The
Surcouf (N N 3) was a
French submarine ordered to be built in December 1927,
launched 18 October 1929, and
commissioned in May 1934.
Surcouf, named after the French privateer
Robert Surcouf, was the largest submarine ever built, until being surpassed by the Japanese
I-400. Her short wartime career was marked with controversy and
conspiracy theories.
Early career
The
Washington Naval Treaty had placed strict limits on naval construction by the major naval powers, but submarines had been omitted. The French Navy attempted to take advantage of this by building three "corsair submarines", of which
Surcouf was the first (and only one) to be completed.
Surcouf was designed as an "underwater
cruiser", intended to seek and engage in surface combat. For reconnaissance, she carried a
Besson MB.411 observation float plane in a hangar built abaft of the conning tower; for combat, she was armed with eight 550 mm and four 400 mm torpedo tubes and twin
203mm/50 Modèle 1924 guns in a pressure-tight turret forward of the conning tower. The guns were fed from a magazine holding 60 rounds and controlled by a
director with a rangefinder, mounted high enough to view a horizon. In theory, the Besson observation plane could be used to direct fire out to the guns' maximum range. Anti-aircraft cannon and machine guns were mounted on the top of the hangar.
Surcouf also carried a motorboat, and contained a cargo compartment with fittings to restrain 40 prisoners. The submarine's fuel tanks were very large; enough fuel for a range and supplies for 90-day patrols could be carried.
Soon after
Surcouf was launched, the
London Naval Treaty finally placed restrictions on submarine designs. Among other things, each signatory (France included) may possess no more than three large submarines, each not exceeding 2,800 tons (2,845 tonnes) standard displacement, with guns not exceeding 6.1 inches (155mm) calibre.
Surcouf, which would have exceeded these limits, was specially exempt from the rules, but other 'big-gun' submarines of her class could no longer be built.
Despite her impressive specification,
Surcouf proved to be plagued by mechanical problems: her trim was difficult to adjust during a dive, on the surface she rolled badly in rough seas, and she took over two minutes to dive to a depth of , making her vulnerable to aircraft.
World War II
In 1940,
Surcouf was based in
Cherbourg, but in June, when the Germans invaded, she was being refitted in
Brest. With only one engine functioning and with a jammed rudder, she limped across the
English Channel and sought refuge in
Plymouth.
On 3 July, the British, concerned that the French Fleet would be taken over by the German
Kriegsmarine when the French surrendered, executed
Operation Catapult. The
Royal Navy blockaded the harbours where French warships were anchored and delivered an ultimatum: re-join the fight against Germany, be put out of reach of the Germans or scuttle the ships. Most accepted willingly, with two notable exceptions: the North African fleet at
Mers-el-Kebir and the ships based at
Dakar (see
Battle of Dakar). These condemned the British "treachery" and (in the former instance) suffered hundreds of casualties when
the British opened fire.
French ships lying at ports in Britain and Canada were also boarded by armed Marines, sailors and soldiers, and the only serious incident was aboard the
Surcouf, where two Royal Navy officers and a French warrant officer were fatally wounded, and a British seaman was shot dead by the submarine's doctor.
The acrimony between the British and French caused by these actions escalated when the British attempted to repatriate the captured French sailors: the British hospital ship that was carrying them back to France was sunk by the Germans, and many of the French blamed the British for the deaths.
Free French Naval Forces
By August 1940, the British completed
Surcoufs refit and turned her over to the Free French Navy (Forces Navales Françaises Libres
, FNFL) for convoy patrol. The only officer not repatriated from the original crew, Louis Blaison, became the new commander. Because of the British-French tensions with regard to the submarine, accusations were made by each side that the other was spying for Vichy France; the British also claimed that Surcouf
was attacking British ships. Later, a British officer and two sailors were put on board for "liaison" purposes. One real drawback of this ship was that it required a crew of 110-130 men, which represented three crews of more conventional submarines. This led the Royal Navy to be reluctant to her recommissioning.
Surcouf
then went to the British base at Halifax, Nova Scotia and escorted trans-Atlantic convoys. On 28 July 1941 Surcouf went to the United States Naval Shipyard at Portsmouth, New Hampshire for repairs. After leaving the shipyard the Surcouf when to New London, Connecticut. It remains unclear why the United States would allow a ship under a flag the United States did not recognize at the time (ie. Free France) to undergo repair in the United States. The Surcouf
left New London on 27 November 1941 to return to Halifax.
In December 1941, Surcouf
carried the Free French Admiral Émile Muselier to Canada, putting in to Quebec City. While the Admiral was in Ottawa, conferring with the Canadian government, Surcoufs captain was approached by
New York Times reporter
Ira Wolfert and questioned about the rumours that the submarine would liberate
Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (a French archipelago some 30 kilometres south of
Newfoundland) for Free France from Vichy control. It was rumoured, but never confirmed, that
Surcouf's captain kidnapped Wolfert, smuggled him to the submarine in the trunk of a car, and imprisoned him aboard. However, Wolfert did accompany the submarine to
Halifax,
Nova Scotia where, on 20 December, they joined the Free French
corvettes
Mimosa,
Aconit, and
Alysse, and on 24 December took control of the islands for Free France without resistance.
United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull, who had just concluded an agreement with the Vichy government for the neutrality of French possessions in the Western hemisphere, threatened to resign unless
President of the United States Franklin Roosevelt demanded a restoration of the status quo. Roosevelt did so, but when
Charles de Gaulle refused, he dropped the matter. Ira Wolfert's stories, very favourable to the Free French (and bearing no sign of kidnapping or other duress), helped swing American popular opinion away from Vichy.
Another rumour associated with this event is that, on 1 January 1942, Roosevelt did send an American
destroyer to Saint-Pierre to restore it to Vichy control and
Surcouf allegedly fired on the destroyer, killing one or two American sailors. No documentation supports this rumour, and significant circumstantial evidence contradicts it. It is documented that later that January the Free French decided to send
Surcouf to the Pacific theatre of war after she resupplied at
Bermuda. Her movement south triggered rumours that she was going to liberate
Martinique for the Free French from Vichy.
Fate
The
Surcouf was sunk on 18 February 1942 about north of
Cristóbal, Colón, while en route for
Tahiti via the
Panama Canal. The American freighter
SS Thompson Lykes, steaming alone to
Guantanamo Bay on what was a very dark night, reported hitting and running down a partially submerged object which scraped along her side and keel. Her lookouts heard people in the water but the freighter carried on its course without stopping, as they thought that they had struck a German U-boat. A signal was sent to Panama describing the incident.
Inquiries into the incident were haphazard and late, while a later French inquiry supported the idea that the sinking had been due to "friendly fire"; this conclusion was supported by Rear Admiral
Auphan in his book
The French Navy in World War II in which he says, "for reasons which appear to have been primarily political, she was rammed at night in the Caribbean by an American freighter." However, Charles de Gaulle stated in his memoirs simply that
Surcouf "had sunk with all hands".
There is a memorial to the
Surcouf in Cherbourg harbour.
Theories
Like so much else about
Surcouf, there are alternate stories of her end. Disregarding the predictable ones about her being swallowed by the
Bermuda Triangle, one of the most popular is that she was caught in
Long Island Sound refuelling a German
U-boat, and both submarines were sunk, either by the American submarines and , or a
United States Coast Guard blimp.
Many stories add that much of the gold from the French Treasury was in
Surcouf's large cargo compartment, and that the wreck was found and entered in 1967 by
Jacques Cousteau.
James Rusbridger examines some of the theories in his book
Who Sank Surcouf?, finding them all easily dismissed except one: the records of the 6th Heavy Bomber Group operating out of Panama show them sinking a large submarine the morning of 19 February. Since no German submarine was lost in the area on that date, it could only have been
Surcouf. He suggested that the collision had damaged the
Surcoufs radio and the stricken boat limped towards Panama hoping for the best.
Surcouf in Fiction
Douglas Reeman's novel
Strike From the Sea, published in 1978, features a fictional sister ship of the
Surcouf, named
Soufrière (ISBN 0688033199).
See also
