Adieu, Commandant Birot
The 1,270-ton French patrouilleur de haute mer (PHM) Commandant Birot (F796) last week capped 41 years in commission with one final cruise, taking 18 of her former skippers on a sortie out of Toulon. The past commanders included Admiral Nicolas Vaujour, the current Chief of the Naval Staff.
Le mardi 13 mai 2025, en mer Méditerranée, le Patrouilleur de Haute Mer (PHM) Commandant Birot effectue sa dernière sortie des commandants à l’occasion de son départ en Posture permanente de sauvegarde maritime (PPSM), en présence de l’amiral Nicolas Vaujour, chef d’état-major de la Marine (CEMM).
The 16th of 17 Estienne d’Orves-class avisos, she entered service on 14 March 1984. Some 262-feet overall, she was equipped akin to a corvette or surveillance frigate with two MM38 Exocet anti-ship missiles, a 100m CADAM turret, four ASW torpedo tubes, and a six-tube 375mm Bofors ASW rocket launcher.
PHM Commandant Birot
Deployed first based in Brest, then to the Pacific at French Polynesia and New Caledonia, Commandant Birot was been assigned to Toulon in 1995.
Most of her ASW gear was removed in 2009 when she re-rated as a PHM, traded for a twin Mistral manpads launcher and some smaller guns. She has been very active in recent years in a constabulary role off Libya during the unpleasantness there and on the migrant beat in North Africa.
It is always sad to see an old warrior off.
Le mardi 13 mai 2025, en mer Méditerranée, le Patrouilleur de Haute Mer (PHM) Commandant Birot effectue sa dernière sortie des commandants à l’occasion de son départ en Posture permanente de sauvegarde maritime (PPSM), en présence de l’amiral Nicolas Vaujour, chef d’état-major de la Marine (CEMM).
The vessel carries the proud name of LCDR Roger Richard Louis Birot, a professional French Navy officer (Ecole Navale ’25) who escaped the fall of France as the XO of the battleship Courbet only to perish when his first command, the Free French Navy’s Flower-class corvette Mimosa (K 11), was sunk by U-124 in June 1942 in the North Atlantic while escorting the Allied convoy ON 100.