BATTLING FOR LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 62, 14 March 1934, Page 8

BATTLING FOR LIFE

SUBMARINE CREWS

DAVIS ESCAPE APPARATUS

"The miracle of tne sea" is' the description applied to the Davis submerged escape apparatus, which Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell, First Lord of the Admiralty, said in the House of Commons this week was to be relied on in future by the British Navy for the saving of life in sunken • submarines. It was by means of the Davis/escape apparatus that some of the members of the crew of the British" submarine Poseidon, which sank after a collision with a Chinese steamer off the English Coast in June, 1931, were rescued. For some considerable time every ofScer and man in British submarines has been provided with the escape equipment. It is, in effect, an artificial "lung," devised after long ex.pcriment by: E. H. Davis, the wellknown expert on deep-sea diving, and Professor Leonard Hill, the physiologist. - The apparatus consists of a rubber bag strapped across the chest, with a clip fitting over the nose, and. motorcycle goggles over the eyes. Through.a mouthpiece the wearer breathes oxygen from' the bag, and leading from this receptacle, through a small compartment filled with caustic soda, are two rubber tubes, one for-inhaling and the other for conducting the exhaled air back into the bag, the effect being that it is regenerated and can be breathed again. The apparatus, weighing only a few pounds, can be fitted on in a few moments. It has special valves which maintain an equable pressure within the lungs and body of the wearer, irrespective of the variations in pressure to which he is exposed when leaving a wreck at any considerable depth. Besides enabling him to breathe comfortably at almost any depth, it has enough buoyancy to keep Mm afloat for hours after he has regained the surface. The tremendous value to submarine crews of the Davis rescue gear was described by Commander H. M. Daniel in an article. :-:;. '■'■■ ; "I was amazed at the ease with which I became accustomed to this new gear," he wrote. ' Once fitted up, Commander Daniel states, it was easy'to stoop,, crawl, sit, or stand under the water if lead weights were provided. The oxygen could readily be controlled according to the amount of energy expended. "To get some impression of-'-what a man in a sunken. submarine would experience, I closed my eyes and tried topicture a man groping his ;way blindly to the conning-tower with two or three shipmates," the commander graphically wrote. '.'■'■-. '.;".■■' . ■'■"■:-."'.- ■•'■■■ .. - "But once the way out of the submarine had been gained, the weights would be released and the buoyant vest would rush a man upwards to the surface, faster every second, until finally daylight and safety were reached;" There is sufficient oxygen in on© of the outfits to last for 45 minutes. ■