Qualla: French submarine Amazone (Q161)

French submarine Amazone (Q161): Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Few warships serve under three flags in a single career. Amazone served under three in six years. She was launched in 1931 as a vessel of the French Third Republic, fled to Casablanca in June 1940 as German tanks closed on Brest, woke up the next morning under Vichy colors, fired torpedoes at the United States Navy in 1942, switched to the Free French within days, and finished the war as a sound-school target for American sonar trainees off Bermuda. The political identity of her ensign kept changing. The boat itself kept going.

French submarine Amazone (Q161): Laid Down at Le Trait

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Amazone's keel was laid on 22 August 1929 by Ateliers et Chantiers de la Seine-Maritime at Le Trait, on the Seine downstream from Rouen. She was launched on 28 December 1931, a Diane-class submarine authorized under the 1927 naval program. The class was a workhorse of the interwa...

French submarine Amazone (Q161): The Run to Casablanca

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 18 June 1940 the German army was closing on Brest. At six in the evening the order went out: any French ship that could get underway should run; any that could not should scuttle herself. At six-thirty, the submarine tender Jules Verne and thirteen submarines - Amazone among t...

French submarine Amazone (Q161): Mers el-Kebir and Operation Catapult

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 3 July 1940 the Royal Navy made its move. Force H arrived off Mers el-Kebir in Algeria and demanded that the French fleet there either turn itself over to British custody or disable itself. When the French refused, the British opened fire on ships that had been their allies a ...

French submarine Amazone (Q161): Torch

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Two and a half years later Amazone was patched together at Casablanca again, this time waiting for an Allied invasion she did not yet know was coming. On the night of 7-8 November 1942 the indications became unmistakable. Operation Torch - the Allied landings in French North Afri...

French submarine Amazone (Q161): Sound School

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The last chapter is the unlikeliest. In January 1944 Amazone reported to the United States Navy sound school at Bermuda. Her job was to play the role of an enemy submarine for American sonar operators learning to find one. She made the runs day after day - exercise dates listed i...