Georges Houot

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Georges Houot 1970
Georges Houot on board the FNRS-3

Georges Houot (born August 29, 1913 in Paris , † August 7, 1977 in La Garde ) was a French naval officer who played a key role in the exploration of the deep sea by Bathyscaphe .

biography

Houot was born in 1913 to Joseph Houot († 1914) and Mireille Gleizes, sister of the painter Albert Gleizes . He attended the Prytanée national militaire in La Flèche , where he obtained the Baccalauréat . He continued his military career after graduating from school and from 1933 went to the École navale , the French naval academy. During the training he served, among others, on the light cruiser Jeanne d'Arc , then he served as an officer initially 1940/41 on the cruiser Gloire in 1942 on the torpedo boat Le Hardi , from 1945 to 1947 on the frigate Croix-de-Lorraine and then until 1949 on the Lac Pavin . In the meantime, Houot served as a naval policeman in 1943.

In 1949 he succeeded Jacques-Yves Cousteau as the commander of the research vessel Elie Monnier , which was mainly used to explore the sea floor. Although he suffered intermittently from poliomyelitis , he took part in scuba diving and discovered his scientific interest during this time. In 1951, Houot was appointed by the Navy to lead the development of the bathyscaphe FNRS-3 . Two years later he was given supreme command of the Bathyscaphe; the FNRS-3 set a deep diving record of 4,050 m on February 15, 1954 off Dakar . From 1953 to 1960, Houot made a total of 93 dives in the Mediterranean Sea , off West Africa , on the coast of Portugal and off Japan .

Since the FNRS-3 was successful and reliable, Houot and engineer Pierre Willm began planning in 1955 to build a new, improved bathyscaphe. The design was approved in November 1955 and construction began in 1958. The new bathyscaphe, called Archimède , entered service in 1961, replacing the FNRS-3. In the following years, Houot commanded the Archimède and its mother ship Marcel-le-Bihan , the former air traffic control ship Greif of the German Air Force . In total, he carried out 64 dives with the submersible until 1970 in the Mediterranean, off Japan and Puerto Rico as well as on Madeira and the Azores . The maximum diving depth reached was 9,500 m (reached in 1962 in the Kuril Trench ).

In 1970, Houot retired after 37 years of service. He died on August 7, 1977 in La Garde in the south of France . At his funeral u. a. then Defense Minister Yvon Bourges and then Prime Minister Raymond Barre attended.

Orders and awards

literature

  • Pierre Wilm: Le Bathyscaphe . Edition de Paris 1954
  • Georges Houot: La découverte sous-marine: de l'homme-poisson au bathyscaphe . Bourrellier, Paris 1959
  • Carol Ruppé, Jan Barstad: International handbook of underwater archeology . Springer, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 0306463458

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Houot, Georges
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French naval officer and marine researcher
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 7th August 1977
Place of death La Garde