Flore - (S645)
Construction began at the Direction des Constructions et Armes navales (DCAN) of Cherbourg on June 19, 1958. It is the fifth in the series of high performance Daphne-type submarines. She was launched on 21 December 1960.
Testing began on 23 January 1962 under the command of Lt. Barbier.
21 May 1964, she is assigned to the 1st submarine squadron in Toulon, her carrer mainly taking place in the Mediterranean. Flore undergoes a refit from 16 April 1965 to 29 April 1966 in Lorient after she rejoins her SUBRON in Toulon.
On 19 February 1971 her engine room compartment floods while at persicope depth. After emergency blowing her ballast, she surfaced and was escorted to Toulon by tug Pachyderm, where she was repaired.
She was placed in reserve 1988 and decommissioned on March 29 1989. She traveled a total of 320000 miles, or nearly 15 times around the earth.
On 12 July 1995 Flore is hauled on a Lorient slipway and from then on she is maintained by a group of former submarines called the MESMAT Association (Musée de l'escadrille des sous-marins de l'Atlantique) which was created to support the submarine transformation project into a naval museum, which over time evolved into Le Sous-Marin Flore - S645 museum.
