U.S. Planes to Begin Search for Long-Lost Israeli Submarine
U.S. Navy planes will begin searching Egyptian waters in the Mediterranean on Saturday for the wreckage of an Israeli submarine that sank 18 years ago with a crew of 69, a U.S. Embassy official said Thursday.
Israel had just bought the Dakar, a refurbished British World War II vessel, when it sank mysteriously in January, 1968, while on its way from England. The Israeli crew was lost.
Unable to recover the vessel, Israel has sought permission to search Egyptian waters in U.S.-brokered talks under way to restore full relations between the two Middle East countries.
Israeli officials say they would like to raise the wreckage, give the crew a formal burial and determine how the craft sank. Egypt in 1969 claimed to have sunk the Dakar after its discovery in Egyptian waters, but that was never confirmed.
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