Maurice Fargues (April 23, 1913 – September 17, 1947) was a diver with the

French Navy The French Navy (, , ), informally (, ), is the Navy, maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of History of France, France. It is among the largest and most powerful List of navies, naval forces i ...

and a close associate of commander Philippe Tailliez and deputy commander

Jacques Cousteau Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (, also , ; 11 June 191025 June 1997) was a French naval officer, oceanographer, filmmaker and author. He co-invented the first successful open-circuit self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA), called the ...

. In August 1946, Fargues saved the lives of Cousteau and Frédéric Dumas during their dive into the karstic spring of Vaucluse. On September 17, 1947, while attempting to set a new depth record, Maurice Fargues became the first diver to die using an Aqua-Lung.

GRS and the Fountain of Vaucluse

In late 1945, Petty Officer Maurice Fargues joined the newly formed GRS (''Groupement de Recherches Sous-marines'', Underwater Research Group) of the

Toulon Toulon (, , ; , , ) is a city in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southeastern France. Located on the French Riviera and the historical Provence, it is the prefecture of the Var (department), Var department. The Commune of Toulon h ...

, commanded by Philippe Tailliez, with Cousteau as its deputy commander and Dumas as civilian adviser and chief diver. Dumas trained Fargues and the GRS' other two new recruits, Petty Officers Jean-Paul Pinard and Guy Morandière, as Aqua-Lung divers. Maurice Fargues became commander of the diving tender ''VP 8'', a 21.9-meter (72-foot) twin-screw launch. On August 27, 1946, the GRS dived into the Fountain of Vaucluse, a mysterious spring in the village of

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.

, hoping to discover the secret of its yearly flooding. Maurice Fargues was the operation's surface commander, in charge of the guide rope which allowed divers to communicate with the surface. Tailliez and Morandière dove together first, but they were rapidly affected by a narcosis that almost compromised their return to the surface. When Cousteau and Dumas dived together, they suffered the same symptoms, and Tailliez and Fargues probably saved their lives by pulling them back up to the surface. It was later determined that

carbon monoxide Carbon monoxide (chemical formula CO) is a poisonous, flammable gas that is colorless, odorless, tasteless, and slightly less dense than air. Carbon monoxide consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom connected by a triple bond. It is the si ...

had unexpectedly contaminated the air in their cylinders.

Death

In September 1947, just before the "Salon Nautique" in Paris, Cousteau pushed to organize a series of deep diving attempts to determine the maximum depth a scuba diver could reach. On September 17, Maurice Fargues made the first deep diving attempt near the French Navy base at

. Maurice Fargues descended an anchor line with marker slates attached at 10 metre intervals, allowing him to sign his name on them to certify the depth he had reached, and periodically tugged on a safety line attached to his weight belt to let his colleague Frédéric Dumas on the surface know that he was alive. After three minutes, at a record-setting depth of , Maurice Fargues stopped signalling. Philippe Tailliez ordered that he be pulled up, and Jean Pinard dived to meet him at 60 meters depth, only to discover that Fargues was unconscious, his mouthpiece hanging on his chest. Resuscitation attempts were continued for 12 hours, but Fargues was dead. Nitrogen narcosis or oxygen toxicity had caused him to lose his mouthpiece and drown. Fargues' scrawled signature on the slate at confirmed his depth record. The GRS concluded that was the maximum depth a diver using

compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air in vehicle tires and shock absorbers are commonly used for improved traction and reduced vibration. Compressed air is an important medium for t ...

could reach. In the words of Jacques Cousteau: "Dumas and I owed our lives to Maurice Fargues, who had resurrected us from the death cave at Vaucluse. We will not be consoled that we were unable to save him."

Legacy

On September 17, 2007, the 60th anniversary of Fargues' death, a room was dedicated in his honor as the "Salle Maurice Fargues" at the Musée International de la Plongée Frédéric Dumas in Sanary-sur-Mer,

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Fargues' children, Roselyne and Louis Fargues, were present at the ceremony. The room contains a plaque bearing a photograph of Fargues taken before his final dive and a reproduction of his final scrawled signature. On October 18, 2012, a conference was given by Bernard Tailliez, son of Commander Philippe Tailliez, as part of a series of lectures entitled ''Les fils de Philippe Tailliez - 10 ans après'', organised by the '' Service historique de la Défense'' at the ''Escale Castigneau'' ( Military port of Toulon), honoring the memory of Philippe Tailliez, Petty Officer Maurice Fargues and the birth of the GRS. Fargues' children, Roselyne and Louis Fargues, were present at the ceremony.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fargues, Maurice 1913 births 1947 deaths Accidental deaths in France French Navy officers French underwater divers Place of birth missing Professional divers Underwater diving deaths