Louis Marie de Corlieu (born 23 November 1888 in Bourges; died 19 October 1967 or 1971) in Paris, was a French naval officer and inventor of the swimfin.
[1][2] De Corlieu demonstrated his first prototype of a modern swimfin in front of an audience of officers which included Yves Le Prieur who invented an underwater breathing apparatus in 1926 to 1934.
[3] After the end of the Second World War, these fins and the open circuit underwater breathing apparatus (Aqua Lung) helped develop the scuba diving popularized by Philippe Tailliez and Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
De Corlieu was constantly involved in litigation to assert his rights as the inventor and pursue all the companies that copied his invention and sold their products without paying royalties.
The book Le Premier Delphinus Humain (The First Human Dolphin), based on the archives of the Corlieu family and of the French Navy, tells its story.