INS ''Dakar'' ( he, אח"י דקר) was a
diesel–electric submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...
in the
Israeli Navy
The Israeli Navy ( he, חיל הים הישראלי, ''Ḥeil HaYam HaYisraeli'' (English: The Israeli Sea Corps); ar, البحرية الإسرائيلية) is the naval warfare service arm of the Israel Defense Forces, operating primarily in ...
. The vessel, a modified
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
British T-class submarine
The Royal Navy's T class (or ''Triton'' class) of diesel-electric submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The ...
, had previously been of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...
. She was purchased by
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
from the
Government of the United Kingdom
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal coat of arms of t ...
in 1965 as part of a three T-class submarine deal.
''Dakar'' and her entire 69-man crew were lost en route to Israel on 25 January 1968. Despite extensive searches over the course of three decades, its wreckage was not found until 1999, when it was located between the islands of
Cyprus
Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...
and
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
at a depth of approximately . The submarine's
conning tower
A conning tower is a raised platform on a ship or submarine, often armored, from which an officer in charge can conn the vessel, controlling movements of the ship by giving orders to those responsible for the ship's engine, rudder, lines, and gro ...
was salvaged and is on display outside the
Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum
The Clandestine Immigration and Naval Museum ( he, מוזיאון ההעפלה וחיל הים ע"ש דוד הכהן ) is a technical history museum located in Haifa, Israel.
The museum covers the maritime history of Israel – from clande ...
in
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
.
The exact cause of ''Dakar''s sinking remains unknown. It was one of four mysterious submarine disappearances in 1968; the others were those of the , the , and the U.S. submarine .
Early career
HMS ''Totem'' was built as a
group 3 Group 3 may refer to:
*Group 3 element, chemical element classification
*Group 3 (racing), FIA classification for auto racing
*Group 3, the third tier of races in worldwide Thoroughbred horse racing
* Group 3 image format, Group 3 & Group 4 are d ...
variant of the
British T-class submarine
The Royal Navy's T class (or ''Triton'' class) of diesel-electric submarine
A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The ...
; these were constructed during World War II at
HM Dockyard Devonport. She was
launched on 28 September 1943 and
commissioned in early 1945. After the
end of World War II End of World War II can refer to:
* End of World War II in Europe
* End of World War II in Asia
World War II officially ended in Asia on September 2, 1945, with the surrender of Japan on the . Before that, the United States dropped two atomic ...
, ''Totem'', along with the other surviving group 3 boats, was equipped with
submarine snorkel
A submarine snorkel is a device which allows a submarine to operate submerged while still taking in air from above the surface. British Royal Navy personnel often refer to it as the snort. A concept devised by Dutch engineers, it was widely used ...
s to allow for longer periods of operation underwater. Between 1951 and 1953, ''Totem'' was one of eight British Navy submarines to be converted to the "Super T" design, which allowed the vessel to travel at higher and quieter underwater speeds.
Purchase by Israel
In 1965, ''Totem'' was purchased by Israel, along with two of her T-class
sister boats, and . The former ''Totem'' was commissioned into the
Israeli Navy
The Israeli Navy ( he, חיל הים הישראלי, ''Ḥeil HaYam HaYisraeli'' (English: The Israeli Sea Corps); ar, البحرية الإسرائيلية) is the naval warfare service arm of the Israel Defense Forces, operating primarily in ...
at
Portsmouth, England
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dense ...
on 10 November 1967 as INS ''Dakar'' (, en, Swordfish),
under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Ya'acov Ra'anan. She then headed to Iceland to conduct sea and dive
trials
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...
. Late in 1967, ''Dakar'' returned to Portsmouth; she left for Israel on 9 January 1968.
''Dakar''s first port call after leaving the UK was
Gibraltar
)
, anthem = " God Save the King"
, song = " Gibraltar Anthem"
, image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg
, map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe
, map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green
, mapsize =
, image_map2 = Gib ...
, on the morning of 15 January. She departed at midnight on 16 January with the intention of crossing the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
on snorkel. The original schedule was for the submarine to enter her new home base at
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
on 2 February. During her voyage, she was making excellent speed, averaging over , and Commander Ra'anan radioed Haifa to request entering port ahead of schedule. He was ordered to enter on 29 January. Later, Ra'anan requested to enter a day earlier, on 28 January. This request was denied, as the welcoming ceremony could not be rescheduled.
Loss
At 06:10 on 24 January 1968 ''Dakar'' transmitted her position, 34.16°N 26.26°E, just east of
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
. Over the next 18 hours she sent three control transmissions which did not include her position. Her final broadcast was at 00:02 25 January, after which no further transmissions were received.
On 26 January the
British Admiralty
The Admiralty was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of it ...
reported the submarine was missing and gave the last known position as west of Cyprus. An international
search and rescue
Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...
operation began, including units from Israel, the United States, Greece, Turkey, Britain and Lebanon. Although the Israeli Navy in Haifa began broadcasting calls to commercial vessels to be on the look out for ''Dakar'', Israeli officials would not admit the submarine was missing.
On 27 January, a radio station in
Nicosia
Nicosia ( ; el, Λευκωσία, Lefkosía ; tr, Lefkoşa ; hy, Նիկոսիա, romanized: ''Nikosia''; Cypriot Arabic: Nikusiya) is the largest city, capital, and seat of government of Cyprus. It is located near the centre of the Mesaor ...
, Cyprus received a distress call on the frequency of ''Dakar''s emergency buoy, apparently from south-east of Cyprus, but no further traces of the submarine were found. On 31 January, all non-Israeli forces abandoned their search at sunset. Israeli forces continued the search for another four days, ceasing at sundown on 4 February 1968.
Israel denied that ''Dakar'' sank as the result of hostile action. It stated that ''Dakar'' was involved in
crash diving exercises on its return voyage and was probably lost as a result of a mechanical failure. On 25 April 1968, Vice Admiral
Avraham Botzer, commander of the
Israeli Navy
The Israeli Navy ( he, חיל הים הישראלי, ''Ḥeil HaYam HaYisraeli'' (English: The Israeli Sea Corps); ar, البحرية الإسرائيلية) is the naval warfare service arm of the Israel Defense Forces, operating primarily in ...
, stated that ''Dakar'' sank on 24 January 1968, two days before being reported missing, due to "technical or human malfunctioning" and not "foul play".
Searches and discovery
![HN-INS-Dakar-2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/58/HN-INS-Dakar-2.jpg)
On 9 February 1969, more than a year after ''Dakar'' went missing, a fisherman found her stern
emergency buoy marker washed up on the coast of
Khan Yunis
Khan Yunis ( ar, خان يونس, also spelled Khan Younis or Khan Yunus; translation: ''Caravansary fJonah'') is a city in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Khan Yunis had a population of 142,6 ...
, a town southwest of
Gaza. British T-class submarines had two such buoy markers, bow and stern, secured behind wooden doors in cages under the deck and attached to the submarine with metal cables long.
The experts who examined the of cable still attached to the buoy made several inaccurate determinations. These conclusions - that the buoy had remained attached to the submarine for most of the preceding year until the cable broke completely, that ''Dakar'' rested in depth between , and that it was off her planned route - misled searchers for decades. It was not until April 1999, after some 25 failed expeditions, that a search effort was concentrated along the original route.
On 17 January 1970, the Egyptian newspaper ''
Al Akhbar'' reported that ''Dakar'' had been sunk by an Egyptian warship with
depth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth ...
s. The Egyptian story was told in a 2 July 2005 interview by ''
Asharq Al-Awsat
''Asharq Al-Awsat'' ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, Aš-Šarq al-ʾAwsaṭ, meaning "The Middle East") is an Arabic international newspaper headquartered in London. A pioneer of the "off-shore" model in the Arabic press, the paper is often noted f ...
'' with General Mohamed Azab (a major at that time):
:On 23 January 1968, the Egyptian frigate, ''Assyout'', left Alexandria base in a training mission for the naval academy. After completing the training assignment and during the return journey to the base, students noticed the periscope of an alien submarine in Egyptian waters, about two miles (3 km) off Alexandria. The Egyptian commander was informed and the decision was taken to attack the unknown submarine. However, the submarine made a hasty dive and the Egyptian ship lost track of it. General Azab reported the story to his commanders and mentioned that there is a probability that the submarine had crashed into the seabed. However, the story was not believed by the higher Egyptian commanders and there was not sufficient evidence to start a search process. General Azab mentioned that the submarine may have crashed into the seabed due to the shallow depth of water in that region, about 36 meters, while it needed at least 40 meters to dive. It appears that the submarine commander took the risk.
The Israeli government stated there was no evidence to substantiate the Egyptian unofficial claims.
During the 1980s the Israelis, using a salvage vessel with Egyptian liaison officers, conducted three searches for ''Dakar'' in waters north of Sinai and another search off the Greek island of
Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the So ...
. In August 1986, the U.S. Navy committed a
P-3 Orion
The Lockheed P-3 Orion is a four-engined, turboprop anti-submarine and maritime surveillance aircraft developed for the United States Navy and introduced in the 1960s. Lockheed based it on the L-188 Electra commercial airliner. . In October 1998, Israel began running advertisements in newspapers in Turkey, Egypt, France, Greece and Russia, offering rewards of up to $300,000 for any information on the fate of ''Dakar''.
On 24 May 1999 a joint U.S.–Israeli search team using information received from U.S. intelligence sources and led by Thomas Kent Dettweiler, a subcontractor from American Nauticos Corporation, detected a large body on the seabed between
Crete
Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...
and Cyprus, at a depth of some . On 28 May the first video pictures were taken by the remote-operated vehicle ''Remora II'', making it clear that ''Dakar'' had been found. She rests on her keel, bow to the northwest. Her conning tower was snapped off and fallen over the side. The stern of the submarine, with the propellers and dive planes, broke off aft of the engine room and rests beside the main hull.
During October 2000 a survey of the ''Dakar'' wreckage and the wreckage site was undertaken by Nauticos corporation and the Israeli Navy. Some artifacts were recovered, including the submarine's bridge, the boat's
gyrocompass
A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. The use of a gyroc ...
, and many small items.
The exact cause of the loss remains unknown, but it appears that no emergency measures had been taken before ''Dakar'' dived rapidly through her maximum depth, suffered a catastrophic hull rupture, and continued her plunge to the bottom. The emergency buoy was released by the violence of the hull collapse, and drifted for a year before washing ashore.
Later developments
![PikiWiki Israel 28342 Dakar Park In Givat Shmuel](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/PikiWiki_Israel_28342_Dakar_Park_In_Givat_Shmuel.JPG)
A memorial designed by architect David Brutzkus was dedicated in 1971 at the National Military and Police cemetery in
Mount Herzl
Mount Herzl ( he, הַר הֶרְצְל ''Har Hertsl''), also ''Har ha-Zikaron'' ( lit. "Mount of Remembrance"), is the site of Israel's national cemetery and other memorial and educational facilities, found on the west side of Jerusalem beside ...
in
Jerusalem
Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
. It is inscribed with a
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;["Tanach"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...
verse from
Psalm 77
Psalm 77 (Greek numbering: Psalm 76) is the 77th psalm in the biblical Book of Psalms. In the slightly different numbering system of the Greek Septuagint version of the bible, and in its Latin translation in the Vulgate, this psalm is ''Psalm 76 ...
:19: "Your path led through the sea, your way through the mighty waters, though Your footprints were not seen."
''Dakar''s bridge and forward edge of her sail are now a memorial display in the Naval Museum in
Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
.
The recovery of any still-existing remains of the crew members has been considered. This would permit their Jewish burial in Israel as Judaism does not recognize
burial at sea
Burial at sea is the disposal of human remains in the ocean, normally from a ship or boat. It is regularly performed by navies, and is done by private citizens in many countries.
Burial-at-sea services are conducted at many different location ...
and requires burial in earth. To date, crew members' families have held a ceremony in a ship over the submarine's remnants. The
Rabbinical
Rabbinic Judaism ( he, יהדות רבנית, Yahadut Rabanit), also called Rabbinism, Rabbinicism, or Judaism espoused by the Rabbanites, has been the mainstream form of Judaism since the 6th century CE, after the codification of the Babylonian ...
authorities had to solve complicated problems of
Jewish law
''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also Romanization of Hebrew, transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Judaism, Jewish religious laws which is derived from the Torah, written and Oral Tora ...
before the crew members' wives could be declared officially widows, so that they could remarry.
In 2008, a film was released, entitled ''
Full Circle'', a documentary about the search for the wreckage. In May 2009, a book was published by Nauticos president
David W. Jourdan entitled, ''Never Forgotten: The Search and Discovery of Israel's Lost Submarine Dakar''. This book chronicles the history of the submarine, the story of the families of the 69 lost sailors, and the events leading to the discovery in 1999.
[
On 1 September 2015 it was reported that the previously-classified reports on the loss of ''Dakar'' and the subsequent search were released to the families of the submarine's crew.
In 2018 the Navy proposed naming their newest submarine ''Dakar'' in tribute to the original vessel. After the families of the ''Dakar''s crew protested, the name was changed to ''Dragon'', which shares the same letters in Hebrew.]
In popular culture
* '' Bright Shark'' is a novel written by Robert Ballard
Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is most noted for his work in underwater archaeology: maritime archaeology and archaeology of ...
and Tony Chiu; it describes the discovery of INS ''Dakar'' by an American research vessel. Israel and the USSR join forces to preserve the submarine's secret – at the price of direct confrontation with the U.S.
References
Further reading
*
External links
INS Dakar
– Extensive information regarding the submarine and the search and discovery efforts to locate her.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dakar
British T-class submarines of the Israeli Navy
Ships built in Plymouth, Devon
1943 ships
Maritime incidents in 1968
1968 in Israel
Israeli submarine accidents
Warships lost with all hands
Shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea
January 1968 events in Asia