On the night of February 18 to 19, 1942, the famous submarine of the French Free Naval Forces vanished in the Caribbean Sea with its entire crew: 130 men, including its commander captain Louis Blaison.
It's down there somewhere. One day it will be found.
Heh. Too much Barbados rum, and somebody left the screen door open....
ReplyDeleteMount Gay Barbados Eclipse Rum & Pineapple Juice - Nectar Of The Gods.
DeleteSurface ships' main armament fire delivers shocks throughout their superstructures and hulls, often with damage to various fittings, fixtures, communication gear, navigation gear, bridge windows, and even to bulkheads, watertight doors, &c. It seems reasonable that the Surcouf firing her big guns might well have resulted in compromising her pressure hull.
ReplyDeleteRoyal Navy tried this with the M1 sub. Sank on exercise when hit by passing ship. gun fell off as it leaned over, ewater flooded in.
ReplyDeleteWe had a saying, while I was serving on the SSN688, that if major flooding occurred on the boat due to a catastrophic hull breech, you may as well bend over and kiss your ass goodbye. Being on a sinking sub is not a way I'd like to die.
ReplyDeleteOffhand, I'd say it was Surcouf's design team.
ReplyDeleteIt's french -- they probably surrendered and went into hiding.
ReplyDeleteIts design depth limit was only 86 ft, and that's not a very big margin of error. I am guessing this was conventionally referenced as depth-to-keel, in which case there was probably not much water above the conning tower. It's speculated that the sub went down after a collision with a surface vessel in the Caribbean, as it was waiting to enter the Panama canal.
ReplyDelete80 METERS, not feet.
DeleteA ship out of Cuba recorded colliding with a sub early that night, but a sub hunting group near the canal reported sinking a sub the following morning, and no one else reports losing a sub in that area or time. They suspect that damage from the collision may have taken out their radio, leaving them unable to respond to the hunter/killer group.
I think you would never had need of sonar as that thing went burbling-along!
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