were never completed. Service history Le Hardi entered service on 2 June 1940 and escorted an ocean liner to Casablanca, French Morocco, before sailing to Brest. Fleuret helped to escort the battleship from Casablanca to Dakar, French West Africa, on 12 June. The first mission of Épée and Mameluk was to rendezvous with Le Hardi to help escort the incomplete battleship to Casablanca a few days before the French signed an armistice with the Germans on 22 June. Casque, Lansquenet and Le Corsaire took refuge in French North Africa in mid-June despite the latter only being 82% complete. The hulls of L'Opiniâtre and L'Aventurier were captured intact in Bordeaux in June 1940, 16% and 13% complete respectively. The Germans decided to complete them and renamed them ZF6 and ZF7. As their intended French weapons were unavailable, they were to be armed with five SK C/34 guns with 80 rounds per gun, four AA guns with 6000 rounds, ten C/38 AA guns with 20,000 rounds and two quadruple mounts for torpedo tubes amidships. Work resumed on the two ships in February 1941, but construction on ZF7 was abandoned in June and some material was incorporated in ZF6 which was renamed ZF2 on 26 August. Work on that ship was terminated in July 1943 before she was launched and she was demolished when the Germans abandoned the area after Operation Dragoon in August 1944. Her wreck was scrapped after the end of the war. The French resumed construction on L'Aventurier in 1945 and she was launched two years later. The ship was used as an experimental hulk before she became a mooring pontoon at Brest and was listed for sale on 21 April 1971. Le Hardi played a minor role in the Battle of Dakar in September, mostly laying smoke screens. After the battle, Fleuret and Épée were two of the four destroyers ordered to attack British shipping, although their only combat was an inconclusive duel with a British destroyer. When the Vichy French government reestablished the (FHM) on 25 September 1940 after it negotiated rules limiting the force's activities and numbers with the Italian and German Armistice Commissions, all of the destroyers were based overseas and not subject to the limits of the FHM. Le Hardi, Épée, Mameluk, Lansquenet and Fleuret helped to escort the battleship , which had been damaged by the British during their July attack on Mers-el-Kébir, French