The Doris (Q 135) was a French submarine of Circé class , which on the side of the Allies in World War II was used. The boat was sunk by the German submarine U 9 on May 9, 1940 . The wreck of the boat was discovered by Dutch divers in 2003.
The Doris was already out of date and in poor condition by the start of the Second World War. The Circé class was designed in 1923. Like her sister ships Thétis , Circé and Calypso , the Doris was built at the Chantiers Schneider et Cie shipyard in Chalon-sur-Saône and was launched there on November 27, 1927. The boat's military career up to the Second World War was without high points.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the boat belonged to the 10th French submarine flotilla, which was moved to Great Britain in April 1940 to reinforce the Royal Navy . Doris herself crossed the canal on April 14th with her sister boat Circé and the submarine Orphée . On the way, the Doris suffered fatal damage: the drive of the main compressor got stuck. As a result of this damage, the boat was no longer able to generate the compressed air it needed to surface after a dive. The boat reached its new home base in Harwich with only one operational machine. A repair of the machine in Harwich was not possible, even in France no spare part could be obtained. Since the most compact diesel engines were built in Germany in 1927, the shipyard bought the engines in Germany at the time.
The last ride
On May 6, 1940, the crew of the Doris was informed that the boat, together with several other French and British submarines, was to patrol the North Sea north of the Frisian Islands, although the boat could only make halfway due to the defective engine. and could descend, but not reappear. The commander informed the crew that the mission would probably not be returned and gave the crew the freedom to participate in the mission. The team decided to make the trip together. On the morning of May 8, 1940, after the crew had written last letters to their relatives, the Doris ran out with five British and six French submarines. In addition to the regular French crew, three British seamen were on board to ensure communication with the British ships. The group of U 9 was discovered off the Dutch coast under the orders of Oberleutnant zur See Wolfgang Lüth , who followed them unnoticed. At around one o'clock in the morning on May 9th, Lüth maneuvered his boat into attack position against the Doris , which, moving slowly and with a full moon, offered an easy target on a clear night. Lüth had two torpedoes shot down, and according to U 9's war diary , the Doris exploded in a huge ball of fire. None of the Doris crew survived the sinking.
The rediscovery of Doris
In 2003 the two Dutch divers Ton van der Sluijs and Hans van Leeuwen explored an unknown underwater obstacle, which is shown in nautical charts at position 52 ° 47 ′ 36 ″ N , 3 ° 39 ′ 16 ″ E, coordinates: 52 ° 47 ′ 36 ″ N , 3 ° 39 '16 " O was located. It turned out to be the wreck of a submarine, which they identified as the Doris by means of labeled machine parts. The two divers explored the wreck, keeping the coordinates secret, and affixed a sticker before informing the French and Dutch authorities of the find. In December 2003, the French Navy checked the identification and recovered the gun, which is now erected as a memorial in Brest . The two discoverers of the wreck were awarded a medal by the French state.
52.793333333333 3.6544444444444
literature
Erminio Bagnasco: Submarines in World War II. (Technology - Classes - Types. A Comprehensive Encyclopedia). 5th edition. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01252-9 .
