On the Bottom: The Raising of the Submarine S-51

by Edward Ellsberg

  Kelley reported once more. “I’ll make another try to go in.” He squeezed through the upper hatch into the trunk.

  Anderson’s talker called out, “Send down another line!” We sent it down, a short wait, then another call from Anderson, “Hoist away.”

  We hoisted, and soon another flag-draped body lay beside Haselton’s, a seaman this time.

  Their fate was clear. Knocked from their bunks by the shock that tore their ship wide open, they had started aft, not waiting to dress, for the open conning tower hatch, the sole exit. They were too late. Already the boat had submerged, a heavy stream of water was pouring down through the conning tower, while another torrent was rushing through from the battery room door behind them.

  Haselton remembered the gun access trunk, just overhead. He scrambled up the rungs on the bulkhead, cast loose the dogs on the lower hatch, slipped into the escape trunk. The sailor followed him. The rising flood was just beneath their feet. They slammed down the hatch, jammed home the dogs to seal it tight. For the moment they were safe. Every other man inside the S-51, engulfed in the hungry waters, perished at once. These two alone, locked in a cubbyhole at the bottom of the sea, still lived.

  But they must not tarry long. There was little space inside the trunk,—two men crowded it. Besides they must escape while yet the ship that sank them remained overhead to pick them up on the surface. They did not know how deep the water was, but they could not afford to bother over that.

  It was black inside the trunk. Neither of the unclothed men had any matches.

  Haselton felt around the sides of their little prison till he found the air valve. That was luck. There was little air in that trunk, but from the ship’s high pressure banks, they could get what they wanted to breathe, to raise the pressure inside till they had equalized the water pressure outside and could open the upper hatch.

  Haselton opened the valve. Horror-stricken, he felt a stream of water shoot through into the trunk! The pipe to the air banks led down the port side of the battery room. The bow of the City of Rome had cut the line in two!

  Hastily he closed the valve, shut off the water.

  No words were needed. The two men trapped there understood their situation. It was desperate but not hopeless. They could still build up the necessary pressure inside the trunk to balance the sea pressure outside, by flooding the trunk and thus compressing what little air there was inside. That would probably put them in water at least up to their necks, before they got pressure enough to open the hatch. It would not leave much of a bubble for them to come up in, but there was no alternative.

  First, however, they must get the upper hatch cover ready to open quickly when they flooded the trunk. They fumbled for the latch to make sure it would work. It was all right. That they would release as the last step.

  But there was another shock in store. They felt for the pulley wire. It was taut! The releasing rod could only be operated from the flooded control room below. No shipmate was alive in that room to cast it loose for them!

  Desperation seized their hearts. They tried to unscrew the shackle pin that held the wire to the hatch. The pin would not turn. They had no tools but their fingers. They could not ease the shackle.

  Near the floor, the wire led up from the pulley, then to an eye, passed over a hook. Together they strained, trying to pull the eye off that hook. The wire failed to stretch, they could not get enough slack to get over the point of the hook.

  Time was fleeting. Their violent exertions were rapidly using up what little oxygen there was in the trunk. They fell exhausted against the side of their prison.

  A new ray of hope flashed into their minds. A case of rifles was secured to the port side of the trunk, intended for the boarding party. Haselton ripped a rifle from the rack. If he could get a twist of the wire around the muzzle, he could use the rifle to form a Spanish windlass, and by tightening tear the wire from the pulley. He tried, but unfortunately the trunk was so small he could not swing the rifle in it enough to catch a turn. He tried again, it would not grip.

  Their pounding hearts and panting lungs gave notice that the air was all used up. With his last ounce of strength Haselton hammered with the butt of his rifle against the hatch, trying to break the wire. His shipmate, leaning over, gripped the lower end of the wire with both hands just above the eye, and bracing himself heaved his utmost, trying to pull it off the hook. The blows of that rifle butt, ringing feebly out along the ocean floor, sounded tattoo for Lieutenant Haselton and his shipmate. The air was all exhausted, the sounds ceased, the water gradually leaked in through the lower hatch and flooded the trunk.

  And thus Kelley found them,—Lieutenant Haselton, a rifle clutched in his hands, butt against the hatch,—the seaman, both hands gripped about the wire, pulling even in death. The sea had conquered them.

  Once more, we heard that Kelley was about to enter the submarine. He climbed up the outside, squeezed through the upper hatch, found himself in the now empty trunk. The lower hatch was closed.

  In his bulky diving armor, he could not bend over enough in the narrow hole to reach the floor and cast loose the dogs. Kelley felt for them with his feet, kicked them free with his copper-toed shoes, and swung back the hatch cover.

  Carefully he passed his legs through the little oval in the deck, reaching for the rungs on the bulkhead below in the control room. Down one rung, then another, and he was half through. He tried another step down but the lead belt round his waist caught in the opening and held him fast.

  Kelley tried to push it through, but there was not enough clearance. He dared not take off his belt,—the removal of that eighty-pound weight would destroy his balance and he might find himself floating head down, feet up, inside the control room with no way of getting right side up again. He twisted a little, trying to fit himself to the opening around his waist, but it was useless, he could not go through.

  He started up again, and found himself jammed tightly in the hatch, but by pushing hard with his feet against the rungs below, while Anderson, standing on the hatch outside, heaved on his lines, he finally slipped free and climbed through the gun access trunk to the deck outside, where Anderson anxiously awaited him. There would be no entrance to the control room that way.

  The divers had been down over their allotted hour,—we had been waiting for Anderson to report Kelley clear before we started them up. Both men looked carefully round to see their lines free of the submarine, then one after the other signaled to ascend, and were hauled up to eighty feet where they climbed on the stage and started their decompression.

  Finally we hoisted them aboard. George Anderson had made his initial dive in deep water successfully; a harrowing set of circumstances for a youthful diver to encounter the first time on the bottom.

  On the Falcon, we held a council of war in the little wardroom and listened to Kelley’s story. On the S-50, he had barely been able to squeeze through that lower hatch, but with his suit partly inflated with air and the S-51 leaning badly to port so the opening was on a slant, it could not be done on her. We had no divers smaller than Kelley,—if he could not go through, no one could.

  We decided to attempt it next through the battery room. Late that day, Kelley dived again, with Michels for a partner this time. They landed, walked forward of the gun, dropped through the open battery room hatch, the largest one on the ship, and found themselves in the crew’s sleeping quarters. Michels carried a submarine lamp, a thousand-watt special bulb with a searchlight reflector. It cast a dim beam through the blackness inside, the light diffusing in the water and penetrating only a short way.

  They found themselves practically opposite the spot where the submarine had been rammed. A mass of broken cables and pipes was shoved inboard on the port side; on each side of a vertical hole some three feet wide the torn steel plates of the inner hull were bent inward across the port side passageway till they touched a tangled heap of mess tables and bunks. Escape had been cut off for all the men whose berths were on that side
of the ship.

  Kelley looked aft. Here a narrow passage twenty feet long ran between the officers’ staterooms and some bunks on the starboard side. At the end of that passage was the battery room door. Michels swung the light that way. The passage seemed filled with mattresses and blankets carried there by the swirling waters coming through the hole, as they had first rushed aft. Kelley dropped on his stomach to the deck, started to worm his way under the debris. He went a short distance, when he found that the mattresses, swollen by their long immersion, were filling the passageway from top to bottom. It was completely blocked.

  He crawled back to where Michels waited tending his lines, then both came out and we started them up.

  I considered the situation. We had to get the forward control room door closed. From Kelley’s description it looked as if we could make it by removing the mattresses, blankets, and some bunks we were sure to find in the passage. This would probably take ten or twelve dives to accomplish; in preparation for it I had the blacksmith make us several sets of devil’s claw tongs for the divers to hook into the mattresses and haul them out.

  Meanwhile, however, it was determined to try the third and last means of entrance, through the after door leading to the engine room.

  For this attempt, Ingram and Eadie were rehearsed on the S-50. They went down on the S-51, climbed down into the engine room, Ingram carrying the lamp, Eadie following. A few steps forward inside brought them to the door leading to the control room. It was a small door, perhaps sixteen inches wide and four feet high. They swung the steel door wide open, lashed it back to hold it that way.

  Eadie approached the door, stooped, tried to squeeze through. He failed, stepped back, and started to examine the opening carefully.

  Listening on Ingram’s phone, I heard him say, “Get out of the way and let me try it.” Evidently he pushed Eadie aside, gave him the lamp. Ingram was a smaller man than Eadie.

  I listened intently.

  Soon Eadie reported:

  “Ingram is through. I can’t see him any more.”

  That looked better; at last we had a man in the control room even though he had a long way yet to go to reach the forward door.

  Our exultation at this success was very short lived. I got a call from Ingram:

  “I’m about five feet inside the room and I’m stuck. I can’t go either way. My helmet’s caught on something.”

  I repeated Ingram’s message to those around on the Falcon. It struck us all cold. There was little we could do for Ingram; it was very doubtful if Eadie could get through to help, even if we asked him to. It was up to Ingram to help himself. If he kept his head, he could probably free himself; if he became panic-stricken he was certainly gone.

  On deck, we all sensed that. One man sang out, “Tell him to keep cool!” I refused to transmit that. I had no intention of intimating to Ingram that we doubted his keeping cool. Instead I called to him, in a joking tone, I was far from feeling:

  “Use your bean, old man! Wiggle it!”

  Ingram wiggled desperately for over five minutes.

  On deck no one spoke. Over us, a sparkling sun glittered on the waves as they rolled by the Falcon’s rail and splashed about the hoses leading over the side. We breathed in the bright sunshine; at the other end of those lines I could hear the labored breathing of a man struggling alone in the darkness inside the submarine caught on what he did not know, on something he could not reach.

  At last the scheme worked, the wiggling dislodged his lifelines from whatever they were caught on. Ingram was free. Very wisely, he came out of the control room, and it was with a sigh of relief that some minutes later I heard Ingram and Eadie report:

  “On the stage!”

  Kelley and Michels were taken to the S-50 and carefully rehearsed in getting through the engine room door. Ingram had gone through without a light; he could not tell what had caught him. We determined to give each of the next divers a light, though inside the boat it would hardly cast more than a glow.

  Kelley and Michels went down. We slid the submarine lights down to them, guided on the descending line. The divers took the lights but hardly had they entered the hatch and started forward through the engine room when both lights burned out, leaving them in darkness. The heat from the thousand-watt filaments apparently softened the cement on the base of the lamps; under the heavy pressure, water seeped through into the bulb and short-circuited the filament.

  Kelley reported the trouble and came out on the deck of the submarine. We pulled both lamps to the surface and told him to stand by while we sent down two more lights that we had already made up. We lowered these, Kelley received them, and entered the boat once more. He kept one light, gave Michels the other. They advanced to the engine room door.

  Kelley placed his lamp, shining through the door, on the floor plates, stooped, started to squeeze into the narrow opening when his light burned out.

  I had Kelley’s telephone. I heard him say:

  “My light’s gone. Tell Mike to give me his.”

  Over Michels’ phone, I ordered:

  “Give Kelley your light!”

  Michels handed his lamp to Kelley, who placed it near the door, giving the burned out lamp to his partner. Kelley reported he was ready to try the door again. He was partway through when the last light flared brilliantly and then burned out, leaving the men in complete darkness. Four lights burned out in succession, while they were attempting a passage into the most dangerous part of the boat! In a shaken voice, Kelley reported the latest mishap, and added, “I’m coming up.” I hardly blamed him. We had no more lights anyway.

  The divers had tried all three entrances to the control room. They had been balked at every one. There was little doubt their nerves were shaken, especially by the latest experience with the lamps. I could see the men feared that they might get well inside the control room, then have their lights go out and be forced in the darkness to try to fight their way out. A man may be brave, but the prospect of being trapped and having to struggle alone in silence and in blackness will shake the stoutest heart. We decided no one would be asked to enter the submarine again until we had a reliable light.

  The submarine lamps we were using were frankly experimental. No light of any power able to stand pressure was on the market when the S-51 sank. The Westinghouse Company, however, had been developing such a light and felt they had the answer. We bought several dozens of their lamps and took them out with us. We shortly discovered their weakness. As lights they were far superior to any previously available, but their bases were not pressure proof. Several lamps had burned out before Kelley’s experience in the engine room, but fortunately none had gone out while a man was inside.

  We radioed the Westinghouse experts and pointed out the defects. We had considerable difficulty in making their laboratory men believe the water entered through the cement as we said; they refused at first to modify the design and tried various other lamp-making cements without better success. They had finally to adopt the modification we suggested, of vulcanizing a watertight rubber sleeve from the glass base to the rubber electric cable. Several lamps made that way arrived on the Penobscot two days later. They went into service immediately, and not one lamp of that design ever burned out on any diver. Westinghouse adopted it as their standard design.

  XII

  ANOTHER STRUGGLE

  Nearly three weeks had gone by since we started work. The divers had toiled steadily down below, we had accomplished a little, but it was plain that the job could not possibly be quickly terminated. October was gone, November was well started. The weather was getting worse, the water colder. The Falcon was crowded badly during the day by tenders, telephone men, dressers, and an extra working party from the Vestal to handle mooring lines. She was nearly as badly crowded at night to accommodate her own crew and furnish bunks for the divers whom we dared not send off the ship away from the recompression tank, our “iron doctor.”

  The divers worked below on the S-51 under depressing a
nd morbid surroundings; they came up on the Falcon and found no place outside their bunks where they could rest or even sit down.

  This was bad enough while we were diving, but it seemed an aggravation to have to stand it when a storm arose and diving was not possible. Under such conditions, the Falcon heaved and pitched as the waves rolled by and we listened to the mournful whistling of the buoy the Lighthouse Service had planted near the wreck. If the storm grew very bad, we sought shelter in the lee of Block Island, fourteen miles away, and rode it out.

  What irritated the crew was the fact that Newport was only twenty-five miles away. Practically every diver had learned the art at the Torpedo School in Newport; many of the men still had their homes there; they all had friends (and some sweethearts) in Newport. There was consequently a strong wish to get ashore there, to get a change of scene, to get their minds off the gruesome job below. While the weather was good enough to dive, there were no complaints, but the men could not see why we stayed round when we could do nothing more than pitch and roll at the end of our anchor cable.

  That seemed reasonable and several times I tried to get permission to send the divers in for a rest when a storm arose. The squadron commander was, however, opposed to it. He felt that with winter coming on, we dared not lose an hour suitable for diving; that if the divers were sent to Newport during a storm, the weather might moderate, and we might lose half a day before we could get the men back on the scene. This might happen, I had to admit, but even so I believed it was worth it. However, in spite of a number of conferences I was unable to get permission for a liberty for the men.

  We went along, riding out the storms, with our divers getting stale, it was quite evident. Several good men failed to carry through what should have been very simple jobs. At last, with a storm raging and our new diving lamps not yet arrived from New London, permission was finally given. I bundled all the divers aboard the Sagamore at noon and started them for Newport. They were to leave Newport on the return trip at ten P.M. that same night.