INS Dakar

The submarine was purchased by Israel, along with two of her T-class sisters, in 1965, HMS Truncheon and HMS Turpin. She was commissioned into the Israeli Sea Corps on 10 November 1967 as Dakar (דקר)("Swordfish" in the Hebrew language) under the command of Lieutenant Commander Ya'acov Ra'anan.On 9 January 1968, Dakar departed from Portsmouth for Haifa. On the morning of 15 January Dakar put into Gibraltar, departing at midnight, and proceeded across the Mediterranean Sea underwater using her snort mast. Her last position report was at 0610 on 24 January, when she gave a location just east of Crete. There were three further routine messages which did not provide a position, the last being at 0002 on 25 January.Despite an extensive search, no trace was found of the vessel. Her stern emergency marker buoy washed ashore on the coast of Khan Yunis, an Arab town southwest of Gaza almost a year later, on 9 February 1969.The wreck was finally discovered on 24 May 1999 at a depth of 3,000 meters (9,800 ft). The precise cause of the accident is not known but as no emergency measures appear to have been carried out it is thought that the submarine dived suddenly and rapidly past her maximum depth and suffered a catastrophic hull rupture. The emergency buoy was released by the violence of the hull collapse, and washed ashore after drifting for a year.On 11 October 2000, Dakar’s bridge and forward edge of her sail were raised, and are now a memorial display in the Naval Museum in Haifa. [edit]