Illustrated History of Scuba Diving in the French Navy

[eskimo3883]

Hi,

I was on the French web site "frogmanmuseum.com" trying to learn a bit on CG45s and came across a French book "La plongee autonome, letemps des pionniers (("Illustrated History of Scuba Diving in the French Navy"). It is by Claude Robinet and Luc Guillou (1999). My French vocabulary consists of about ten diving terms. I bought the book hoping to just enjoy the photos. However, I discovered the entire book is translated into English in the back. The text is practically just a series of captions under the photos so it is very easy to flip to the back to read the translation. The Forward is written by Philippe Tailliez. The book starts off with Boutan and Le Prieur and jumps to SCUBA (Commeinhes and Cousteau) and the use of rebreathers until the end of GERS in 1974. The first 54 pages are pre-1960. Though only 82 pages but this is the best single source I have ever seen of photographs of early French dive gear. Anyone into rebreathers should be very pleased. The photos are from the GERS archives and are clear enough to see quite a bit of detail on the equipment. It is a one hour read but I have spent many more staring at details within the photos.

You can but the book on the French Amazon.com web site for EUR 18,95. The shipping was about $10.00. The web page has the same buttons as the one in English so you do not need to know French. I used my normal account name and password and was charged using my normal credit card on file at Amazon USA.

See:
http://frogmanmuseum.free.fr/html/deten ... iquefr.htm

[Bryan]

Great find! And thank you for the information! I just orderd and it came out to be $39.63 if I did the conversion right. If you are used to using Amazon you can figure it out....If you are not I would suggest getting some help.


CLICK HERE FOR DIRECT LINK TO BOOK

[Bryan]

Got it today and it is KICK A** The photos alone are worth the price of the book. If you like early/prototype Aqua-Lung stuff then this book is a can't miss.