Twin Disaster

Beneath the warm blue waters of the Mediterranean, a sea whose mood is usually thought of as serene, 121 men died in one of the most bizarre coincidences in naval annals. Hundreds of miles but only some 24 hours apart, an Israeli and a French submarine were lost in separate, unconnected and equally mysterious disasters. Sinking swiftly to great depths without leaving as much as a trace to guide searchers, Israel's Dakar went down somewhere between Cyprus and Haifa and France's Minerve only about 25 miles from her home berth at Toulon. Their entire crews--69 Israelis and 52 Frenchmen --were lost with them.

The 1,280-ton Dakar (swordfish in Hebrew) had just been completely modernized and sold to Israel after 20 years of service in Britain's Royal Navy. She was only three days out of Haifa on her maiden voyage under the Israeli flag when disaster struck without warning or explanation. Hardly had search-and-rescue operations been mounted for the Dakar when next day the Minerve suffered a similar fate during a training exercise. The 850-ton French submarine, commissioned in 1964 and named after the Roman goddess of wisdom, left no more clues to what happened than the Dakar. Ruling out possible undersea disturbances radiating from an earthquake in Sicily about the same time, Israeli and French naval officials deduced that the two submarines experienced some major mechanical or electrical failure while submerged.

Under the Sea. Even finding the missing subs proved impossible. Dozens of planes and ships equipped with radar and sonar sounding devices searched wide stretches of the Mediterranean without success. They found bits of debris and oil slicks, which are common in busy sea lanes, but analysis failed to link the findings with either the Dakar or Minerve. When the oxygen reserves of the two vessels were exhausted three to four days later, hopes for saving the 121 crewmen were abandoned.

In fact, there was never much reason for hope. All indications were that the submarines sank in mile-deep waters, and neither had a "collapse point" beyond 1,000 ft. The doomed men died in the particularly horrible ways that threaten those who go under the sea in ships. If death came quickly, they either drowned or were crushed when massive undersea pressure wrenched the vessels' steel hulls. If the two submarines somehow remained intact, their trapped crewmen slowly suffocated.

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