Jacques Yves Cousteau Biography
Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910 - 1997) studied in Rouen, Bordeaux, New York, Paris, Ribeauvillé and attended Stanislas College to prepare for the Naval School competition (class of 1930). From 1930 to 1957, he led a military career during which he notably commanded the Shanghai naval base, studied combat swimming equipment, participated on board the cruiser Dupleix in the search for the pocket battleship Graf von Spee, as well as in the bombing of Genoa, joined the Resistance then created the Underwater Studies and Research Group (GERS) with Commander Philippe Tailliez. In 1943 he designed and built the prototype of the Cousteau-Gagnan autonomous compressed air diving suit with the engineer Émile Gagnan. Co-inventor of the first underwater camera, exploration submarines, and the wind-driven naval propulsion system used on the research vessel Alcyone. He was also the first developer of the so-called saturation immersion method. In 1950 he fitted out the former minesweeper Calypso with which he carried out more than fifty remote expeditions around the world. He created two associations to organize these cruises and to build special technical equipment: the French Oceanographic Campaigns and the Center for Advanced Marine Studies. In 1957 he was elected director of the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco, a position he held until 1988. Secretary general of the International Commission for the scientific exploitation of the Mediterranean, from 1962 to 1988. President of The Cousteau Society (United States) since 1974, and of the Fondation Cousteau (Paris) since 1981, becoming Équipe Cousteau in 1992. Foreign member of the Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (1968), of India (1978), the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco (1989). He was awarded the honorary doctorate of the University of Harvard, Berkeley, Guadalajara, Bucharest, the Free University of Brussels and the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Cousteau died on June 25, 1997.