the summer of 1947
with the most noticeable change being the
removal of one funnel. De
Grasse was relocated on the Le
Havre - West Indies route after the
arrival of the French Line’s
Flandre on the Atlantic run in
1952. At the time of Britain’s
Queen Elizabeth 11 coronation ceremony in
1953, the Canadian Pacific Line was fully
booked and had lost their liner
Empress of Canada to
fire. This led to the Canadian Pacific
Line buying De Grasse to
serve as a temporary replacement under
the name Empress of
Australia. By February 1956, she
had again been sold, this time to the
Italian shipping company Grimaldi-Siosa
to be operated on the Naples - Caribbean
migrant run under the name
Venezuela. Now an old ship,
Venezuela was operated on that
route until she ran onto rocks at Cannes
March 17th 1962. Gramaldi-Siosa had their
aging liner towed to La Spezia for
scrapping soon after as they declared her
a total loss.
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