Philippe Tailliez
Encyclopedia
Toulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
) was a friend and colleague of Jacques Cousteau. He was an underwater pioneer, who had been diving since the 1930s.
Biography
His father Félix Tailliez, a career sailor then in station in TahitiTahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
, told in his letters the stories of pearl divers, which fascinated his younger son (who had a brother, Jean, sailor also, and a sister, Monique). Philippe Taillez left the naval college in 1924, was affected in Toulon. He became passionate about underwater breath-holding, hunting and images, and became the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
's swimming champion. Inspired by the philosophy of the Swiss naturalist Jacques Grob, whom he met in Carqueiranne
Carqueiranne
Carqueiranne is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It is known now as a tourist seaside resort with good windsurfing nearby, at Almanarre Beach, and a nudist beach at Ile du Levant....
where he lived, of gardening and underwater fishing, he already took heed of the fragility of the sea: "the fertile coastal belt, rich in colors and in fish", he wrote in 1937, "is not broader than a river.". Officer on the destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...
Condorcet, Tailliez made the acquaintance of a young ensign of the vessel with whom he later discovered diving and nature: the gunner Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau
Jacques-Yves Cousteau was a French naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and researcher who studied the sea and all forms of life in water...
.
In 1936 he introduced Cousteau, while both were officers on the Condorcet, to the sport of goggle fishing and two years later to Frédéric Dumas
Frédéric Dumas
Frédéric Dumas was part of a team of three, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They had a passion for diving, and developed the diving regulator with the aid of the engineer Émile Gagnan...
, another diving companion. These three men would start the history of deep-sea diving.
Passionate about cinema and owner of a camera, Cousteau dreamed of making underwater films at once, but for lack of time the dream spent several years to be carried out, and the German Hans Hass
Hans Hass
Hans Hass is a diving pioneer known mainly for his documentaries about sharks, the energon theory, and his commitment, later in life, to the protection of the environment. He was born in Vienna, Austria.-Early years:...
made the first underwater film in the Antilles
Antilles
The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...
in 1939. Tailliez acquired a passion for free-diving
Free-diving
Freediving is any of various aquatic activities that share the practice of breath-hold underwater diving. Examples include breathhold spear fishing, freedive photography, apnea competitions and, to a degree, snorkeling...
and underwater photography
Underwater photography
Underwater photography is the process of taking photographs while under water. It is usually done while scuba diving, but can be done while snorkeling or swimming.-Overview:...
.
In the summer and autumn of 1943 he aided Cousteau in testing the prototype of the aqualung
Aqua-lung
Aqua-Lung was the original name of the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing set in reaching worldwide popularity and commercial success...
, making about five hundred dives, gradually going to deeper depths. These three divers would become known as the three mousquemers (musketeers of the sea).
The Second World War separated their team temporarily and Tailliez in particular would take part at the time of the campaign in Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, with naval action against the Vichy
Vichy
Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...
navy.
He was a career naval officer who, in 1945, was appointed by Admiral Lemonnier as the first commanding officer of the Group d’Etudes et de Recherches Sous-Marines G.E.R.S. (present name : CEPHISMER - CEllule Plongée Humaine et Intervention Sous la MER). Cousteau and Dumas were then transferred by him to the same service. With their ship "Elie Monnier" they performed many mine-clearing duties. At the same time they started their underwater exploration and archaeological finds off the coast of Mahdia
Mahdia
Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax. It is important for the associated fish-processing industry, as well as weaving. It is the capital of Mahdia Governorate.- History :...
, Tunisia. They did physiological tests, discovering the principle of diving tables. In 1949 they helped Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He was one of only two people, along with Lt...
off the coast of Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
with his prototype of the bathyscaph. Tailliez has described these adventures in his book Plongées sans câble (Diving without a cable).
On armistice
Armistice
An armistice is a situation in a war where the warring parties agree to stop fighting. It is not necessarily the end of a war, but may be just a cessation of hostilities while an attempt is made to negotiate a lasting peace...
leave and thus having time, in 1942 they made without breathing apparatus the first French underwater film: "Par dix-huit mètres de fond" (= "18 meters deep"), and the next year "Epaves" (= "Wrecks"), this time with the Cousteau-Gagnan aqualung
Aqua-lung
Aqua-Lung was the original name of the first open-circuit free-swimming underwater breathing set in reaching worldwide popularity and commercial success...
, and with the funds of the Marseilles company of reinflation "Marcellin". In 1945, the Gaullist admiral Lemonnier, having viewed this film, entrusted to Tailliez the direction of the G.R.S. (Group of Underwater Research), which becomes the G.E.R.S. (Group of Studies and Underwater Research) in 1950 (and Cephismer today). He had Cousteau and Dumas assigned there, and obtained a ship, the sloop "Elie Monnier", with which the three made innumerable missions of mine clearance, underwater exploration, physiological tests (discovering the principle of the diving tables), of underwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology is archaeology practised underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras...
(in Mahdia
Mahdia
Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax. It is important for the associated fish-processing industry, as well as weaving. It is the capital of Mahdia Governorate.- History :...
in Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
) and of supporting the first bathyscaphe
Bathyscaphe
A bathyscaphe is a free-diving self-propelled deep-sea submersible, consisting of a crew cabin similar to a bathysphere, but suspended below a float rather than from a surface cable, as in the classic bathysphere design....
s of Professor Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard
Jacques Piccard was a Swiss oceanographer and engineer, known for having developed underwater vehicles for studying ocean currents. He was one of only two people, along with Lt...
: the FNRS II in 1949 in Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
. These adventures are told in the book of Philippe Tailliez "Plongées sans câble" ("Dives without cable") and in the book of James Dugan, Frederic Dumas and Jacques-Yves Cousteau "Le Monde du silence" (= "The Silent World") (former to film
The Silent World
The Silent World is a 1956 French documentary film co-directed by the famed French oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau and a young Louis Malle. The Silent World is noted as one of the first films to use underwater cinematography to show the ocean depths in color...
of the same name). In 1949, Philippe Taillez was sent to French Indo-China, where he was involved in combat diving
Frogman
A frogman is someone who is trained to scuba diving or swim underwater in a military capacity which can include combat. Such personnel are also known by the more formal names of combat diver or combatant diver or combat swimmer....
during the anti-colonial rebellion there, leaving the direction of the G.E.R.S. to Cousteau and Jean Alinat.
On his return to France, Taillez began, together with Hans Sellner, the development of the Aquarius, a new type of bathyscaphe that used liquid air
Liquid air
Liquid air is air that has been cooled to very low temperatures so that it has condensed to a pale blue mobile liquid. To protect it from room temperature, it must be kept in a vacuum flask. Liquid air can absorb heat rapidly and revert to its gaseous state...
to float; the previous bathyscaphe used a big bag full of petrol as a float. Through lack of financial support, they could not make it technically perfect and their prototype sank during the first test.
On 20 January 1955 he was designated Commander of the Northern Rhine Flotilla and of the building base "the Vosges" at Koblenz
Koblenz
Koblenz is a German city situated on both banks of the Rhine at its confluence with the Moselle, where the Deutsches Eck and its monument are situated.As Koblenz was one of the military posts established by Drusus about 8 BC, the...
-Bingen
Bingen am Rhein
Bingen am Rhein is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.The settlement’s original name was Bingium, a Celtic word that may have meant “hole in the rock”, a description of the shoal behind the Mäuseturm, known as the Binger Loch. Bingen was the starting point for the...
in Germany and took its command with the centre of the Maritime Forces of the Rhine on April 24. President Nasser's plan to nationalize the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
in 1956, involved the Franco-English reaction of November 1956, marked Commander Tailliez deeply. He was also responsible for a part of a crawling "channel" of life, the Rhine, an artery essential for the economic welfare of his residents whose traffic is equivalent to that of Suez Canal: 100 million tons! He was joined soon there by the leading seaman Elies, who had been, in the Far East, one of the most solid monitors of his section of underwater intervention. Elies arrived to form, then to direct, the underwater intervention group, which obviously, was lacking with the flotilla. The binomial Taillez - Elies carried out 222 April 1956 the first dive in the pit of the narrows of Binger Loch, the deepest place in the Rhine. Taillez told about this dive in an article of the Maritime Review special number 172 of Christmas 1960, entitled "Dive in the Lorelei
Lorelei
The Lorelei is a rock on the eastern bank of the Rhine near St. Goarshausen, Germany, which soars some 120 metres above the waterline. It marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea. A very strong current and rocks below the waterline have caused many boat...
". On 1 August 1956, he left this Command to join a new assignment close to the diving at the edges of the Mediterranean.
At the same time he conducted several underwater archaeological explorations.
In 1960 he retired from the French Navy. From then on he devoted himself to the protection of the sea from environmental pollution. In 1964 he was a founding member of the scientific committee of the Port-Cros National Park
Port-Cros National Park
Port-Cros National Park is a French national park established on the Mediterranean island of Port-Cros, east of Toulon. It also administers natural areas in some surrounding locales....
. In 1982 he became the president of the GRAN (Groupe de Recherche en Archéologie Navale). He was, from 1960 to 1963, the president of the technical commission of the Fédération française d'études et de sports sous-marins (French association for underwater studies and sports). He was also one of the founding member of the Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques
The Confédération Mondiale des Activités Subaquatiques is the World Underwater Federation. CMAS is the international umbrella organisation for recreational diver training organisations represented in the CMAS Technical Committee and underwater sports governed by the CMAS Sport Committee...
(World Underwater Federation).
Philippe Tailliez is considered as one of the fathers of modern deep-sea diving. He inspired Cousteau to his environmental consciousness. He was given many awards in France and abroad, for his multiple contributions.
From 1960 to 1963 Philippe Tailliez was president of the National Technical Commission of the FFESSM and one of the founder members of the CMAS (World Confederation of the Subaqueous Activities).
He was at the same time in underwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology
Underwater archaeology is archaeology practised underwater. As with all other branches of archaeology it evolved from its roots in pre-history and in the classical era to include sites from the historical and industrial eras...
and led many sites with the assistance of the Management of underwater archaeological research and Navy. He chaired, as of his creation (1982), the GRAN (Group of Research in Naval Archaeology).
After 1960, date of his retirement from the Navy, he was devoted to marine environmental protection. Keeping away from the media contrary to Cousteau, he was nevertheless very active. Founder member of the scientific Committee of the national park of Port-Cros, created in 1964 and of the Paul Ricardoceanographical Institute, he helped and advised with a constant generosity of many impassioned explorations, cinema and sea, of which some became famous.
Considered the modern "father of deep-sea diving" and the inspirer of the environmental conscience of Cousteau, Philippe Tailliez received many distinctions, in France and abroad, for his many contributions.
Movies
In 1943 he was awarded, with Cousteau and Dumas, the first prize ex-aequo on the Congrès du film documentaire for the first French underwater film Par dix-huit mètres de fond (Eighteen meters deep), shot the year before. He was awarded, again together with Cousteau and Dumas, the CIDALC Prize at the 1946 Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
for their film Epaves (shipwrecks) .
In French
- La plongée en scaphandre, co-authors : Ph. Tailliez, F.Dumas, J.Y. Cousteau, J. Alinat, F. Devilla, Ed. Elzevir, 1949. First manual dedicated to diving in an atmospheric diving suitAtmospheric diving suitAn atmospheric diving suit or ADS is a small one-man articulated submersible of anthropomorphic form which resembles a suit of armour, with elaborate pressure joints to allow articulation while maintaining an internal pressure of one atmosphere...
- La plongée, co-authors : Ph. Tailliez, F. Dumas, J.Y. Cousteau, J. alinat, F. Devilla, Ed. Arthaud, 1955. Reissues in 1960 and 1967
- Plongées sans câbles, Philippe Tailliez, Ed. Arthaud, 1954. Prix Nautilus
- Nouvelles plongées sans câbles, Ed. Arthaud, 1960
- Aquarius, Philippe Tailliez, Ed. France Empire, 1961. Prix de l'Académie de Marine
- Nouvelles plongées sans câbles (1943 à 1966), Ed. Arthaud, 1967
- Plongée sans câbles, Ed. Edisud, 1998
In English
- To Hidden Depths ; E. P. Dutton & Company, Inc., New York: 1954
- The complete manual of free diving; Putnam, 1957
- Aquarius; Harrap, 1964
External links
- Classic Dive Books – Author Philippe Tailliez
- http://www.hds.org/tailliez.html