By akademiotoelektronik, 07/11/2022

Maritime comments: 1978 |Sea and navy

Sea and Marine rebroadcasts the maritime words written by Pierre Deloye and published from 1973 to 2008 in the columns of the Breton daily Le Télégramme.Today, we are offering you an immersion in the news and maritime concerns of 1978.A year marked by the sinking of the Amoco Cadiz which causes a dramatic tide black on the coasts of northern Brittany.In the United States, the government decides to sell the SS United States liner, which had symbolized the peak of the competition of large transatlantic lines in the fastest crossing of the ocean.Meanwhile, the Carter administration brakes on the four irons to authorize the construction of the fifth nuclear aircraft carrier of the US Navy, while the Soviet navy is still talked about with it with its submarines.The United Kingdom, for its part, turns a page with the disarmament of its last aircraft carrier in Catapults, but publicly presents for the first time the Sea Harrier and the Tremplin "Sky Jump", British invention which are equipped from the door-aeronefs of the Royal Navy.In France, it is the arrival of the Super Etendard which will significantly increase the capacities of the on -board hunting of the French Navy, while the government relaunches the project to build the sixth SNLE of the Redoustable type.

Dans la cinquantaine de chroniques qu’il publie de janvier à décembre 1978, Pierre Deloye revient également sur des usages et coutume de la marine, quelques règlements miliaires incongrus et des anniversaires : le 200^ème du traité d’amitié entre la France et les Etats-Unis d’Amérique, le 80^ème de la disparition du sous-marin Ondine, le 20^ème de la création de l’Organisation Maritime Internationale ou encore le 10^ème de la capture de l’USS Pueblo en Corée.

The patrol

Article published in the telegram of 03/01/78

Since the law of 1976, and to cite its own terms, the Republic has exercised, in the economic zone of 200 miles, sovereign rights with regard to the exploration and exploitation of natural, biological or not resources, from the bottom ofthe sea, of its basement, and sur-jacent waters.Ambitious program, as we see.

Unfortunately, to exercise sovereign rights, you must first know what is happening in these vast expanses, that is to say that you have to have patrol planes and even many.Admire the insight of the leaders of the German-Hollander firm Fokker-VFW since there are already two and a half years ago, they planned the arrival of a large world market for a simple, inexpensive plane, without anti-submarine ambition, but capable of monitoring maritime traffic and fishing, with an autonomy of ten hours.They immediately undertook to modify their Fokker 27 to make a sea plane, the main difference consisting in the enlargement of the tanks and the addition of cans, the radar and the inertial center being on request.

This plane is currently looking for customers and has recently been presented at Le Bourget to French potential buyers;At the same time, the Marcel Dassault firm offered the same buyers its Falcon 20 g or Guardian who had the privilege, as we commented here, to be commanded to 41 copies by the American Coast Guard body.It is true that this new version of mystery 20 has not only larger tanks, as it should be, but above all a brand new engine, since it is the ATF-3 6 of Garrett Air Research, the giantAmerican of the small engine;A small engine that consumes little and which still grows 2400 kilos.

These two planes (there are others, of course), therefore have the serious disadvantage of not being French, or not enough.We understand that the concern of buying French must weigh in this case.But will it be necessary to have the point of choosing an airplane like the North 262 which is clearly too small, too slow and without sufficient autonomy?

Editor's note: in addition to northern 262, naval aeronautics will be equipped in 1984 with five Falcon 200 Gardian for Polynesia and New Caledonia, the Falcon 50 arriving until 1999.Grouped within the 28F flotilla, the last north 262 were removed from the service in 2009.

North 262 (©: French Navy)

Crossing

Article published in the telegram of 01/10/78

MM meeting.Begin and Sadate in Ismaïlia, Christmas day again draws attention to the Suez Canal, on the edge of which is also, precisely the country house of the Egyptian president.The choice of this place, underlines in any case the importance that the canal has taken up in the Egyptian economy.We know that the pessimistic forecasts had not failed in 1975, at the time of the reopening: price of the too high channel, fears of insurers, depth too low for large cister ships, oil crisis, in reality nothingThis did not affect the recovery.The number of ships in transit reaches sixty a day, which is roughly the figure of 1967 and when the sand wind blows in a storm, which happens once a month in winter, it is hundreds that shipsclutter the rages of Port-Said and Suez.As for the tonnage in transit, it is nonetheless doubled, which is impressive, even if the ships are larger than formerly, and especially if one thinks that the tanker ships represent only 40 % of traffic, against 75 % ten years ago.

It is true that the maximum tonnage is always limited to 60.000 tonnes, but the canal authority resolutely pursues a large work program which should allow in 1980 the passage of ships of 150.000 tonnes in charge.It is enough to convince oneself of the reality of these projects, to see at work, at night, in electric light, the dredges built in Japan by Lshikawa and equipped with sucking pumps of 1.000-cubes per hour.

It is also one of the rare shows of a crossing that offers very little.The bifid brush of the bow projector, installed with great pain, because it weighs more than a ton, perfectly illuminates the banks and the red and green buoys, between which it is enough to stand, like a train stands on its rails.The pilot does not have much to do.He monitors the boat in front, exchanges a few words in Arabic with the radio, counts the mileage terminals and as it is not Muslim, but Orthodox Coptic, it does honor to French wine, most simply in the world.

Not seen not caught

Article published in the telegram of 01/17/78

On January 23, 1968, it will just be ten years ago this week, we learned with stupor that a building of the American navy, the Pueblo, had been attacked by North Korean patrollers, taken on the tackle and led to liveforce in Wonsan, while his crew was interned.

What would happen ?How was the powerful American nation to react before this "war act" in the words of M.Dean Rusk?We could expect spectacular developments and indeed from the 25th we learned the constitution at the Japan Sea of a Task Force centered on three aircraft carriers.But from February 5, that is to say just a week later, this naval force dispersed without having acted.At the same time, we learned that the Pueblo was not the transport of equipment that it seemed to be in the "combat fleets", but a building specializing in the search for electronic intelligence;As for his exact position at the time of the attack, it was very difficult to get an idea since the Koreans affirmed that he was inside their territorial waters and that the Americans affirmed the opposite.

The members of the crew confessed everything that was wanted and on December 23 of the same year, Major-General Woodward signed on behalf of his government "solemn apology for the serious act of espionage committed by an American ship againstThe Democratic Republic of Korea ".Subject to what the crew was released, the commander received a blame and retired five years later to indulge in the culture of lawyers in California.

What to conclude from this story?The Americans lost their face a little, but what else could they do?They were already annoyed with Vietnam without putting a second Korean war on the back.As for electronic listening, it is probably much more practiced today than ten years ago.Only it was the satellites who took over, in the United States and in the Soviet Union at least, which does not prevent the latter from maintaining a crowd of more or less specialized ships.The other countries do what they can, with what they have, and trying not to get caught.

The fashion

Article published in the telegram of 01/24/78

"My attention, wrote in January 1903 m.Camille Pelletan, then Minister of the Navy in the cabinet of Little Father Combes, my attention having been called on the drawbacks that can present, from the point of view of the hygiene and health of men, a haircut too short,I consulted the Higher Navy Health Council.

This advice expressed the opinion that in the interest of the conservation of hair and to avoid sailors of conditions due to the almost complete deletion of the hair, such as cooling, neuralgia, etc..It is in all points more hygienic to leave the hair a length varying between two and three centimeters ".

Thus, sixty-five years ago the serious question of hair was agitated even in the office of the Minister.But with the decrees on the discipline, it is the President of the Republic himself who would specify the doctrine in hair matters.In 1966, under General de Gaulle, the haircut had to be "clear and without eccentricity, the temples and the neck cleared".We noticed in this deliberately vague sentence the concern not to cling to too tatillonous prescriptions, while being careful not to deepen the mysterious relationship that could be between the length of the hair and the discipline, it apparently goingself.

In 1975, the new decree and the new president mark a complete change, because henceforth the cup is no longer subject to "requirements of hygiene, safety and the wearing of special effects and equipment"to be said to purely practical criteria, which can therefore vary largely with each military occupation.

Curiously, the investigation to apply the navy is careful not to follow this slippery slope to fix on the contrary some valid rules in all cases: the cut, for example, must "stop at the lowest at half betweenThe level of the lower ear and the collar of the shirt "at least for male staff.As for women, by an effect of the gallantry of the offices, they will simply have to "keep themselves from all too lightly fantasy, but without making fashion".Another scandalous gender inequality!

The squadron escort Duperré (©: Giorgio Arra)

The laugh

Article published in the telegram of 31/01/78

We are confused by reading the article that a satirical weekly saw fit to devote, on January 18, and on the first page, again, to the unfortunate affair of the Duperré*.Why so much relentlessness?Why overwhelm, even before having the slightest result of the slightest investigation, the unhappy commander **?That it was if the ship, instead of having the torn shell, had been completely failed or if it is ...