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Fifty-one years after the death of La Minerve , a submarine of the French Navy, off Toulon in the south of France, research resumes Thursday, July 4 to find the wreck.
On January 27, 1968 at dawn, the attack submarine La Minerve emits its last radio message. He informed the accompanying aircraft that he estimated arriving an hour later at his berth in the port of Toulon. With 57 meters long and twelve torpedo tubes, this Daphne class building is one of the spearheads of the French submarine force.
Having left a week earlier for an operational situation after the takeover of André Fauve, Pasha of La Minerve , the submarine sailed a priori at that moment to snorkel: only a tube emerges from the surface of the water for the oxygen vessel.
At 7:59, the geophysical detection laboratory recorded an implosion at sea, in the area where La Minerve is supposed to be. Has she been the victim of a collision, the explosion of a missile, a torpedo or an accident of the aeration tube? The mystery remains. The submarine will give no more sign of life and its wreck will never be found despite three research campaigns.
Last October, families of the disappeared had called for the resumption of research, to " know where rest those who gave their lives for their country " and to " allow to complete a long work of mourning, which for some, n could never be done . The green light was finally given at the beginning of the year by the Minister of Armies Florence Parly. After five decades of silence by the military authorities, an underwater drone and an oceanographic ship leave to probe the sea this Thursday, July 4 off Toulon where the Minerve and its secrets are probably lying at 2,250 meters depth.