Emotions bubble to surface over plan to name new sub after sunken Dakar

Bereaved relatives of first vessel to carry the name — which sank with all hands on deck in 1968 — divided over navy’s plans to use moniker again

By Stuart Winer

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14 January 2016, 8:23 am

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Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

The announcement that Israel’s next high-tech submarine will be named the INS Dakar, after a sub which sank over 45 years ago killing all 69 crew on board, has stirred mixed feelings among relatives of the lost mariners, Channel 2 reported Wednesday.

Israel Navy Commander Maj. Gen. Ram Rothberg announced the reuse of the name on Tuesday during a ceremony to welcome the arrival of the INS Rahav, the country’s newest submarine.

The Rahav’s sister ship, still under construction in Germany, would be named the Dakar, after the vessel that sank in 1968, he said.

The British-made Dakar sank on January 25, 1968, with all hands and under mysterious circumstances when it was making its maiden voyage under an Israeli flag en route to Haifa. The remains of the submarine were only found in 1999 on the seabed between the Greek islands of Crete and Cyprus.

No remains of the Israeli sailors have been found and the cause of the sinking has remained a mystery, making the affair a still-open wound even decades later.

Some family members of the lost sailors praised the decision to name the new vessel Dakar.

“An injustice to the families has been rectified here,” Yehuda Parhi, whose brother Yosef died aboard the Dakar, told Channel 2. “I think the decision honors and embraces our memory. We want to see the next generation, to know that there are those who remember and honor the price that we paid.”

Motti Diskin served with the deceased Parhi, and was less comfortable with the navy’s choice for the future submarine.

“One of the aspects of the navy is superstition and to call a vessel after one that sank in a disaster makes me worry about bad fortune,” he said. “I think the name Dakar is sacred.”

Ziona, sister of Aharon Duga, a sailor who went down with the original Dakar, empathized with Parhi.

“When I first heard about it, I really felt my heart miss a beat,” she told Channel 2. “I am split on the matter: on the one hand, I think it will help to preserve and memorialize the name and of course the heroes; on the other hand I have some doubts about the name — after all, there was a disaster. I try to imagine a mother who sends her son to the new Dakar submarine and I don’t know how she will feel. I would be afraid.”

Soldiers aboard the newly arrived INS Rahav at a Haifa naval base on January 12, 2016. (Shimon Aran)

The Israel Navy’s complete report on the tragedy, which was only released in August last year, concluded that the demise of the Dakar was caused either by loss of control or a technical failure, but didn’t rule out the possibility that the submarine collided with another vessel.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.