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

by Edward Ellsberg

  We moored especially early on July 5, in a choppy sea with a southeasterly breeze and a moderate swell.

  Our weather reports indicated a storm next day. As the submarine was practically in the condition it had been in two weeks before when a storm brought up the bow, we decided if possible to finish and get out that day to avoid a possible repetition of the accident.

  Our important job was to refloat the sunken end of the second port pontoon. Eadie took down the necessary wires and airhoses. We went through the leveling-off job quickly, completed it without mishap. Carr and Grube dived to install the final wire lashings. Carr noted that the submarine had straightened up during the night, and had only a slight port list instead of the heavy heel to starboard with which she had landed on the bottom after the storm.

  Eiben dived to check the position of the bow pontoons, and to secure a line on the bow as a telltale. He came up after a short dive.

  One more dive and we would be through.

  Wickwire went down aft to check up on the pontoons there, and to secure a telltale line to the stern. He slipped down the descending line abaft the conning tower. For the last time, I heard the call:

  “On the bottom!”

  Wickwire went aft along the slimy deck of the submarine, set the valves on the stern pontoons, slid down her side to the sea bottom, and secured his telltale to the stern. He was through. I waited impatiently for his signal to be hoisted up. It was nearly noon. We must lose no time.

  No signal came. I raised his telephone to my lips to order him to hurry, but desisted. Over the telephone, I heard Wickwire’s helmet clang against the stern of the S-51, I heard him murmur:

  “Good-bye, baby! I’ll see you next in the Navy Yard!”

  There was a loud “Smack,” and then the tender on Wickwire’s lifelines felt four vigorous jerks. We hauled Wickwire up quickly, shoved him into the “iron doctor” to decompress.

  Captain King mounted the Falcon’s bridge, ordered all ships to take stations for raising. The Falcon hauled about one hundred feet to starboard of the submarine, with twenty airhoses running into the sea from her manifolds to the pontoons and compartments on the S-51. The Sagamore moved in ahead and picked up the buoys to the two tow-lines the divers had secured on the S-51’s bow, while the Iuka ran in aft and took the towline around the submarine’s stern. The S-50 anchored perhaps two hundred feet away on the Falcon’s starboard beam and sent over a hose to carry compressed air from her airbanks to help out the Falcon’s compressors, while a second submarine, the S-3, stood near by to take the S-50’s place when required. The Vestal, which had come out from Point Judith, was anchored one thousand yards to port.

  It took but a few minutes after Wickwire was hoisted in to complete the readjustment of all ships,—the salvage squadron stood by.

  At 12:17 P.M., I stepped to the air manifold and swung open the valves on the hoses leading to the motor room and to the engine room of the S-51. The rubber hoses bulged; the air shot through under the full pressure of the Falcon’s compressors. Niedermair opened the valve on the hose from the S-50, and we started to drain her banks, but even so, the pressure on our manifold quickly dropped from one hundred and twenty-five to ninety pounds, which was the highest our laboring compressors could maintain.

  The air ran through for exactly an hour. At 1:17 P.M., bubbles started to rise over the engine room. We blew a few minutes longer to make sure both engine and motor rooms were dry; then tested each room separately on the pressure gauge. The air had reached the bilges; the rooms were dry.

  Niedermair shut off both compartments and turned the air on in the hose leading to the control room. That hose stiffened out under the pressure as the air went down, but within a minute I got a severe shock, for a multitude of bubbles streamed through the surface over the control room. The air was coming up as fast as we sent it down.

  Niedermair and I looked at the bubbles sadly. The control room, the sealing up of which had cost the divers so many desperate hours of work, was not holding the air. Whether the hose had torn away, whether something else had broken, we could not tell, nor could we find out. The Falcon was no longer in diving position over the submarine. To get her there would waste several precious hours of daylight; even aside from that we dared not put the Falcon over the submarine and risk having the lightened stern rush to the surface under us; not to mention the danger the diver would run if the stern started to rise while he was down.

  Together Niedermair and I figured hastily. We had lost sixty tons lift in the control room; in addition we knew we were going to lose some of the buoyancy in the forward pontoons when the stern rose, but it still figured that we would have a margin of a few tons over. We said nothing about the control room, turned off the air, and decided to go ahead.

  At 1:55 P.M., we resumed blowing, sending all the air to the pontoons at the stern.

  Eleven minutes elapsed.

  A cloud of bubbles spread over the sea. A moment later the stern pontoons broke surface, riding gracefully as the waves swept by. Seamen lined the rail, looked at the stern eagerly, but in silence. They had seen one end of the boat before; that much meant nothing.

  All the air was immediately concentrated on the six pontoons forward. Here we blew for forty minutes, when air started to discharge over the surface, but nothing followed.

  Blowing ceased, while one by one, we tested each compartment of each pontoon. The forward pair of pontoons vented air all around, the midship pontoons showed the same. We would get no more buoyancy in them. The after ends of the second pair of pontoons also lost air as fast as we supplied it. Only the forward halves of this pair showed any water left that might be expelled, and there could not be any great quantity left there.

  I started the air again in these last two compartments. The S-50 reported her air all gone,—the S-3 maneuvered to get alongside her and transfer the airhose to her fresh banks. Meanwhile the Falcon’s compressors had to take the whole load,—they throbbed continuously.

  Niedermair and I looked at each other glumly. Another failure. I wondered what had gone wrong with the control room of the S-51; how long the weather would stay good and let the stern float. There was a pair of small pontoons in Newport. I could get them out in a day, attach them somehow to the bow to make up for the lost control room if only the weather held out. But we had a storm warning.

  Captain King came by, evidently perturbed by the long wait with the bow still down.

  “How are things going?” he asked anxiously.

  “Still fine, captain!” I replied. He knew they were not, but he left without any more questions. A peach of a commanding officer! He was not going to add his anxieties to ours. He felt we were doing our best, and left us alone.

  Slowly the air pulsed through to the pontoons while Niedermair jotted down gauge readings and I made meaningless notes, trying to appear calm and businesslike as the worried divers one by one came up on the bridge to ask questions.

  “Everything is going according to schedule,” was the reply to them all, and I scheduled busily. How long would it be before a stream of bubbles showed the last pontoons dry, our hopes dashed?

  An hour had gone by since the stern rose; the divers lined the port rail, tense, anxious.

  Niedermair made the round of the gauges, for the tenth time noted down the unchanging pressures. Both of us paused in front of the last gauge, that to the port forward pontoon. It registered forty-eight pounds, had been steady on that for half an hour. Niedermair tapped it aimlessly, not hoping for any movement, but to our surprise, the needle promptly dropped to forty-four pounds, then to forty-two pounds, and continued to drop steadily. The water pressure was decreasing on that pontoon!

  I rushed to the rail, looked over. No bubbles, no sign, but I needed none.

  The divers clustered round.

  “Gentlemen, here comes your bow!”

  They looked, nothing showed, but an instant later the sea boiled violently and broke into huge geysers of water, then six pontoon
s broke through the foam and the S-51 was afloat again! My cap went into the sea, followed by a hundred others. Cheers, tears, and the happy feeling:

  “Now we can go home again!”

  XXXVI

  THE TOW

  Soon we were under way, a strange procession. The S-51, still enclosing the bodies of eighteen of her officers and men, hung between the pontoons, with only her periscopes and part of her bridge showing above water. One hundred and fifty feet astern of her, holding to the line fastened around the tail of the submarine, came the Falcon, steadily pumping air to the pontoons and to the submarine to keep ahead of any leaks. One hundred fathoms ahead of the S-51, the Sagamore towed both submarine and Falcon, with two towlines on the bow of the submarine and one line going past her to the Falcon’s bow. Ahead of the Sagamore was the Iuka, with a line to the Sagamore, helping her along with her burden.

  The Vestal steamed on ahead of the Iuka, navigating for the squadron.

  The speed was slow, only two knots, partly on account of the difficulty of dragging the submarine and its unwieldy pontoons through the water, partly to avoid straining the pontoons and their chains by the pounding of the waves as we steamed along.

  Captain King, from the bridge of the Falcon, directed the tow. Gradually we moved to the northward for Point Judith, to get over shallow water as soon as possible. At dusk we passed inside the hundred-foot mark, turned westward. With the sea astern, we increased speed to three knots and steamed on through the night, the pontoons lighted up by the Falcon’s searchlight.

  Off Westerly, Rhode Island, near midnight, the tow struck a strong adverse tide, which we bucked for nearly an hour without making any progress before the current slacked off and we could go ahead again.

  After getting clear there, the Vestal adjusted her speed so as to bring us to the first danger point, The Race, off New London, at slack water. Trouble was especially not desired there, as the deepest spot on the whole trip, three hundred feet to the bottom, lay in The Race. We had no desire to have to dive there.

  The Vestal’s navigation was accurate. At about 4 A.M., we passed through The Race at dead slack water, meeting no currents at all, and in the early dawn of July 6, we slipped at last into the smooth waters of Long Island Sound. The worst was over.

  In smooth water, with no ocean swells to cause jumping of the pontoons, the Sagamore and Iuka worked up to full power on their engines while the Falcon went ahead slowly on hers. The tow soon reached a speed of five knots. On we steamed, past New London, past Madison, past New Haven. By late afternoon it was evident that our unexpected progress would bring us to the East River in the darkness, an unsafe thing. We dared not attempt to anchor, or even to stop, for the long string of ships making up the tow would drift together in a tangle; even slowing up as much as possible would still bring us in too soon. To avoid this, the tow began to steam in a wide circle, perhaps two miles in diameter, and for the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening, we circled in the Sound to lose time.

  Late in the evening, we straightened out and resumed our course towards Execution Rocks. Meanwhile, a radio was sent to the Navy Yard, asking Admiral Plunkett there to have “the best East River pilot” join us to take us through the East River, and in addition to send a navy pilot to take us into the Navy Yard itself after the civilian pilot had brought us to the entrance of the yard basin.

  At midnight off Hempstead, two Navy Yard tugs joined us, bringing both pilots.

  The S-51 as she hung between the pontoons drew thirty-three feet of water; the shallowest spot on our trip, with only thirty-five feet of water over it, was just below Execution Rocks. In the early morning of July 7, we steamed over this spot without even stirring up the mud, and entered the approaches to the East River. To make steering easier, Captain King shortened up the tow by having the Iuka drop back abreast the Sagamore and secure to her; the two tugs thereafter towed side by side. The Vestal, as before, led the procession.

  The civilian pilot took station on the Sagamore at the head of the tow; the salvage officers stayed on the Falcon’s bridge.

  We reached Hell Gate at high water slack and went safely through when its dreaded currents and swirls were temporarily quiescent.

  The last danger point was passed, our last obstacle overcome. We steamed in down the smooth waters of the East River on the top of the morning tide. Our troubles were over.

  I went below a few minutes. For the first time in months, I took off my tarnished blouse, my blue woolen shirt, replaced them with a decent uniform, put on a white shirt and collar, prepared to return to civilization. All over the Falcon, sailors and divers who had long since grown beards were shaving them off, preparing to greet their wives or their sweethearts. Confusion reigned in the crew’s quarters, in the wardroom. It was no longer possible to recognize in the neatly dressed men the rough-looking shipmates who had shared my struggles on deck or at the bottom.

  I examined myself in the glass,—with a weather-beaten face and lips puffed and cracked from facing the biting winds and the sharp sun on the Falcon’s rail, I doubted whether anyone ashore would know me.

  I climbed back on the bridge; Hartley, also dressed up, was there, conning his ship, carefully watching his position astern the submarine. Both sides of the East River were lined with huge crowds as we passed; no cheers, but half-masted flags and bare-headed throngs greeted the S-51 as the silent procession steamed slowly along.

  XXXVII

  MAN OF WAR ROCK

  We passed under Queensborough Bridge, passed Blackwell’s Island on the Manhattan side, could see the entrance to the Navy Yard about a mile below. The Vestal cleared the tip of the island, stood on down the river in the deep channel near the Manhattan shore. The Sagamore and the Iuka followed her.

  Just below Blackwell’s Island, the two tugs left the Vestal, swerved off to port. Trailing on the towlines, the submarine followed.

  Before the meaning of this unlooked-for maneuver on the part of the pilot could be learned, the submarine suddenly stopped, the pontoons bobbed violently and lost their alignment, two pontoons broke loose and drifted away! The Falcon, only one hundred and fifty feet behind the S-51, began rapidly to close on the stern of the submarine.

  With only six seconds in which to act before ramming the S-51, Lieutenant Hartley swung his rudder “Hard Left” and got his engines going “Full Speed Astern.” The Falcon closed in spite of everything, but Hartley’s lightning action reduced the impact to a slight collision with the amidships port pontoon; he missed altogether the stern of the boat containing the precious buoyancy that the divers had risked their lives so many times to secure!

  I was stunned. What could have happened? Wild as the idea seemed, I could only surmise that after holding through one hundred and fifty miles of towing, the S-51 had finally broken in half abreast the hole made by the City of Rome; that the pontoons opposite that spot, their chains pulling through the gap, had broken free.

  Meanwhile the Iuka and Sagamore with the towlines all broken were continuing down the river, while the Falcon, her progress checked, lay alongside the submarine. We had been heading downstream also; in a moment we were no longer, for both submarine and Falcon were pivoting about the S-51’s bow and swinging sharply around till we were heading nearly upstream in a strong ebb tide.

  Once more the six remaining pontoons lined up straight; evidently the submarine was still intact. What then had happened? A sunken wreck in our path? Overboard went the surfboat to take soundings along the bow.

  There was a terrific tide running. The ordinary sounding lead streamed far out. It took a fifty-pound weight to sound in a reasonably vertical line. We hit bottom,—four fathoms, only twenty-four feet. And the S-51 had been drawing thirty-three feet!

  We reported the depth to the bridge; Captain King had taken some hasty bearings and plotted them on the chart. Over the megaphone I heard him shout:

  “We’re way off the channel, aground on Man of War Rock!”

  We had hit at high wa
ter. The tide was rapidly falling. As it did so, the water swirled in violent eddies around the pontoons at the bow which showed higher and higher above the surface. Meantime, the submarine, whose periscopes had been nearly erect before, now began to heel gradually to starboard as the tide fell and she received less and less support from the bow pontoons.

  Back on the Falcon, I hastily figured up the situation with Niedermair. One pair of pontoons was gone. The tugs had finally stopped, recovered the drifting pontoons, found the chains broken in half. The submarine had been dragged up on a rocky shelf on Man of War Reef; the chains on the second pair of pontoons had been ground in half as they struck, releasing that pair of pontoons. The towlines to the Sagamore had torn the bow right out of the S-51; the Sagamore hauled in the broken stem and part of the submarine’s bow plating when she dragged in the useless towlines.

  Hurriedly we backed the Falcon clear just abaft the submarine and ran an anchor out over our stern to keep her from swinging further.

  Several officers from the Army Engineer’s office came aboard and offered the services of their tugs and equipment; meanwhile they cut our position in accurately in order to show the wreck of the S-51 on their charts as a permanent menace to navigation.

  The shock of having the pilot shipwreck our submarine, practically at the end of her long tow, was disheartening. A moment before we could see our task over; now once more we had a submerged wreck to deal with, and as we looked over at the tide racing by, our hopes sank. Diving was impossible in that current except at the turns of the tide, perhaps for thirty minutes each six hours. Two of our pontoons were gone. The water over the reef was shallower by eight feet than the draft of the S-51, and to make it worse, we had stranded at high tide. We could not look forward to a rise in tide to float us free. Instead we could expect to have our ship try to capsize as the tide dropped.

  In this difficulty, Niedermair and I figured feverishly. As in all good engineering practice, we had provided a reserve of buoyancy in our pontoons, over what was needed barely to lift the submarine. Part of this reserve was lost when the control room failed us on the lifting day; practically all the rest was unavailable during the lifting operation when the slope as the submarine lay stern up, bow on the bottom, prevented us from expelling all the water from the pontoons; but when the bow finally rose and the S-51 floated level, we were able to force the remaining water out of all pontoons. In that position, with nearly a quarter of each of the eight pontoons out of water during the tow, our reserve buoyancy had been nearly one hundred and sixty tons. Now we were shy one pair of pontoons which had been carrying perhaps one hundred and fifty tons. If only we could sink our remaining pontoons till they were again fully submerged, we could just make up for the lost buoyancy required to float the boat; in addition, if we could resecure the pontoons low enough, we might lift the submarine high enough to float her off the reef. It would be nip and tuck on both scores. Considering the poor conditions under which we would have to work, I estimated it might take two weeks for the job, and meanwhile we would have to keep the after compartments on the submarine dry and undamaged or the stern of the vessel would also sink, ruining our prospects.