Jacques Cousteau

French ocean explorer and engineer

Jacques Cousteau, in full Jacques-Yves Cousteau, (born

June 11, 1910, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France—died June 25,
1997, Paris), French naval officer, ocean explorer, and
coinventor of the Aqua-Lung, known for his extensive underseas
investigations.

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After graduating from France’s naval academy in 1933, he was

commissioned a second lieutenant. However, his plans to
become a navy pilot were undermined by an almost
fatal automobile accident in which both his arms were broken.
Cousteau, not formally trained as a scientist, was drawn
to undersea exploration by his love both of the ocean and
of underwater diving. In 1943 Cousteau and French engineer
Émile Gagnan developed the first fully automatic compressed-
air Aqua-Lung (scuba apparatus), which allowed divers to swim
freely underwater for extended periods of time. Cousteau helped
to invent many other tools useful to oceanographers, including
the diving saucer (an easily maneuverable small submarine for
seafloor exploration), in 1959, and a number of underwater
cameras.

Cousteau served in World War II as a gunnery officer in France

and later was a member of the French Resistance against the
German occupation of the country. He subsequently was
awarded the Legion of Honour for his espionage work.
Cousteau’s experiments with underwater filmmaking began
during the war. He also was involved in conducting
oceanographic research at a centre in Marseille with French
naval officer Philippe Tailliez. When the war ended, he
continued working for the French navy, heading the Undersea
Research Group at Toulon.
To expand his work in marine exploration, Cousteau founded
numerous marketing, manufacturing, engineering, and research
organizations, which were incorporated in 1973 as the Cousteau
Group. In 1950 he converted a British minesweeper into
the Calypso, an oceanographic research ship, aboard which he
and his crew carried out numerous expeditions. Cousteau
eventually popularized oceanographic research and the sport
of scuba diving in the book Le Monde du silence (1953; The
Silent World), written with Frédéric Dumas. In 1956 he adapted
the book into a documentary film, codirected with French
motion-picture director Louis Malle, that won both the Palme
d’Or at that year’s Cannes international film festival and
an Academy Award in 1957, one of three Oscars his films
received. Also in 1957, Cousteau became director of the
Oceanographic Museum of Monaco. He led the Conshelf
Saturation Dive Program, conducting experiments in which
men lived and worked for extended periods of time at
considerable depths along the continental shelves. The undersea
laboratories, called Conshelf I, II, and III, sat at depths of 10
metres (about 30 feet), 30 metres (about 100 feet), and 102.4
metres (about 336 feet), respectively, in the Mediterranean
Sea near Marseilles. In 1974 he formed the Cousteau Society, a
nonprofit environmental group dedicated to marine
conservation.
Jacques Cousteau
Jacques Cousteau.
UPI/Bettmann Archive

Cousteau, Jacques
Famed French oceanic explorer Jacques Cousteau looking out of a two-man underwater
observation chamber on board the Calypso, a converted British minesweeper, as it was
docked in New York City for the International Oceanographic Congress in 1959.
Everett Collection Historical/Alamy
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Cousteau produced and starred in many television programs,

including the American series The Undersea World of Jacques
Cousteau (1968–76). Several documentaries were coproduced
with his son Philippe, until Philippe’s untimely death in a plane
crash in 1979. He was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of
Freedom in 1985. In addition to The Silent World, Cousteau
also wrote Par 18 mètres de fond (1946; Through 18 Metres of
Water), The Living Sea (1963), Three Adventures: Galápagos,
Titicaca, the Blue Holes (1973), Dolphins (1975), and Jacques
Cousteau: The Ocean World (1985). His last book, The Human,
the Orchid, and the Octopus: Exploring and Conserving Our
Natural World (2007), was published posthumously.