Surcouf (N N 3)
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 Model of the Surcouf at the Musée national de la Marine |
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| Career France |   |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | December 1927 |
| Laid down: | |
| Launched: | 18 October 1929 |
| Commissioned: | May 1934 |
| Struck: | 6 December 1943 |
| Status: | Sunk |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 3250 tons surfaced 4304 tons submerged 2880 tons dead |
| Length: | 110 metres (361 feet) |
| Beam: | 9 metres (29.5 feet) |
| Draught: | 7.25 metres (23.8 feet) |
| Propulsion: | surfaced: two Sulzer diesel engines 7600hp submerged: two electric motors 3400hp two propellers |
| Speed: | 18.5 knots surfaced 10 knots submerged |
| Range: | 18,500 kilometres (10,000 nautical miles) at 10 knots surfaced 12,600 kilometres (6800 nautical miles) at 13.5 knots surfaced |
| Test depth: | 80 metres (250 feet) |
| Capacity: | 280 tons |
| Complement: | eight officers 110 men |
| Armament: | two 203 mm (eight-inch) guns in twin turret two 37 mm antiaircraft cannon |
| Aircraft carried: | one Besson MB.411 float plane |
Five ships of the French Navy have borne the name Surcouf, in honour of the 18th century Saint-Malo corsair Robert Surcouf: see French ship Surcouf for the list.
The Surcouf (N N 3) was a French submarine ordered to be built in December 1927, launched 18 October 1929, and commissioned May 1934. At the beginning of World War II, Surcouf was the largest submarine in the world. Her short wartime career was marked with controversy and conspiracy theories.
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[edit] 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).
Surcouf was designed as an "underwater cruiser", intended to seek and engage in surface combat. For reconnaissance, she carried an observation float plane in a hangar built abaft of the conning tower; for combat, she was armed with 12 torpedo tubes and a twin 203 mm watertight gun turret forward of the conning tower. The guns were fed from a magazine holding 600 rounds and controlled by a director with a 12-metre rangefinder, mounted high enough to view a seven-mile horizon. In theory, the observation plane could direct fire out to the guns' fifteen-mile maximum range. Anti-aircraft cannon and machine guns were mounted on the top of the hangar.
Surcouf also carried a 5-metre motorboat, and contained a cargo compartment with fittings to restrain 40 prisoners. The submarine's fuel tanks were very large; enough fuel for a 10,000-nautical-mile range and supplies for 90-day patrols could be carried.
[edit] 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. These condemned the British "treachery" and suffered hundreds of casualties when the British opened fire. Surcouf also resisted and in capturing the submarine, two British officers and one French sailor were killed. 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.
[edit] Free French Naval Forces
By August 1940, the British completed Surcouf's 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.
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, Surcouf's 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. 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 theater 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.
On 18 February 1942, Surcouf was lost with all hands. An official joint U.S. and Free French report stated that she left Bermuda on 12 February and was accidentally rammed and sunk by the American freighter Thompson Lykes near the Panama canal. The report states that the accident was due to both vessels running at night with no lights because of the menace of German U-boats. A later French investigation commission stated that the Surcouf had been sunk by US planes in the morning of the 18th in a "friendly fire" accident.
[edit] Legend
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 refueling a German U-boat, and both submarines were sunk, either by the American submarines Mackerel (SS-204) and Marlin (SS-205) 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.
[edit] Aircraft
The MB.410 and MB.411 were observation aircraft, designed to be carried by Surcouf. They were low-wing monoplanes with a single central float and two small stabilizing floats, that could easily be disassembled for stowage. One MB.410 and two MB.411s were built; one MB.411 was carried on board.
- Crew: 1-2
- Engines: one 130 kW Salmson 9Nd
- Wing Span: 12 metres
- Length: 8.25 metres
- Height: 2.85 metres
- Wing Area: 22 square metres
- Weight: 760 kilograms empty, 1140 kilograms loaded
- Speed: 185 km/h
- Range: 345 kilometres
