,_jugoslawische_Schiffe.jpg) The name ship of the class, Beograd, (right) and the flotilla leader Dubrovnik in the Bay of Kotor after being captured by Italy in April 1941
| |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Beograd class |
| Builders | |
| Operators | |
| Preceded by | Dubrovnik |
| Succeeded by | Split |
| Built | 1937–1939 |
| In service | 1939–1945 |
| Planned | 3 |
| Completed | 3 |
| Lost | 3 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Destroyer |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 98 m (321 ft 6 in) |
| Beam | 9.45 m (31 ft 0 in) |
| Draught | 3.18 m (10 ft 5 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
| Range | 1,000 nautical miles (1,900 km; 1,200 mi) |
| Complement | 145 |
| Armament |
|
The Beograd class of destroyers consisted of three ships built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy in the late 1930s, a variant of the French Bourrasque class. Beograd was constructed in France and Zagreb and Ljubljana were built in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In January 1940, Ljubljana struck a reef off the port of Šibenik, and was still under repair when the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia commenced in April 1941. During the invasion, Zagreb was scuttled to prevent its capture, and the other two ships were captured by the Italians. The Royal Italian Navy operated Beograd and Ljubljana as convoy escorts between Italy, the Aegean Sea, and North Africa, under the names Sebenico and Lubiana respectively. Lubiana was lost in the Gulf of Tunis in April 1943; Sebenico was seized by the Germans in September 1943 after the Italian surrender and was subsequently operated by the German Navy as TA43. There are conflicting reports about the fate of TA43, but it was lost in the final weeks of the war.
In 1967, a French film was made about the scuttling of Zagreb. In 1973, the President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito posthumously awarded the two officers who scuttled Zagreb with the Order of the People's Hero.