SUBMARINE SALVAGE

Hokitika Guardian, 17 July 1929, Page 5

SUBMARINE SALVAGE

TUNNELLING OCEAN BED. A DIVER/S BRAVERY. By skilful salvage work the United States submarine “5.51” was, after some months of effort, raised from the ocean bed by pontoons, and ' brought into dock with her dead > crew. Before the. pontoons could be fixed to her sides, steel ropes had to be carried under the submarine keel, i and in tunnelling for this purpose through the clay-like bed on which it rested a diver found himself in the position of desperate peril, described below by L/ieut.-Commander E. Ellsberg, U.S. Navy, in the London “Daily Telegraph.” > “It was out of question at that depth for the divers to undertake the continued physical exertion of swinging pick and shovel in .an excavation, apart from the mechanical limitations of trying to do this in a diving rig. All felt that the best" solution lay in washing out a hole under the ship with a stream of water from a fire hose. We coupled up 250 ft of the Falcon’s 2£in fir© hose, with a regular hose nozzle screwed to the end. >

“We carried on in the fate of constant difficulties, making progress, but it had almost To be measured by the. inch. Sometimes the divers could not find the tunnel, and wasted half , their preciohs searching out the small entrance, hole under,! the port bilge. Others, lying down J- in the tunnel, had Their suits filled with water, and had to be dragged up, half, frozen and, nearly drowned.

TUNNEL CAVED IN. “As a. result of two weeks’ desper-. ;.\ ate work in May, the tunnel had advanced sixteen feet under the port side, an average of about one foot a day. * ■ “We were still two . feet from Ihe keel on the port side. At this time; (Francis Smith was in the tunnel, burrowing his way along. his situation. In ice-cold water, utter blackness, total solitude, he bured 135ffc below the surface of the sea. . No sight, no sound, I no sense of direction except the feel of the iron hull of the 5.51 '&gainst“ his as he lay stretched out flat in. a narrow hole, scarcely larger than his body, not big enough for him to turn round in’. Ahead in his outstretched a,nns he grasped the biTjrpwi- T: I ing his way deeper, while around him coursed backward the black -stream ;e| J freezing water, laden ..withi» tfay- ' ' 'i fy. >; vl Smith'had been .working about twenty minutes when the telephone man on the Falcon got a call from, him. He could not. understand, and passed the telephone set To 1 ’ me.

“Hello, Smith!” , ,-v.ln antagonised reply: 1 “I’m .in a very (bad; position, Mr Ellsberg. Send somepnato 'help!” Joe Eiben was working aft on the other side of' the submarine; 'Ldropped Smith’s, ’phone, seized Eibghtt,', and ordered him to stop .' whatever vj|e). was doing and climb over the boat to the tunnel to help Smith. Eiben acknowledged the message and star tod ward. ' ;• V

Meanwhile I tried to figure out what had happened.. The fire hose..leading over the rail was throbbing violently. Perhaps the nozzle had torn itself from Smith’s grasp and was thrashing him to death.

Taking Smith’s telephone again, I called down: “Shall I turn off the. water?” - Almost in a scream came the answer: “Not For God’s sake keep it going! The tunnel has caved in behind me!” OUT OF THE GRAVE. I felt faint Hastily we coupled, up another fire hose, sliding it,down the descending line for Eiben’s use. But it had taken two weeks to drive the tunnel to where Smith lay! Oh deck we looked at each other helplessly. Over the telephone I could' hear Smith’s laboured breathing as he struggled in the darkness. V‘.\ No further messages came. The sailors stood silently about the deck, waiting for F.iben to arrive at the tunnel, wondering what, good 'he qouTd .dp when lie got there. : Eiben reached the descending line at the gun, cut loose the new hose, dragged it forward with him, and dropped over the port side to the bottom. Finally, after wbat seemed an age, he reported himself at the tunnel mouth, said be was trying to enter. I waited; then over Smith’s telephone, I hoard Smith say to Eiben: “I’m all right now, Joe. Had a little accident. You may go back 'to your own job.” j Though he could not turn round. Smith had managed to pass the nozzle back between his legs, and guiding it with his feet he had washed his way out backwards through the cave-in 1 Eibden left. Smith sat down on the ocean floor a few minutes to - rest, then picked up his hose, crawled back into the tunnel, and for half an hour more continued to wash nis way towards the keel.

No deed ever performed in the heat of battle, where thousands cheer you on, can compare with Francis Smith’s bravery when, in the silent dentlis of the ocean beneath the hulk of the Ssl. having washed his way out of what might well have been his grave, he deliberately turned round, into the black bole from which lie bad by the grace of God and worked his way deeper arid deeper into it.