October and then escorted a convoy back. In April 1940 the 5th Scout Division with Le Chevalier Paul, Tartu and Maillé Brézé was tasked to escort convoys between Scotland and Norway. Beginning in mid-April they escorted two French troop convoys to Harstad and Namsos. Maillé Brézé was lost on 30 April after a torpedo accident at Greenock, Scotland. The remaining ships rejoined their sisters at Toulon at the end of May in anticipation of Italy joining the war. Four days after the Italians declared war on 10 June, Tartu, Cassard and Le Chevalier Paul were among the ships ordered to bombard targets in Vado Ligure. Little damage was inflicted despite the expenditure of over 1,600 rounds and two Italian MAS boats that attempted to intervene were only lightly damaged by the French. Kersaint was present when the British attacked the French ships in Mers-el-Kébir, French Algeria, in July, but was not damaged. When the Vichy French government reestablished the (FHM) on 25 September after it negotiated rules limiting the force's activities and numbers with the Italian and German Armistice Commissions, Cassard was the only Vauquelin-class ship initially assigned; the others were placed in reserve. Le Chevalier Paul, Vauquelin and Tartu replaced three older in the FHM on 15 November. After the Allies invaded French Lebanon and Syria in June 1941, Le Chevalier Paul was dispatched to Lebanon with more ammunition for the ships there. She was sunk by British torpedo bombers en route on 16 June and Vauquelin sailed from Toulon the following day. She reached Beirut four days later; on the 29th, all three of the based there sailed for Greece to load reinforcements and supplies bound for Lebanon. They were spotted by British aircraft on their way back to Lebanon in early July and turned back in accordance with their orders. In the meantime, Tartu, Cassard and a heavy cruiser transported a battalion of infantry from Algiers, French Algeria, to Marseilles between 30 June and 1 July that was intended to reinforce the Levant. After the Allies invaded French North Africa on 8 November 1942, the Germans attempted to capture the French ships in Toulon intact on 27 November, but the four surviving sisters were scuttled by their crews. The Germans and Italians made only cursory attempts to salvage the ships, not least because three were further damaged during Allied air attacks in 1944 and they were scrapped