The Lost Submarine
The Mystery of the Tiger Shark
On January 16th, 1965, the small submarine Squalo Tigre, designed for short underwater dives with technology considered cutting-edge at the time, was ready to descend into the waters of Lake Maggiore near Locarno, a small Swiss town. The submarine was boarded by the Engineer Edoardo de Pauli, who was leading it, and Franco Viganò, a journalist who had to document and film the experience.
That day the pocket submarine (as it was nicknamed) submerged and then disappeared in the depths of the lake.
In this article, we are going to explore this story through the witness and documents kept by the only woman who took part in the search: Ursula Meister, at the time, who lived in Locarno. Despite her young age (she was just 19 years old) she was a member of the “Swiss Rescue Society” for many years, and on the day of disappearance she went to the lake (like many other people) to see the submarine’s immersion.
The submarine started its dive at 12.35 AM. Many hours passed before the search began. It was too late for people to dive, so it was decided to use an underwater camera to search on the lakebed. They searched with this instrument for the entire night, then in the morning the first divers’ squad went into action. The squad was composed of more than forty divers, included also Ursula Meister. They started a fan-like shifting a part of the lake at a depth of 20-25 meters. Unfortunately, the intensive sources stopped after a few days.
A foto of Ursula Meister during the searches
Nobody knew what happened to the submarine and the two people on board, until July 19th, 1965. In fact, after many months of disappearance and fruitless searches, the Municipality asked for the collaboration of the Carabinieri Subacquei Nucleus of Genova, who sent two of their best men, Cozzolino and Bellarmino led by Luigi Ferraro and Duilio Marcante (who are considered the fathers of underwater teaching). After 15 days of patient work reconstructing the event and diving, the mini-submarine was located and, the next day, recovered and brought to dry land.
From the documents kept (like many articles of the journal “L’eco di Locarno”) by U. Meister we know that the causes of the accident were some shortcomings and/or oversights from the pilot, De Pauli. In fact, he left on land some very important instruments, such as the key to releasing the ballast tanks to return to the surface. He also incorrectly assembled one of the air filters, which led to a high production of carbon dioxide, causing the pilot to have a heart attack. The other man died some hours after. In his hand was found a note in which he wrote: “we are 30 meters deep; we can’t find the key to releasing the ballast tanks”.
The discovery of the submarine Squalo Tigre put an end to a tragic event that has deeply shocked the inhabitants of Locarno. This recovery of the submarine and the two corpes was possible thanks to the intervention of the Nucleo Carabinieri Subacquei of Genoa. However, we must not forget the courage of the first search group, composed of the young inhabitants of Locarno. Despite they were not able to immediately find the submarine, they proved to be ready to action and at the forefront of the search.
In her testimony Ursula Meister said: “I felt a kind of anxiety, torn between the desire to find the submarine as soon as possible and the fear of suddenly finding myself in front of the hull with the two dead people.”
Surely, the dedication and courage of these young people has left an indelible mark on the collective memory of the city.