Jacques Cousteau Essay Research Paper JACQUES COUSTEAU

Jacques Cousteau Essay, Research Paper

JACQUES COUSTEAU THE OCEAN’S FUTURE In Saint-Andre-de-Cubzac, a small, quaint village in southwestern France, lived a man of French decent named Daniel Cousteau. Cousteau, a stock exchanger, had always been a dreamer. He married his wife, Elizabeth Duranthon, in 1903. They had their first son in 1906 whom they named Pierre-Antoine.Their second son, Jacques-Yves, was born June 11, 1910. The family soon travelled to Paris. Eugene Higgins, a friend of Daniel’s and a wealthy and relatively well-known doctor, diagnosed Jacques-Yves (called “Jack”) with chronic enteritis and anemia. He also implied JYC (Jacques-Yves Cousteau) should be restrained from physical activity. The family moved to New York in 1920 where their two sons learned to speak English on the streets of Manhattan. Although his doctors wanted him to remain inactive, his parents decided to send him to summer camp. While at summer camp he learned how to swim which became his favorite thing to do at camp. JYC, who later became a scientific genius, as a young boy was no scholar and hated school. He was facinated by machines and at 11 years old made blueprints for a model crane. He was very interested in movies and at 16 years old purchased a video camera and started making his own short films. He called this collection “Societe Zix”. Because of his tremendous interest in movie making, he neglected his studies and as a result his marks in school dropped significantly. His parents became concerned and took away his camera and sent him and his brother Pierre to boarding school. He graduated from high school in 1929. ******************** After graduating from high school, he enrolled in the French Naval Academy in 1930. While at the Academy, he was involved in a severe auto accident in which he broke his left arm in eight places and his right arm was severely injured and paralyzed. After eight months of struggling to regain movement in his right arm, he finally was able to move a finger. Swimming, as a form of therapy, proved to be most beneficial. He soon regained complete use of his right arm. During this period, his brother Pierre met and married Miss Fernande Semallie and JYC met his future wife Simone Melchoir at a party in Paris. They were married on July 12, 1937 and bought a house in Sanary, France. Later they had two children—Jean-Michel and Philippe. At the beginning of the second World War in 1945, JYC, a graduate of the French Naval Academy, was posted in Afghanistan aboard the battleship Jeanne d’Arc. While serving aboard this ship, he met Philippe Talliez and Frederic Dumas who later became his partners in undersea exploration. ******************** As the war progressed, JYC, Talliez, and Dumas thought of making an underwater breathing device. After three weeks, they had constructed a “lung”. The AQUALUNG (Self-Contained-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus, or SCUBA) was designed to enable humans to breath underwater without the use of a submarine-type vechicle. JYC tried to convince the British and American Navys to purchase the aqualung. He stated that “aqualunged” frogmen could be torpedo layers against the German navy. In 1947, Pierre Cousteau stole top-secret papers from the France and gave them to the German military. Soon after the transaction with Germany, Pierre acompanied by his wife Fernande, ran off into the mountains pursued by the French government. They were soon captured and imprisoned in Lanbeck, Austria. JYC travelled to Lanbeck with fake IDs for both Pierre and Fernande; but Pierre refused to leave. Pierre, with JYC standing at his trial, was charged with treason and condemned to death. ******************** Nearing the end of the second world war, JYC bought a ship. He named this ship the Calypso, after a Greek goddess. The Calypso’s first exploration was to the Red Sea on November 24, 1951. Here he and crew members: Titi Leandri, Rene Montupet, Jean Beltran, Fernand Hanen, Jacqueline Zang, and his wife Simone discovered two sunken ships: “The Dalton” and “The Epades”. They photographed these ships along with other marine life. When he returned from the Red Sea, JYC wrote an article about the expedition in National Geographic magazine. In 1952, the Calypso took her second trip. JYC was joined by Albert Falco, Raymond Coll, Raymond “Canoe” Kientzy, and Charlie Serventi. The second trip was to the Suez Canal where Falco and Kientzy discovered another sunken ship. The ship contained many varieties of dinnerware, ceramic tiles, and wine glasses. After the exploration, JYC convinced National Geographic to sponsor his expeditions. In July 1953, JYC and good friend Jim Dugan published the book: The Silent World. This book discussed the aqualung, shipwrecks, and JYC’s expeditions. ******************** In October 1953, Pierre became ill with cancer while waiting in prison for his execution. Also, Fernande was suffering from a brain tumor. On the third voyage to the Red Sea, the Calypso’s crew struck oil. They had been searching for oil for the UAE (United Arab Emirates). The newest crew members were: Louis Malle the cameraman, JYC’s friend Jim Dugan, oceanographer Gustave Cherbonnie, and a dog named Bonnard. On this expedition, JYC witnessed his first feeding frenzy, ( a large mass of sharks insanely devouring an injured or dying animal). For the rest of the expediton, he and crew members went down in cages to film the sharks. He wrote about this in his 1955 National Geographi