ADDRESS 



Honorable Robert A. FROSCH 



Assistant Secretary of the Navy 



for Research and Development 



Washington, U.S.A. 



It is a great pleasure to be here, not only because of my 

 pleasure in assisting at this inaugural ceremony for the Ninth Sym- 

 posium on Naval Hydrodynamics but because it is a particular 

 pleasure for me to be able to share this platform with Mr. Blancard, 

 with whom I have had a number of pleasant and fruitful discussions 

 on various aspects of naval warfare and naval technology. We are 

 very happy to have this Symposium in France not only because of tra- 

 ditional friendships but because of my view of the importance of 

 the French contributions to ocean engineering in general, the French 

 pioneering work with the bathyscaph, the advanced diving experi- 

 ments of the French Navy, of Comex,of the Cousteau group and some 

 of the unique Government and industry relationships, such as Cnexo, 

 for the exploitation and investigation of the oceans. All of these 

 pioneering works make it appropriate to have such a conference here 

 in France. 



It is excellent to see 12 nations contributing to a programme 

 attended by 2 2, to exchange information on this particular branch of 

 ocean engineering, which I think is significant and important to ocean 

 engineering in general and to the basic purpose for which we all work 

 in ocean engineering - namely, the careful use and exploitation of the 

 oceans for the benefit of all of us. 



I speak here as an outsider to naval hydrodynamics and in 

 some sense as a consumer of naval hydrodynamics as a scientific 

 and engineering element in ocean engineering, of naval warfare 

 matters and of contributions to general oceanographic and oceanolo- 

 gical matters. Viewing it as an outsider one can frequently see things 

 that are not apparent to an insider or look different to an insider and 

 it seems to me that we have been going through a period of very im- 

 portant change in naval hydrodynamics. Perhaps it looks more 

 gradual to those who have been working on it, but to those of us who 

 have not been working in detail on the subject it appears as though 



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