Bob Report This Comment
Date: March 30, 2005 10:48AM

At the beginning of the war Surcouf was the largest Submarine in the world.

She had a revolving turret with 8 inch guns. She carried an airplane.

Surcouf bravely escaped the German Advance in 1940. But then seemed to become a renagade

Even after transferring to the Free French.

Bob Report This Comment
Date: March 30, 2005 10:51AM

The Surcouf was a French Submarine.
At the beginning of World War II she was the biggest submarine in the world, She had a revolving turret with a pair of 8 inch guns. Surcouf had a hangar and carried an airplane. The Surcouf also had an extra large fuel tank and a huge storage compartment.

June of 1940
Surcouf was in refit in Brest. She escaped the Germans and limped across the channel to Portsmouth on the surface under great difficulty and much bravery as she had only one engine and a jammed rudder.

July 3rd 1940
( Operation Catapult)
In 1940 the British were worried that when the French surrendered it would deliver the French Navy to the Nazis. They had to act quickly and on the morning of July 3rd the British surrounded the French Navy in North Africa and ordered them to surrender.The French considered this treachery and refused. Hundreds of French sailors were killed and more acrimony between the French and English. There were another 30 or 40 French Ships in British Ports. these too were boarded and asked to surrender. The Surcouf was the only one to resist, 2 British Officers were and one French sailor were killed. Surcouf was never forgiven for this. Most of the Officers were interred and replaced by free French Officers.

August 1940
Surcouf was refitted and put on convoy patrol. Some of her ex officers were killed when the Germans sunk a British Hospital ship that was repatriating French personnel. The French blamed the British for this tragedy and so even more acrimony was added to their relations.
Surcouf was not trusted and there were even rumors that the submarine was sinking our own ships. A British officer and 2 sailors were put on board for 'liason' purposes.

December 1940
Surcouf was sent to Canada on a "goodwill tour" with the Free French Admiral Muselier in charge. There were rumors that the free French were going to 'liberate St Pierre and Miquelon
Surcouf goes to Quebec City and the Admiral goes to Ottawa to confer with the Canadian government. Meanwhile in the city the Captain is confronted by a famous New York Times Reporter Ira Wolfert that Surcouf is leading a free French task force to take St.Pierre and Miquelon.
The Captain has the reporter kidnapped and hides him in the trunk of a car and smuggles him aboard Surcouf.

December 20th
Surcouf returns to Halifax and attends a Navy Party. they inform their hosts that they are leaving the next day on maneuvers

Dec 25 1940
Surcouf and 2 Free French Corvettes take St. Pierre in 15 minutes.
The Americans (Roosevelt) are furious and demand that the Free French return the island to Vichy. DeGaulle of course refuses.

Jan 1st 1941
The Americans send a destroyer to St. Pierre and are fired upon by the Surcouf. As many as 2 American sailors were killed and the incident was hushed up.

January 1941
It is decided that Surcouf should be sent to the pacific theater. She goes to Bermuda for repairs.
there are rumors that Surcouf is going to make a 'break' for Martinique and back under Vichy control

February 18 1942
Officially? The Surcouf was accidentally sunk by the American Freighter 'Thompson Lykes'near the Panama canal.

February 18 1942
It is alleged that the Surcouf was sunk by the American submarines Marlin and Mackerel in Long Island Sound. There is a report that Surcouf was tailed by the 2 subs from Bermuda and probably circled back to St. Pierre.

Anonymous Report This Comment
Date: March 31, 2005 04:53PM

bob, is this the sub that the gun plate was riped off? the seamen were given suicide pills, cos they were unhappy about the size of the gun on a sub!! was only found a few years ago, it looked like the seamen tryed to make a swimm for it!!

Rich Waite Report This Comment
Date: June 17, 2009 03:23PM

Some years back I saw, read and might even still have and article from the Hartford Current (CT) newspaper about this sub. a diver said he found Surcouf in Long Island Sound. This was an article from the 1960's (1967 I think). I was told, tho I have never seen or read, that it was retracted 3 weeks later, tho only after some guys in suits and dark sedans, "talked" to the person who found it. His name slips me right now, but I remember he was a founding member of a large CT dive club along the coast. Now you have to understand, the diver, a hard hat diver from the picture of him in the paper, was black (African American) and dies back in the mid/late 1990's and was married to a white woman. A truly hard thing at the time. I'll be going thru my boxes of sub stuff to find the names and the day/date and post what I can. I found the article, already cut out and folded up, in a 1941 Janes, at the Springfield Mass Library when I was a teen, researching subs for a war games club I belonged to.

In the 1990's I pulled it out and started looking more into it. That's when I heard about the retraction from a member of the dive club and the stuff about his wife and threats that where made to them. In 1994ish I made contact with a few interesting people, one said he was a member of the crew of the US Sub Marlin off Long Island. From another I heard about a US Navy Seal operation off New London CT to demo the hulk of a WW2 sub. This was to have happened in the 1970 or early 1980's.

Other interesting info I picked up, before shelving this little pet project for a while, (I pull it out every now and then) include she was not the only free french sub to go missing around this time. another was lost right after a refit in Philly Navy Yard. Surcouf stopped in Bermuda after her refit in Portsmouth Navy Yard, and the trouble she had there included a mine that went off and while in Bermudas another was found on her.

The ideas that she was trading torps and supplies to the Germans make no sense at all, as French, British or US (tho we where "neutral" would not work in a German tube. Add to that the record keeping of the Germans say nothing of it ever happening, so even if we thought it might be going on at the time, we know now it was not, tho most Vichy records are still sealed. Jacques Cousteau was going to look for it and was talked out of it by US and French authorities, I had never heard he found it. Tho Surcouf, being the pride of the French Navy in WW2, you'd think the world renown diver would have looked for it and it would have been fairly easy if the story about being rammed and sunk by the Thompson Lykes as the official story goes, and even easier with today's equipment, she is the size of a WW2 era Destroyer and they can find the Liberty Bell space capsule at the bottom of the Pacific. Tho if she sank someplace else... Well and on that topic, The crew of the Lykes thought they ran over a small costal tanker, and there was oil in the water, tho no cork, which a sub a that time had alot of for insolation and they crys for help they heard, where in English, not French or Spanish. Now If you where a French Submariner, and was just rammed and sinking, would you cry for help in English for French?
Lastly, the Naval Inquire on her loss, was just Brits and US, not any French where allows to be present, with is rather odd. I can find no record of any bodies, tho have heard of one rumor of bodies in French naval uniforms washing ashore in Florida, I can't find any proff that happened, any first or second hand accounts of it, or where the bodies might have gone.

Loch Ness Report This Comment
Date: May 14, 2010 01:14AM

The Loch Ness Monster ate them.