There, she came under repeated British attacks that had been intended to either compel the battleship to join the Free French Naval Forces or sink her; these included during Operation Catapult in July 1940 and the Battle of Dakar in September.

She was powered by four Parsons geared steam turbines and six oil-fired Sural water-tube boilers, which developed a total of 155,000 shaft horsepower (116,000 kW) and yielded a maximum speed of 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph).

Marzin complied and turned the ships back to port, but while on the way, he received amended orders instructing him to wait some 120 nmi (220 km; 140 mi) north of Cape Verde to escort the 1st Division of Armed Merchant Cruisers to Dakar, as they were carrying another load of gold reserves from the Bank of France.

Marzin moved Richelieu to a position near the island of Gorée, pointed south so that the ship's main battery could aim at any vessels that approached Dakar.

[13][14][15] Later that afternoon, tankers came alongside and began pumping oil out of the ship's bunkers to reduce her draft, but water continued to leak into the hull through the cable tunnels.

[17] Workers in the local shipyard scavenged metal from other ships in the harbor to fabricate an 11.5 m (38 ft) square patch to cover the torpedo hole, which was planned to be installed by 10 September.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill sought to use a contingent of Free French forces led by Charles de Gaulle to invade the colony and seize the ship for use against Germany.

At the same time, several French colonies in Africa defected to Free France, prompting the Vichy government to secure authorization from the German Armistice Commission to send several light cruisers and destroyers to reinforce their holdings in Africa, designated Force Y. Owing to the risk of encountering British vessels on the passage, the destroyers were temporarily left in Casablanca while the three cruisers, carrying supplies and additional men to crew the coastal batteries, raced south at high speed.

The French coastal batteries hit several of the cruisers and destroyers, but Richelieu was moored facing north, which prevented her from taking part in the initial duel.

Barham avoided the torpedoes and opened fire, quickly straddling Richelieu and at 09:15, she scored a hit amidships that penetrated above the side armor, causing no casualties.

[20][29][30] From 29 September, the battlecruiser HMS Renown and escorting destroyers were detached from Force H to patrol off Dakar, as the British believed Richelieu would be transferred to metropolitan France for repairs.

As a result, much of the improvement was limited to the installation of a new anti-aircraft battery of the latest US weapons and auxiliary equipment in addition to a thorough overhaul and permanent repairs to the torpedo damage.

[39] Richelieu's tower foremast was heavily reconfigured; the upper main battery director, which had never been operational and had been removed to allow the ship to clear the Brooklyn Bridge, was left off.

With her normal displacement now at 43,600 t (42,900 long tons) and her hull slightly bowed (possibly caused by the torpedo hit), Richelieu began machinery trials in late September.

There, she replenished supplies; it had been intended to deploy the ship with the Mediterranean Fleet, but Italy had surrendered in September, removing the threat posed by the Italian Littorio-class battleships.

A repeat sweep was to have taken place at the end of the month, but two of the escorting destroyers collided while leaving Scapa Flow, leading to a postponement that became permanent as a result of bad weather.

The Allied command initially considered employing her to support the invasion of Normandy, but as she was only supplied with armor-piercing shells, she was instead sent to reinforce the British Eastern Fleet, along with a group of escort aircraft carriers.

The four ships arrived in Trincomalee, Ceylon on 10 April, where they joined an Allied fleet that included the carriers Illustrious and USS Saratoga, the battleships Valiant and Queen Elizabeth, and numerous cruisers and destroyers, commanded by Admiral James Somerville.

Operation Crimson followed in July, and given the lack of a response from the Japanese fleet to the earlier raids, Somerville decided to use his battleships and battlecruiser to bombard Sabang and Sumatra.

Now assigned to Force 63 of the East Indies Fleet, Richelieu sortied on 8 April to take part in Operation Sunfish, another bombardment of Sabang while aircraft scouted possible landing beaches near the city of Padang on the coast of Sumatra.

[63][64] A decrypted Japanese radio signal revealed that the cruiser Haguro and the destroyer Kamikaze were to steam from Singapore to Port Blair to evacuate the garrison there on the night of 12–13 May while another transport vessel would pick up the troops at Car Nicobar.

On 9 May, a pair of British submarines spotted Haguro as it passed through the Malacca Strait, so the East Indies Fleet launched Operation Dukedom to intercept the Japanese ships.

The ship had to stop in Diego Suarez on the way to disembark non-white crewmen at the request of the racist government of South Africa; though this caused resentment among the crew, the French nevertheless complied.

The ship conducted training and trials of South Africa before departing for Diego Suarez, ultimately arriving back in Trincomalee on 18 August, by which time Japan had surrendered.

She steamed with Le Triomphant as escorts for the transport ships Queen Emma and Princess Beatrix, which carried French soldiers to restore colonial rule in Indochina.

By this time, a French squadron consisting of the aircraft carrier Béarn and the cruisers Gloire, Suffren, and Émile Bertin had arrived in mid-October, allowing Richelieu to be returned to France.

She departed on 29 December and arrived in Toulon on 11 February 1946, thereafter taking part in the transport effort to send French soldiers back from France to North Africa.

[69][72] With the repairs completed, Richelieu sailed to Britain to carry the crew for the aircraft carrier HMS Colossus, which was to be loaned to the French for five years, serving as Arromanches.

The subsequent installation of 60-millisecond delays to the firing circuits of the outer guns in the turrets created enough space between the shells that they did not disrupt each other in flight, significantly improving the issue.

Beginning in May 1952, the ship was based in Toulon as the flagship of CA Champion, and she spent the next few years conducting shooting practice with the secondary and smaller weapons to train the fleet's gunners.