Laid down by Chantiers Schneider et Cie at Chalon-sur-Saône, France, on 7 February 1924[2][3] with the pennant number Q126, Calypso was launched on either 15[2] or 28[3] January 1926, according to different sources.

In 1940, the Allies made plans to intervene in Norway to prevent the shipment of iron ore from Sweden to Germany via Narvik on the Norwegian coast.

The French submarines found limited facilities available to them at Harwich and had to rely largely on Jules Verne and spare parts sent from Cherbourg in France for repairs, some of which never were completed.

At 18:30, Jules Verne and 13 submarines, including Calypso, got underway from Brest bound for Casablanca, French Morocco, which they reached on 23 June 1940.

On that day, Calypso, Circé, and Thétis were still part of the 13th Submarine Division, based at Toulon but assigned to overseas duty in "Africa and the Levant.

The attack on Mers-el-Kébir — in which a British Royal Navy squadron attacked a French Navy squadron moored at the naval base at Mers El Kébir near Oran on the coast of Algeria — took place on 3 July 1940, and in its aftermath the French began to maintain a standing submarine patrol off Casablanca.

To avoid bombardment by American forces, the French submarines anchored at the Sidi Abdallah Arsenal at Ferryville, Tunisia.