3 resembled a silo: Archival photographs at U.S. Navy Submarine Force Library and Museum, Groton, Conn., viewed by author Sept. 12, 2002.
3 yes, in theory: Bond et al., “Deep Submarine Escape,” p. 1.
4 Tuck never swore: Tuckfield, interview, Sept. 11, 2002.
4 prior calculations: Bond et al., “Deep Submarine Escape,” pp. 5, 13.
4 maximum of three minutes: Bond and Gunther, “We Conquered the Deep 300,” p. 105.
5 breathing nitrogen under pressure: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 70; Bond, recorded keynote speech at Albany Medical College.
5 instructors would routinely jab: Bob Barth, interviews, Sept. 24 and 26, 2002; Tuckfield, interviews, Aug. 21, 2002, and Sept. 11, 2002; interviews with other former training tank instructors; Submarine Escape.
6 Charlie Aquadro took his turn: Dr. Charles Aquadro, interview, Beaufort, N.C., May 16–18, 2003.
6 Bond sweated it out: Memorandum from Arline Hibbard, secretary of the American Medical Association Council on Rural Health, “Sweetness and Light as a Navy Doctor Sees It,” Nov. 10, 1954 (copy in author’s possession); Aquadro, interview, May 16–18, 2003.
7 “After you, Courageous Leader”: Bond and Gunther, “We Conquered the Deep 300,” p. 107.
7 the trunk fell silent: Ibid., p. 108.
7 quizzed himself: Ibid.
8 raised his left arm: Bond et al., “Deep Submarine Escape,” p. 15.
8 passed through a thermocline: Bond and Gunther, “We Conquered the Deep 300,” p. 109.
8 he had nothing left to blow: Tuckfield, interviews, Aug. 21, 2002, and Sept. 11, 2002.
8 Fifty-three seconds: Bond et al., “Deep Submarine Escape,” p. 13.
9 produced his pipe: Bond and Gunther, “We Conquered the Deep 300,” p. 109; official U.S. Navy photograph (in author’s possession).
9 feat was noted in: “Navy Man Escapes Sea from 300 Feet Deep,” New York Times, Oct. 4, 1959, p. 35; “Up from the Bottom,” Time, Oct. 19, 1959, p. 59.
9 Today show: A Program Analysis card from the NBC News Archives says Bond was on the show Oct. 9, 1959 (in author’s possession).
9 on Conquest: Craig Gilbert, “Escape from Danger,” Conquest shooting script, Feb. 19, 1960 (copy in author’s possession).
9 tests to analyze possible causes: George F. Bond, “Escapes from Sinking Jet Aircraft Cockpits,” U.S. Naval Medical Research Laboratory, New London, Conn., Memorandum Report 59-2, May 25, 1959.
9 A lengthy story: Gene Witmer, “Cmdr. Bond Escapes from ‘Aircraft’ Underwater to Come Up with Answers,” New London (Conn.) Evening Day, Aug. 28, 1959.
9 born on November 14, 1915: The date appears on Bond’s gravestone at the Church of the Transfiguration, Bat Cave, North Carolina; that date, along with his birthplace, Willoughby, Ohio, is noted in numerous documents.
9 when his father died: Robert Malby Bond died Sept. 15, 1925, according to Treasury Department, Office of Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Miscellaneous Tax Unit to Louise F. Bond, Administratrix, Estate of R. M. Bond, DeLand, Florida, Oct. 10, 1928.
9 worked on the school’s monthly: The Karux, Mercersburg Academy yearbook (1933?), G. F. Bond pictured and listed as one of six associate editors of The Lit magazine.
9 known as the class poet: The Karux, 1933, p. 57.
10 lifelong fondness for bourbon: Interviews; “fondness” may be an understatement, at least once Bond was older, according to many who knew him. Bourbon, while his favorite, was not the only liquor he drank. Bond’s habitual drinking tended to take place after hours and in social settings and did not generally interfere with his work. He frequently acknowledged his vice, usually in a lighthearted way, as in his paper presented to the Association of American Medical Colleges, cited later, in which he mentions writing an important proposal “after a nice round of three or four potions of bourbon and water and a good meal.” Another typical example is found in Bond’s “Sealab I Chronicle,” also cited later, in which he describes mixing “a very dry martini of about six ounces” upon arriving home from a difficult day at work. He then adds, “Three hours and several martinis later, the course was crystal clear” (p. 5).
10 “Rebel”: The Karux, 1933, p. 57.
10 course list revealed: Office of the Registrar, scholastic record of George Foote Bond, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. (in author’s possession).
10 for his thesis: George Foote Bond, “A Study of an Appalachian Dialect,” a thesis presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of master of arts, August 1939.
10 In those formative years: George Foote Bond Jr., interviews, Hendersonville, N.C., Oct. 10–13, 2003; Ellen Moorehead (née Barrino), younger sister of Marjorie Bond (née Barrino), and Lynn Moorehead, Ellen’s daughter, interviews, Bat Cave, N.C., Oct. 10, 2003; William A. Burch, longtime Bond friend, interview, Bat Cave, N.C., Oct. 11, 2003.
10 Fate himself served: Bond, “A Study of an Appalachian Dialect,” p. 88.
10 “take no back-sass”: Ibid., p. 104.
10 once lived with Ben and Dooge: Ibid., p. 85.
10 “George, why don’t you go”: George Bond, “Doctor on the Mountain,” unpublished manuscript (1975), pp. 13, 30. Edited excerpts from this typed manuscript, including a variation on this quotation, can be found in Chapter 1 of Papa Topside. Bond was seeking a publisher for this memoir about his rural practice, as noted in a personal letter to Bond from Judith Joye, a New York literary agent, June 2, 1975, and in a feature article by Lewis W. Green, “Mountains Keep Calling Him Back,” Asheville (N.C.) Citizen, Feb. 1, 1970.
11 married Marjorie Barrino: Ellen and Lynn Moorehead, interview, Oct. 10, 2003; Bond Jr., interviews, Oct. 10–13, 2003.
11 had seen two people die: Ben M. Patrick and Emma Carr Bivins, “Pioneer for Rural Health,” Country Gentleman, February 1949, p. 31.
11 enrolled at the University of North Carolina: UNC Chapel Hill transcript, 1940–41.
11 started medical school at McGill: Letter of certification from Donald Fleming, M.D., Secretary, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Oct. 14, 1953 (in author’s possession).
11 applied for a reserve commission: Bond, Papa Topside, p. 11; transcript of Naval Service, Capt. George Foote Bond, Medical Corps, U.S. Navy, Pers-E24-JFR, 582417/2100, Jan. 10, 1966 (in author’s possession).
11 made average grades: Fleming letter of certification.
11 “from grammar school up”: Bond to Louise F. Bond, Feb. 14, 1945, from Homeopathic Hospital of Montreal.
11 lavishly appointed houseboat: “The 61-Footer Cyrene, Latest in House Boats,” Yachting, January 1921.
11 a log cabin: Bond Jr., interviews, Oct. 10–13, 2003.
11 “family practice in the home”: Bond, “Doctor on the Mountain,” p. 104.
12 Granny Hill: Ibid., p. 196; Patrick and Bivins, “Pioneer for Rural Health,” p. 111.
12 learned to perform delicate procedures: Bond, “Doctor on the Mountain,” pp. 105, 110, 182, 187.
12 power of prayer: Ibid., p. 111; Bond, Papa Topside, p. 15.
12 religion had not been central: Bond Jr., interviews, Oct. 10–13, 2003.
12 served as a lay preacher: Bond, Papa Topside, p. 21; Bond Jr., interviews, Oct. 10–13, 2003.
12 outbreak of influenza: Bond, “Doctor on the Mountain,” p. 112.
12 Valley Clinic and Hospital: Ibid., p. 115.
12 model for improving medical care: George F. Bond, M.D., “Plan for Rural Medical Services,” Journal of the American Medical Association 147 (Dec. 15, 1951): 1543.
12 written up: Joseph Phillips, “The Revolution in Hickory Nut Gorge,” Reader’s Digest, November 1952, p. 117.
12 knew him as “Doctor George”: Bond, Papa Topside, p. 28.
13 eligible for recall to the Army: Ibid., p. 22.
13 chose the submarine service: Ibid.
13 began his professional conversion: Ibid., pp. 24, 29.
13 young family to Pearl Harbor: Ibid., p. 23.
13 to revive Charlie Aquadro: Memorandum from C. C. Cole, Commander Submarine Squadron ONE to Commander Submarine Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, Subject: Letter of Commendation; recommendation for, Jan. 16, 1956 (copy in author’s possession).
13 adviser for a training film: Bond, Papa Topside, p. 26.
13 guest of honor on This Is Your Life: Ibid.; videocassette recording, undated, but a Program Analysis card from the NBC News Archives gives the air date as June 22, 1955 (in author’s possession). Among those who appeared with Bond and corroborated highlights of his life were his wife, his mother, his sister, his four children, several former patients, Dooge Conner, and, as noted in the text, Lonnie Hill (copy in author’s possession).
13 planned to go into a partnership: Bond, Papa Topside, p. 28.
14 Lonnie had hanged himself: Ibid., p. 24.
14 volunteered to return to duty: Ibid., p. 29.
14 assistant officer-in-charge: Bond résumé included in Navy press packet for Sealab I, 1964; Bond transcript of Naval Service, Jan. 10, 1966; “Capt. Vogel Leaving Navy; Cmdr. Bond Takes Lab Post,” New London (Conn.) Evening Day, June 4, 1959.
14 “diving game”: Bond, recorded keynote speech at Albany Medical College; Bond, Papa Topside, p. 43.
CHAPTER 2: DIVING
Page
15 “exploration and exploitation”: Capt. George F. Bond, MC, USN, “Undersea Living—A New Capability,” paper presented to the Congress of Petroleum and the Sea, Oceanographic Institute, Monaco, May 13, 1965 (in author’s possession).
15 Bond had in mind a whole range: Bond, untitled paper presented at Pharmaceutical Wholesalers Convention, Las Vegas, Nev., March 15–18, 1961. This speech is among the earliest and most complete written records found of Bond’s oft-stated belief in the need “to explore and exploit the continental shelves,” as he says again here, and to use divers to do it.
15 a speech to an audience: Bond, recorded keynote speech at Albany Medical College; this represents another early example of Bond’s thinking and attitude, with respect to the need to dive on the continental shelves, but with an emphasis on physiological issues and research.
16 Beebe famously used: William Beebe, Half Mile Down (Rahway, N.J.: Quinn & Boden, 1934), p. 176.
16 man had to be able to swim freely: Pharmaceutical Wholesalers speech, p. 6; Bond, “Prolonged Exposure to High Ambient Pressure,” in Second Symposium on Underwater Physiology, Christian J. Lambertsen, M.D., and Leon J. Greenbaum, Jr., M.D., eds. (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences—National Research Council, Publication 1181, Feb. 25–26, 1963), p. 29.
16 a specially designed sea dwelling: Pharmaceutical Wholesalers speech, p. 8; Neil Hickey, “Your Future Home Under the Sea,” The American Weekly, Nov. 9, 1958, p. 5.
16 No one spent hours or days: Kenneth W. Wallace, Navy master diver, Experimental Diving Unit, 1962–1967, interview, June 1, 2003.
16 depth limit for most Navy divers: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, pp. 96, 98, 109, 110; Wallace, interview, June 1, 2003.
17 “Dominion over the seas”: Capt. Walter Mazzone, taped interview, Jan. 2, 2002. This wide-ranging interview of several hours was the first of more than a dozen interviews with Mazzone, both in person and by telephone; there were also numerous follow-up e-mails, some of which are cited, as are specific interviews, in the notes that follow. See also Bond, “Man-in-the-Sea Program,” paper presented to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 17th annual session, San Diego, Calif., Sept. 29, 1966 (in author’s possession), p. 11.
17 “A Proposal for Underwater Research”: Bond, “Man-in-the-Sea Program,” p. 5, is one of the many speeches and articles in which Bond says he submitted this proposal in 1957, which would have been during his first year as assistant officer-in-charge of the Medical Research Lab. This time frame appears to be correct based on other documentary sources and interviews. However, a copy of the proposal, a five-page, single-spaced typed essay that sounds Bond’s familiar themes, is undated (in author’s possession). Also undated is an official Bureau of Medicine and Surgery research proposal form that may have accompanied the original narrative proposal. On the form, which lists Bond as principal investigator, the “experimental design” outlines a series of animal and ultimately human experiments as part of study no. 3100.03, “Effects of Prolonged Exposure to High Ambient Pressures of Synthetic Gas Mixtures.”
17 needed a breakthrough: Bond, “Proposal for Underwater Research,” p. 1.
17 “In man’s history”: Ibid.
17 struck him as the essential questions: Bond, recorded keynote speech at Albany Medical College.
17 Mark V had been in use: Robert C. Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (Cambridge, Md.: Cornell Maritime Press, 1978), p. 5.
17 Navy became serious: James Dugan, Man Under the Sea (New York: Harper & Bros., 1956), p. 37; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 2.
18 since Augustus Siebe: Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, p. 139; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 645.
18 breath-holding divers: Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 546.
18 Aristotle: Ibid., p. 550.
18 Pliny: Ibid.
18 da Vinci: Ibid., p. 551.
18 variety of apparatuses: Ibid., pp. 554–67.
18 the Royal George: Ibid., pp. 404, 565.
18 no more than ninety feet: Ibid., p. 559.
18 weighed some fifty pounds: Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, p. 151.
18 twenty pounds each: Ibid., p. 202.
18 two hundred pounds: Ibid., p. 43.
18 Tenders had to help: Ibid., p. 21; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part II, p. 89.
18 Improvements had been made: Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, pp. 60, 139; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, pp. 71, 645.
18 Once a hardhat diver was lowered: Robert C. Martin, “Diving with a Mark V Outfit,” in The Deep-Sea Diver, pp. 43–50; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part II, pp. 71–77; Wallace, interview, June 1, 2003; interviews with former hardhat divers.
19 The pressure of the air: “Underwater Physics” and “Underwater Physiology,” in U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, pp. 13–53; Davis, “The Physics and Physiology of Deep Diving,” in Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, pp. 26–40.
19 it doesn’t take much: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, pp. 54, 59, 62.
19 “lung squeeze”: Ibid., pp. 61, 149.
19 measure called an atmosphere: Ibid., p. 16.
19 enveloping pressures cancel: Ibid., p. 17; Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, p. 11.
19 air in the ears, sinuses: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 59.
20 the experience of hardhat diving: Former hardhat divers, interviews, including Jack Reedy and Charles E. Johnson, Ph.D., during a tour at Naval Sea Systems Command, Navy Experimental Diving Unit, March 11, 2005, part of the Sealab reunion that year in Panama City, Fla.; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part II, p. 7; Tom Eadie, “What a Dive Is Like,” in I Like Diving: A Professional’s Story (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1931), pp. 23–37.
20 getting “fouled”: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part II, p. 80.
20 shut off the air flow: Ibid., p. 81.
20 “blowup”: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 152; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 34.
20 “squeeze”: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, pp. 21, 80; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 34; Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, p. 47.
21 major topic was the bends: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 128.
21 a muddy tomb: David McCullough, The Great Bridge (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), p. 197.
21 “Grecian bend”: Ibid., p. 186; Torrance R. Parker, 20,000 Jobs Under the Sea: A History of Diving and Underwater Engineering, Don Walsh, ed. (Palos Verdes Peninsula, Calif.: Sub-Sea Archives, 1997), p. 255.
21 Bert’s experiments showed: Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 4.
22 carbonated soda pop: Ibid.
, pp. 4, 38; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 24.
22 wreaking corporeal havoc: Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 126; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 128.
22 “recompression”: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, pp. 129, 178.
22 Navy Yard had chambers: Ibid., p. 5.
22 John Scott Haldane: Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 6.
22 Haldane’s tables: Ibid., pp. 94, 100–108.
22 deeper than ninety feet: U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part I, p. 3.
23 nitrogen narcosis: Ibid., p. 70.
23 l’ivresse des grandes profondeurs: Capt. J. Y. Cousteau with Frédéric Dumas, The Silent World (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1953), p. 31.
23 “Swede” Momsen: Maas, The Terrible Hours, p. 29.
23 found it in helium: Ibid., p. 190; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 180.
23 “helium hat”: Nat A. Barrows, Blow All Ballast!: The Story of the Squalus (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1941), p. 190; U.S. Navy Diving Manual, Part II, p. 30.
23 three hundred pounds: Martin, The Deep-Sea Diver, p. 111.
23 USS Squalus sank: LaVO, Back from the Deep, p. 34; Maas, The Terrible Hours, p. 33.
24 One diver passed out: LaVO, Back from the Deep, p. 64.
24 Swede Momsen, who ran: Maas, The Terrible Hours, p. 172.
24 inaugural use of the McCann: Ibid., p. 159; Davis, Deep Diving and Submarine Operations, p. 670.
24 recommissioned as the Sailfish: LaVO, Back from the Deep, p. 74.
24 Rough-hewn scuba designs: Peter Jackson, “Development of Self-Contained Diving Prior to Cousteau-Gagnan,” Historical Diver 13 (Fall 1997): 34.
24 Cousteau and Gagnan would patent: Leslie Leaney, “Jacques Yves Cousteau: The Pioneering Years,” Historical Diver 13 (Fall 1997): 18.
24 growing interest in diving: Ibid., p. 28; Chuck Blakeslee, “The Early History of Recreational Diving as Recorded in Skin Diver Magazine,” Historical Diver 35, (2002): 37.
24 Salvage operations such as: Edward C. Raymer, Descent into Darkness: Pearl Harbor, 1941: A Navy Diver’s Memoir (Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1996), pp. 25, 28.
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