We lowered away. The Falcon was rolling as usual to the ocean swell that never ceased. We plumbed the hatch as nearly as we could with the end of our boom, hauled up all the slack possible on the guide line, lowered slowly. The spillpipe came into the divers’ view,—we were twenty feet too far to starboard and a little forward. We swung in our boom, shifted the Falcon; we came much closer to the hatch. But with the S-51 leaning far over to port and thus having no horizontal surfaces to land anything on deck, trouble started. Several times, at Frazer’s direction, we slacked off and tried to land the cover on the trunk but each time it promptly slipped off to port. We had no more luck trying to land it on the sloping deck. In desperation, Frazer and Smith finally worked the hatch over to the starboard side outboard of the trunk. Here it heaved up and down with the roll of the Falcon.
“Let go!” yelled Frazer. We slacked off. The hatch cover landed in a heap on the high side of the ship.
Laboriously the divers dragged the heavy cover along the side, Frazer heaving his utmost to push the ponderous mass along the edge of the deck while Smith hauled on the spillpipe. They dragged it close enough to hook it with the chain fall and hoisted it over the opening. Smith fed the spillpipe through the upper and lower hatches of the gun access trunk, and made sure the check valve on the lower end fell free through to the control room floor.
Together they entered the strongback, toggled it, centered it in the opening, hoisted on the chain fall to jam it tight. They encountered trouble here, for the spillpipe partly blocked the opening and interfered with their movements. Smith tried to pull out the lamp he had lowered through the trunk to watch the progress of the spillpipe into the control room. It would not come back through the hatch, now the spillpipe was hanging there. Smith asked us to turn off the electricity, then cut the lamp cord. They cast loose the cover lashing and lowered the cover plate. It did not quite go home; they had to readjust the strongback to make it center properly. The second time, the hatch cover slipped into place; Frazer screwed down the nut and together they tightened it with a large wrench.
An hour and a half had gone by. Both men had asked to be left alone to finish the job when their hour expired. Now they came up, with extra decompression to compensate for their overlong submersion.
One of our hardest tasks was done, a harder one it proved than we had anticipated. But in doing it, we lost one of our best men. Frazer never dived again. The strain in dragging that five-hundred-pound hatch cover while under the exhilaration of breathing highly compressed air had dilated his heart. Further work of any kind by Frazer underwater was out of the question.
XVI
A LOST DIVER
November was getting along towards its middle. The water was getting too cold to dive without gloves. The men were coming up with their hands numb and useless. Gloves we knew to be an encumbrance, but there was no escape. Without them, in five minutes a hand projecting from the tight rubber cuff of the diving suit (which in itself partly choked off circulation) became so stiff from cold that the owner was incapable of moving his fingers.
We cemented rubber mittens, canvas covered, onto the sleeves of the diving suits. These mittens were two-fingered affairs,—that is, the pockets took two fingers apiece, though the thumb was separate. It was necessary to wear a woolen glove inside the rubber one for warmth, the rubber and canvas mitten being only for watertightness. By the time all these gloves were on, it was nearly impossible to close the fingers or to handle tools, but without the gloves it was wholly impossible, so we accepted the lesser of two evils.
Divers were getting fewer. Some were lost for good, others were worn out or ill and temporarily unable to work. Even when the day was good enough to work, after a few hours we were forced to quit for lack of men.
We had, after our first trial with men who had no deep-water experience back of them, restricted the work to the eleven men we knew about—Eadie, Smith, Frazer, Eiben, Wilson, Bailey, Michels, Anderson, Carr, Ingram, and Kelley.
Under pressure of circumstances, we decided to try again some of the shallow-water divers and asked for volunteers. Several men indicated a willingness to try. We sent one petty officer, a torpedoman first class, down to secure a line to the bow of the submarine. He landed. The pressure muddled his head. He glimpsed the bow diving planes, confused them with the rudders, and I was unable over the telephone to convince him that he was at the bow, not the stern. He came up finally without anything accomplished and no special desire to go down again.
We chose Eiben for a job inside the engine room, and picked L’Heureux, the most promising of the shallow-water men, to go down with him, stand on the deck, and tend Eiben’s lines through the engine room hatch while Eiben worked inside.
We dressed them both and they went over shortly after noon, Eiben first. He slipped down the forward descending line, landed alongside the gun, went aft into the engine room. L’Heureux’s helmet was screwed on. The tenders helped him to the stage, we swung him over the side, dropped a submarine lamp into his hand. L’Heureux disappeared. Shortly he reported:
“On the bottom!”
We turned attention to Eadie, who was being dressed to go down forward. About ten minutes later, Eadie was hoisted out, descended.
On the Falcon’s rail, three sets of tenders “fished” their divers’ lines. Crouched in the superstructure, getting what shelter they could from the cold wind, three telephone talkers listened intently on the ship ends of the phones going to the divers below. I stood as usual near the telephones, Hartley near the tenders.
The silence was soon broken by Eiben’s telephone man.
“Joe wants to know when L’Heureux is coming down with the light. He’s waiting in the engine room and can’t do a thing till he gets a light.”
“Queer,” I thought, “L’Heureux’s been down there nearly fifteen minutes.”
I called to L’Heureux’s talker.
“Tell L’Heureux to go aft! Joe’s waiting for the light!”
Seaman Schissel had L’Heureux’s phone. He transmitted the message several times. Finally he called me.
“I can’t get L’Heureux to acknowledge.”
I took the telephone, listened a minute. I could hear air rushing through his helmet. I turned to the tender.
“How much line has L’Heureux out?”
“About two hundred and fifty feet. He’s taken nearly a hundred since he landed. Still taking a little.”
L’Heureux had taken enough line to get back to the engine room, more than enough probably. I called him.
“Hello, L’Heureuxl” No answer. I turned to his tender.
“Give L’Heureux ‘One’ on his lifeline!”
The tender gave the line one jerk. (The signal meaning, “Are you all right?”) No answering jerk came back. Something was wrong. I tried again on the telephone.
“H-E-L-L-O, L’HEUREUX!!”
A loud explosive “Ha!” seemed to be the answer.
“What’s the matter?” Again I seemed to hear that “Ha!” I tried several times to get a reply, but each time my questions got only a loud “Ha!” in response.
I took Eadie’s telephone.
“Hello, Tom!” He acknowledged at once.
“Did you see L’Heureux when you went down?”
I could hear Eadie turn off his air.
“He was standing at the descending line by the gun when I came down, holding up the light like the Statue of Liberty!” Eadie paused, turned on his air a moment to breathe, then shut it off again. “I clapped him on the back, asked him if he was all right. I thought he said ‘Yes,’ so I left him there and went forward on my own job.” Eadie turned his air on again.
I waited a moment for him to catch his breath.
“Go aft and see if he’s still there, Tom.”
A few minutes went by. I asked Eiben if L’Heureux had shown up yet. No, he had not, Eiben was still waiting in the darkness. I ordered him up out of the engine room, told him to go forward and find L’Heureux.<
br />
Eadie called.
“On deck! He’s not by the gun! Joe just got here. He says L’Heureux isn’t aft.”
What had become of him? We had a lifeline to him, but it was not. safe to haul on that unless we knew he was clear. If he were fouled in anything, heaving on his line would make matters worse, might even cut his airhose.
Another call from Eadie.
“On deck! I think I see a light out on the bottom. Looks about one hundred feet off the sub’s starboard beam and it’s going farther away all the time!”
I told Eadie to slide down the submarine’s side and chase the light. Evidently L’Heureux had fallen off the submarine and wandered off, trying to find it again.
Eadie started off across the sand, guided by the glimmer dimly visible through the water. Soon he caught up with L’Heureux, walking aimlessly along the ocean bottom, a number of fish swimming curiously about his light. Eadie turned him round, took his hand, led him back to the submarine. Eiben helped him pull L’Heureux back on deck.
It was useless to expect work from any of the trio on that dive. We lowered the stage to ninety feet, told them to stand by, hauled them all up to the stage, and started decompression.
Eiben and L’Heureux had been down fifty minutes, Eadie less time, but knowing that it was L’Heureux’s first dive, we gave them all extra long decompression. Over two hours more went by before we hoisted in the stage and landed the three dripping figures on the deck in the darkness.
The bears rushed in. Lead shoes and belts went sailing in all directions; a few strong heaves and off came the helmets. I looked at L’Heureux curiously. Except for the fact that he appeared over-vivacious, he seemed all right. I asked him how he felt.
“Fine, Mr. Ellsberg!” He was positively bubbling over with mirth. Oxygen intoxication, I thought. I did not care to upset him by questioning about his mishap. Surgeon Flotte, specialist in the physiology of diving and our medical officer, strolled by, looked him over. The bears finished the undressing job; in their underwear the three divers went below, changed clothes hurriedly, sat down late at the supper table.
Five minutes later, without a word, L’Heureux slumped forward, unconscious. His knees doubled up, his face became distorted. The men near him dragged him from the table, rushed his tense form up the ladder and out the narrow passage along the deck to the recompression tank. They tossed him through the outer lock; Dr. Flotte scrambled in after, the heavy steel door was swung to. Dr. Flotte sprang for the air valve, opened it wide. Compressed air whistled through, the needle on the gauge mounted rapidly. Thirty pounds—forty—fifty. Flotte’s ears began to ring. Sixty pounds. Blood started to flow from his mouth, but still the air roared through. He must get the pressure up on L’Heureux,—never mind himself. Seventy pounds. Still the valve stayed wide open, the needle kept on upwards. Eighty pounds. Enough! Dr. Flotte shut off the air, turned to bend over L’Heureux. He tore off his shirt. L’Heureux’s chest was covered with purple splotches, caused by the bursting of innumerable small blood vessels. A bad case of “bends.”
The surgeon straightened out his legs, worked over him with hot towels. The high pressure compressed the bubbles again, partly restored his circulation. He began to breathe more regularly. Gradually the doctor released part of the pressure, decompressing him again. But in spite of the fact that Surgeon Flotte worked over him all night, he failed to regain consciousness.
At 3 A.M., the doctor came out of the chamber, wan and weak. He said:
“If we’re going to save L’Heureux’s life, we’ve got to get him to a hospital!”
Lieutenant Hartley let go his mooring; soon the Falcon was making full speed towards Newport. At 7 A.M., she ran alongside the dock there, where an ambulance was waiting. L’Heureux went over the side in a stretcher.
That was in November. L’Heureux had been a man of average physique, weighing perhaps one hundred and sixty pounds. Partial paralysis set in as a result of “the bends.” He wasted away to about seventy pounds and hovered between life and death for months. At last he won the fight. Late the next July, after eight months of struggle in the hospital, L’Heureux came out. He never dived again.
XVII
THE MOTOR ROOM
I decided it was not worth trying to train inexperienced divers out on the wreck. We would have to proceed with the few men left.
Several days elapsed before we could work again. Then Wilson and Eiben went through the engine room to the motor room abaft it. Here they squeezed through the door, a task they were quite expert at by now, closed a large clapper valve in the ventilation main over the door, closed the other necessary valves on the bulkhead, and then, coming out, closed and dogged down the door. They came out, pushing aside the legs of the engineer officer as usual.
Kelley and Anderson followed them, went aft on the hull over the motor room. They split the nut off a bolt coming through the hull near the motor room hatch, drove the bolt through into the ship, tapped out the hole, and screwed a valve into the hole. To this they connected an airhose to the surface.
Following them, Eadie entered the engine room, picked out a valve on the four-inch drain line coming from the motor room, removed the bonnet from the valve, leaving the drain line open to the engine room. As soon as this was done, we started to blow air into the motor room through the air line Kelley had hooked up. Eadie reported he could feel a stream of water coming through the open valve into the engine room. There was a flapper valve in this line which prevented water from backing through it into the motor room.
Our blowing scheme worked nicely, but only for a brief time. Shortly air started to bubble out, water ceased flowing.
We searched for the reason. One of the S-51 survivors enlightened us. There was a defective valve on the bulkhead. You could screw down the handle till it stopped, but the valve was still wide open.
Wilson and Eiben went down again, once more entered the engine room, undid the work they had done in dogging down the motor room door. Working overhead with Stillson wrenches, they uncoupled the bad valve. It was a slow job. They had to come out before they could put a plug in the line. They tried again next day. Wilson’s exhaust valve worked badly and he could hardly keep himself from floating into the upper part of the motor room. With Eiben’s help he managed to escape and both men came out. Two other divers tried to enter the motor room; they were unable to squeeze through the door.
Wilson and Eiben went down again, entered, managed to get the line plugged. Back through the door, which they closed and dogged tight for the second time. They started out, Eiben first. I had Wilson’s telephone. They came to the engineer officer, his stockinged legs hanging down into the passage. Eiben shoved them aside, passed on. Wilson came up, paused. Evidently the situation was getting on his nerves. He addressed the dead engineer:
“Say you! If you don’t rig in those legs, the next time I come along, I’ll steal your garters!”
Wilson ducked clear, came out.
Once more we started blowing on the motor room. The water went lower this time, we were making good progress, when the ventilation clapper valve, unable to resist the growing pressure inside, sprang a little off its seat and released the air like a safety valve popping off. We had to abandon blowing. There were no means at hand for holding that valve tight, and indeed few divers left to employ them.
XVIII
WINTER
One day out of three had constituted our average for diving since we started work. Stormy weather put diving out of the question in several ways.
As the wind increased in an approaching storm, the strain grew on the windward mooring hawsers till they were taut as bowstrings. A diver on the bottom absolutely depends for his life upon his airhose. If it parts, he is gone,—left to die in his heavy diving rig when the little air remaining inside his helmet is used up. We had the diving hoses made up six hundred feet long, even though the water was but one hundred and thirty-five feet deep, so that if a mooring line parted or an anchor dragged, swe
eping the Falcon away to leeward from her position over the S-51, we had some reserve airhose coiled down, which the tender could run out to the diver as we swung away, with the idea that the remaining moorings would hold the ship from going more than a few hundred feet before we could get the diver clear and started up.
But with men working inside the submarine, it was unlikely we could get them out if we were torn away. In spite of the reserve airhose we dared not take a chance on being carried away. And so when the wind came up, we always moved a tugboat, usually the Iuka, over to the windward side, anchored her there, and ran out an extra mooring hawser to her stern to help hold the Falcon up and relieve the strain on the other mooring lines. If the weather got worse, we anchored the Sagamore to windward of the Iuka with a line to the latter, and then both tugs served in tandem as moorings to hold the Falcon.
In this way, in spite of singing mooring lines and seas pounding our windward side, we were able to hang on and continue diving, once we had started, until the wind rose over thirty miles an hour, when the Iuka and Sagamore,—under the heavy strain on their lines to us—usually started to drag anchor and drift down on us. Whenever that happened, diving had to cease.
We tried to help matters by anchoring the Vestal on our weather side to act as a floating breakwater, but never with any great success. She was a large ship, but even so, when she headed into the sea, riding to her own anchor, she formed practically no lee for the Falcon. We tried anchoring the Vestal broadside, the better to break the wind for us, but in spite of anchors from both bow and stern, the wind hitting her broadside exerted such a force that her stern anchors soon dragged and she always ended by heading into the wind, in which position she was more of a danger than a help, for a big ship maneuvers slowly, and if she started to drag down on us, the storm might easily cause her to drift into and tear away our windward moorings before she could get clear.
On the Bottom: The Raising of the Submarine S-51 Page 9