HISTORY
NARVAL was a first-class Requin-class deep-sea submarine, built by the Cherbourg Arsenal and launched in 1925. She had a gross tonnage of 970 tons surfaced and 1441 tons submerged, was 78,5 meters long by 6,85 meters wide, and had a maximum operating depth of 80 meters. Her armament consisted of a 100 mm gun, two 8 mm machine guns, and ten 550 mm torpedo tubes, six of which were internal (four in the bow and two in the stern) and four of which were traversable (two in the stern and two in the bow). She entered service with the French Navy on July 23, 1926.
At the time of the French armistice, June 22, 1940, the NARVAL was in the port of Sousse, Tunisia. Her commander, Lieutenant General Francois Drogou, upon receiving news of the French surrender, decided to heed General de Gaulle's appeal and continue the fight against the Axis forces alongside Great Britain. She set sail for Malta on the evening of the 24th, sending a radio message during the voyage that would become famous: "Treason all along the line. I'm setting sail for an English port.The NARVAL became the first unit of the Force Navales Francaises Libres (FNFL). Upon reaching Malta, it disembarked about thirty sailors who had decided not to follow the commander and were repatriated. In the following months, the crew was rebuilt, entirely of French volunteers, whose average age was 22.
The Narval carried out a first mission between September 25 and October 7, and a second between October 25 and November 3, both unsuccessful. Having departed on December 2 for its third war mission, aimed at cutting off Italian traffic between Lampedusa and Kerkennah, the NARVAL never returned. It almost certainly sank after hitting a mine from an Italian barrage, with the loss of its entire crew of 50 men.
The submarine NARVAL was awarded the Croix de la Légion d'honneur and the Médaille de la Résistance avec rosette and a Citation à l'Ordre de l'Armée de mer.
Commander Drogou, already a Knight of the Legion of Honour, was posthumously awarded the Ordre de la Liberation and the Médaille de la Résistance.
Four other members of the NARVAL crew were decorated.
Main sources:
Hugo Ben. Le sous-marin Narval de la Drôle de Guerre à la France Libre (September 1939 – December 1940). History. 2021. .dumas-03517034.
Wikipedia, page dedicated to Narval, https://it.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Narval&oldid=133501578
THE WRECK
After the end of the war, the wreck of the NARVAL was located by the naval salvage company MICOPERI, which removed the propellers, the gun, and several tons of lead ballast from the bow of the submarine. The wreck was visited by a team from the SDSS (M. Arena, M. Cottafava) for the first time in 2010.
The wreck lies at 35°02'N, 11°52'E, approximately 50 miles SW of Lampedusa, on a sandy bottom at a depth of 39 meters. The NARVAL is broken into two sections, approximately 400 meters apart. The main section extends from the stern and includes the turret and most of the submarine's hull, except for the last 15 meters or so of the bow, where the hull is interrupted by a tangle of metal. The attack periscope on the turret is bent and broken. The removal of some nets that were wrapped around the hull in 2021 and 2022 by the SDSS in collaboration with a team from Ghost Divers, allowed the exposure of the broken magnetic compass, which is still in place (2023) and the access hatch to the turret, found open, perhaps indicating that the submarine struck the mine while navigating on the surface at night.
Of the 8 mm machine gun aft of the turret, only the mount remains. The wreck, while still a very evocative and spectacular site, is covered in marine algae and encrustations that blur the shapes and make it difficult to distinguish details.
The bow section, perhaps knocked down on its starboard side, is little more than a pile of sheet metal.
In 2021, a plaque commemorating the crew was buried on the seabed near the wreck. The wreck is a war cemetery.
EXPLOSIVES AND HYDROCARBONS
The NARVAL carried a complement of 14 550 mm torpedoes, some of which are probably still inside the hull. Like any submarine, the NARVAL carried several tons of lead ballast and a large number of batteries.
LIFE ON THE WRECK
The NARVAL wreck is covered in sargassum and populated by triggerfish, white bream, red porgy and pharaoh porgy.
THE MODEL
The photogrammetry was performed by processing approximately 7.000 photographs taken in 2022 and 2023 during four dives. The model took several days to develop.
Photos: S. Gualtieri, M. Arena, M. Giaretta, I. Wagner
Elaborations: S. Gualtieri, K. Beemster Leverenz, N. Arena.
JOURNEY INTO THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL WRECK
3D photogrammetry of the wreck, freely accessible
Immersive 360° video up to 8K resolution in 3D viewable with smartphone, laptop or
head set “A tour of the Narval with SDSS”
The 3D file to print it with a 3D printer
Virtual tour of the wreck in a virtual reconstruction
Cargo manifest
Ship's plan sheet
Bonus video of some wrecks from the Battle of the Convoys