Navy Chief Says Dakar Rescue Chances Are ‘very Dim’ but Search Will Continue

The commander of Israel’s Navy acknowledged here today that chances were “very dim” for finding the missing submarine Dakar and its 69 officers and men alive. But, Admiral Shlomo Harel told newsmen at his first press conference since the undersea craft was reported missing last Thursday, the Navy will continue its search for the Dakar until the most remote possibilities of finding her are exhausted.

(The London newspaper, Sun, reported today that an oil slick and floating objects, possibly life-jackets, from the Dakar, were sighted yesterday about 60 miles off the island of Crete in the eastern Mediterranean. There was no confirmation of the report from other sources.)

Admiral Harel disclosed that SOS signals, possibly coming from the submarine, were picked up on Cyprus over the week-end. The first signal was heard by Famagusta radio on Friday. Clearer signals were picked up Saturday by Nicosia radio which deciphered the message as “SOS-Submiss,” the international code for a submarine in distress. But attempts to call the Dakar on her international wireless code designation-4XDZ-were futile.

Admiral Harel said the air-sea search is now centered on the waters between Famagusia and the Lebanese coast, the area indicated by the direction of the radio signals received on Cyprus. But Israeli naval commanders doubt that the Dakar would be in that region as it would be far off her course.

The reports of radio signals, picked up by merchant and naval craft as well as by the Cypriot short, stations, sparked a wave of optimism in Israel yesterday. The signals were said to be of the same frequency as those that would emanate from the Dakar’s radio indicator buoy, a float that the submarine would send to the surface to mark her position if she were in distress.