Doris was laid down by Direction des Constructions et Armes Navales at Cherbourg, France, on 1 September 1958.
She was Launched on 14 May 1960 with a substantial crowd in attendance, including Minister of the Armed Forces Pierre Messmer, Ministerial Delegate for the Navy Guillaume Le Bigot, and the widow of the commanding officer of the first Doris (Q135), lost along with his entire crew when a German U-boat sank his submarine in 1940.
[2] After a visit by the Higher Test Commission, Doris departed Cherbourg on 2 June 1962 bound for Toulon, France.
[2] Doris spent her entire career based at Toulon, France, as a unit of the Mediterranean Submarine Squadron.
[2] Doris began her operations in 1965 by departing Toulon in company with her sister ship Eurydice on 18 January.
She participated in the 1966 "Paso Doble" summer cruise from 13 June to 23 July, during which she took part in the "Fado" exercise.
On 25 November 1966 at approximately 19:30, she was involved in a violent collision with the Soviet tanker Stanislav when she came to periscope depth in the Mediterranean Sea off Toulon.
12 torpedo tubes and leaks in her port aft ballast tank and at her steering rod mechanism.
On 1 February 1971, Doris and the submarine Ariane for a similar cruise various trials and exercises on the coast of Provence.
Doris later conducted exercises in the Corsica area until 19 May 19cruise 71, when she began a port call at Livorno, Italy, that lasted until 22 May.
During the change-of-command ceremony, a quartermaster in her crew received a letter of congratulations from the minister of the navy for "proof of courage during assistance to a person in danger."
Under her new commanding officer, Doris too part in numerous exercises and training activities during 1976.< She sank the decommissioned submarine tender Gustave Zédé as a target at 11:25 on 26 February 1976 in 2,149 metres (7,051 ft) of water in the Mediterranean Sea south of Marseille, France, at 42°30′N 005°24′E / 42.500°N 5.400°E / 42.500; 5.400 (Gustave Zédé) with an E14 torpedo.
On 11 July 1976, Doris took part in a naval review attended by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.
[4] On 22 November 1976, Minister of the Armed Forces Yvon Bourges made a dive aboard Doris.
[2] On 9 June 1977, a new commanding officer reported aboard,[6] and in July 1977 Doris took part in Operation Portes Ouvertes at the Toulon Arsenal.
She then resumed operations from Toulon, conducting a cruise from 4 to 10 February 1979 and getting underway with Diane on 25 March 1979 for a command course at sea.
A new commanding officer reported aboard on 26 March 1981, and from 3 to 9 May 1981 Doris was at sea with Daphné on a qualification cruise.
On 14 July 1982, she took part in a Bastille Day naval review attended by French President François Mitterrand and Minister of the Armed Forces Charles Hernu.
[2] In early October 1983, Doris got underway from Toulon to conduct a series of exercises in the Mediterranean Sea.
On 22 October 1983 at 04:10, she was on the surface making 8 knots (15 km/h; 9.2 mph) a few nautical miles from Sète — a port in Southern France where she was scheduled to make a routine stopover that day — when an extremely violent explosion occurred in the battery room, killing instantly two sailors in the compartment and inflicting significant damage.
Doris had experienced a succession of incidents concerning the level of hydrogen gas in the battery compartment and inadequate ventilation of the compartment, and the explosion was attributed to an untimely reaction between the hydrogen emitted by the batteries while under charge and the oxygen in the air aboard Doris after a failure of control devices or the ventilation system.
The maritime prefecture of Toulon radioed the gendarmerie of Montpellier, France, which dispatched a helicopter which hoisted two injured men aboard and took them to the hospital at Sète.
Despite his injuries, the commanding officer refused evacuation and supervised rescue and safety activities until Doris reached port at Sète, which she did under her own power.
The Italian Navy sent a float-equipped helicopter to pick up the man, but it sustained damage and sank while attempting to land on the sea near Doris, seriously injuring its pilot.
She received a new commanding officer on 11 July 1986, and in November 1986 she held an open house for visitors as part of a centennial celebration of the submarine force.
[2] Doris participated in the NATO "Dogfish 87" exercise in April 1987, during which she made a four-day visit to Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia.
Doris participated in the Franco-American exercise "Louisiane" from 14 to 20 November and in France's first annual AMF Téléthon for muscular dystrophy from 4 to 5 December 1987.
From 9 to 18 June 1992, she participated along with British, Italian, and Spanish ships in the joint exercise "Farfadet 92" in the Mediterranean Sea.
On 21 October 1993, she began her participation in the combined exercise "Ardente", which took place in the Mediterranean Sea and also involved ships of the navies of Belgium, Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
[2] On 25 June 1999, Doris′s hulk accidentally sank with no one aboard in 939 metres (3,081 ft) of water in the Mediterranean Sea off France's Levant Island at 43°06′10″N 6°34′22″E / 43.1028333°N 006.5726667°E / 43.1028333; 006.5726667 (Doris) while being submerged to a shallow depth for use as a target in a test firing of the new MU90 Impact antisubmarine torpedo.