High-speed motorboats of Cherbourg

The “ Vedettes of Cherbourg ” indicates one of the rocambolesques businesses of diversion of French military material. This one took place at the beginning of Cherbourg, at the end of the Sixties.

History

In 1969, the France signs a contract with the State of Israel for the sale of 12 high-speed motorboats missile launcher. A shipyard of Cherbourg, the Mechanical engineering of Normandy (CMN), is in charge of the execution of the order. But after an Israeli military intervention out of its borders, the general de Gaulle issues an embargo on the sale of weapons bound for Israel.

Five of these high-speed motorboats are delivered before the embargo, two are recovered of accuracy and five others are kept in the commercial port of Cherbourg.

A trick is then developed: a Norwegian company, the Starboat and Oil Drilling Company , created for the circumstance, asks France and in Israel to recover the high-speed motorboats because these ships, without armament, interest it, allegedly to make oil research at sea North. The Hebrew State accepts all the more easily as it is at the origin of the operation by the means of its secret services. It provides even the crews. In the night from December 24th to 25th, around 2 hours of the morning, the high-speed motorboats take the broad one. They arrive at Haïfa the New Year's Day.

The business is revealed on December 26th, 1969 by a dispatch of the central Agency of press (ACP). Information knows a world repercussion.

The Minister for Defense Michel Debré, in a hurry to find persons in charge, sanctions the Gazelles general and general engineer Bonte, who chair the inter-ministerial committee charged to guarantee the regular export of the weaponries, the CIEEMG, according to the official designation. That does not prevent France from being rized of the chancelleries.

According to the historian Pierre Razoux, the French government was informed of the Israeli intentions via its intelligence services but let make, seizing this pretext to officialize contracts of armaments concluded beforehand with certain Arab States. The policy of neutrality installation by De Gaulle was thus safeguarded, the Israeli army and the Arab armies having both summer provided with French material.

The construction of the 12 high-speed motorboats resulted from two signed contracts the July 26th, 1965 and March 14th, 1966 between the State of Israel and the Mechanical engineering of Normandy (CMN), more known in Cherbourg under the denomination of Building sites Amiot. The first high-speed motorboat was launched on April 11th, 1967 and the twelfth and last on December 16th, 1969.

Random links: