Frédéric Dumas

Frédéric Dumas (14 January 1913 – 26 July 1991) was part of a team of three, with Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez, in which he was nicknamed Didi. They had a passion for diving, and developed the diving regulator with the aid of the engineer Émile Gagnan. Frédéric Dumas then participated with Jacques-Yves Cousteau in the discovery of the underwater world and in bringing it to the attention of the general public.

Frédéric Dumas was born on 14 January 1913 in Albi.

A pioneer of underwater fishing on the French Riviera, he met Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Philippe Tailliez in 1937 and his exploits served as a subject in the first Cousteau film "Par dix-huit mètres de fond" ("Eighteen meters deep"), made in 1942.

Cousteau again chose him as an "actor" when he made his second film, "Epaves" ("Wrecks") in 1943, the first film featuring the new Cousteau-Gagnan aqua-lung.

Dumas was a dive leader aboard the RV Calypso, and co-author or actor in many films and stories from the Cousteau team.

In 1953 he co-authored with Cousteau the book The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure. It was their first book. In 1956 he was one of the principal architects of the ground-breaking film The Silent World, in which his ballet with the grouper Ulisses (some claim it is Jojo) is famous.

From 1945 to 1965, Dumas was also a civilian collaborator in the French Navy's Groupement de Recherches Sous-marines () (GRS or Underwater Research Group), which was set up by Cousteau and Taillez. It later became the Groupe d'Études et de Recherches Sous-Marines (GERS or Undersea Study and Research Group) and is nowadays known as CEllule Plongée Humaine et Intervention Sous la MER (CEPHISMER or Human Diving and Underwater Intervention Cell).

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