Minerve was a diesel–electric submarine in the French Navy, launched in 1961. The vessel was one of 11 of the . In January 1968, Minerve was lost with all hands in bad weather while returning to her home port of Toulon.
Minerve sank two days after the submarine of the Israeli Navy disappeared in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Minerve was one of four submarines lost to unknown causes in 1968 along with the , the American , and Israeli submarine . After more than 50 years missing, the location of the wreck was discovered in 2019, south of Toulon.
Description
The Daphné class comprised second-class submarines, intermediate between the larger, ocean-going submarines of the Narval class and the small, specialised, antisubmarine vessels of the . The design was a development of the Aréthuse class, and were required to keep the low noise levels and high manoeuvrability of the smaller submarines, while also keeping a small crew and being easy to maintain.
Minerve had an overall length of , with a beam of and a draught of . Displacement was surfaced and submerged. The submarine had diesel-electric propulsion, with two 12-cylinder SEMP Pielstick diesel engines rated at a total of and one electric motor, rated at , which drove two propeller shafts, giving a speed of on the surface and submerged. The ship's machinery and equipment were modular to ease maintenance. Her range was at . The submarine was designed to dive to a depth of .
Minerve was fitted with 12 torpedo tubes, with eight in the bow and four in the stern. No reload torpedoes were carried. The ship had a crew of 45, composed of six officers and 39 enlisted.
Service history
Minerve was ordered under the 1957 French Naval Estimates, was laid down in May 1958 at the Chantiers Dubigeon shipyard in Nantes, and launched on 31 May 1961. After a shakedown cruise to Londonderry Port, Bergen, and Gothenburg in November 1962, the submarine sailed from Cherbourg to Toulon, arriving on 22 December 1962. She was commissioned into the 1st Submarine Squadron on 10 June 1964. Minerve operated solely in the Mediterranean Sea. She was refitted at Missiessy Quay, Toulon, in 1967.
Loss
On 27 January 1968, at 07:55 CET, Minerve was travelling just beneath the surface of the Gulf of Lion using her snorkel, roughly from her base in Toulon, when she advised an accompanying Bréguet Atlantic aircraft that she would be at her berth in about an hour. This proved to be the last time the boat and her crew of six officers and 46 enlistees made contact. She disappeared in waters between deep.
Commander Philipe Bouillot later said that Minerves new captain, Lieutenant de vaisseau André Fauve, had spent 7,000 hours submerged over four years on submarines of the same class and never had a problem. The only factor known that could have caused her to sink was the weather, which was extremely bad at the time of her loss.
The French Navy launched a search for the missing submarine, mobilizing numerous ships, including the aircraft carrier and the submersible under the supervision of Jacques Cousteau, but found nothing, and the operation was called off on 2 February 1968. The search for Minerve, under the name Operation Reminer, continued into 1969 and used the submersible Archimède with the U.S. survey ship .
Struggle of the families for the truth
During the years that followed, the families fought to find out what could have happened. The French Navy did not release any information on the possible causes of the sinking. The file was classified as , which means no one could have access to it for 50 years.
After having requested access to the file many times, always refused, Christophe Agnus, son of one of the missing officers, obtained in 2007, at the invitation of Nicolas Sarkozy, an exemption to consult the archives. He discovered nothing. Other families obtained this right, and then suspected the Navy of concealing elements compromising it.