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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Posted on 01/24/2003 5:41:05 AM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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A Brief History The US Navy is the forerunner in the development of modem diving and underwater operations. The general requirements of national defense and the specific requirements of underwater reconnaissance, demolition, ordnance disposal, construction, ship maintenance, search, rescue, and salvage operations repeatedly give impetus to training and development.  The early history of diving in the US Navy parallels that of the other navies of the world. Since the middle of the nineteenth century, the Navy has employed divers in salvage and repair of ships, in construction work, and in military operations. For the most part, early Navy divers were swimmers and skin divers, with techniques and missions unchanged since the days of Alexander the Great. During the Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay, swimmers were sent in ahead of Admiral Farragut's ships to locate and disarm Confederate mines that had been planted to block the entrance to the bay. In 1898, Navy divers were briefly involved in an international crisis when the second-class armored battleship USS Maine was sunk by a mysterious explosion while anchored in the harbor at Havana, Cuba. Navy divers were sent from Key West to study and report on the wreck. Although a Court of inquiry was convened, the reason for the sinking was not found. The beginning of the twentieth century saw the attention of all major navies turning towards developing a weapon of immense potential - the military submarine. The highly effective use of the new weapon by the German Navy in World War I heightened this interest, and an emphasis was placed on the submarine that continues today.  The US Navy had operated submarines on a limited basis for several years prior to 1900. As American technology expanded, the US submarine fleet grew rapidly. However, throughout the period of 1912-1939, the development of the Navy's F, H, and S class boats was marred by a series of accidents, collisions, and sinkings. Several of these submarine disasters resulted in a correspondingly rapid growth in the Navy diving capability. Until 1912, US Navy divers rarely went below 60 fsw (feet of seawater). In that year, Chief Gunner George D. Stillson set up a program to test Haldane's diving tables and methods of stage decompression. A companion goal of the program was to develop improvements in Navy diving equipment. Throughout a three-year period, first diving in tanks ashore and then in open water in Long Island Sound from the USS Walke (Destroyer No.34), the Navy divers went progressively deeper, eventually reaching 274 fsw. The experience gained in Stillson's program was put to dramatic use six months later when the submarine USS F-4 sank near Honolulu, Hawaii. Twenty-one men lost their lives in the accident and the Navy lost its first boat in 15 years of submarine operations. Navy divers salvaged the submarine and recovered the bodies of the crew. The salvage effort incorporated many new techniques, such as the use of lifting pontoons, but what was most remarkable was that the divers completed a major salvage effort working at the extreme depth of 304 fsw, using air as a breathing mixture. These dives remain the record for the use of standard deep-sea diving dress. Because of the depth and the necessary decompression, each diver could remain on the bottom for only ten minutes. Even for such a limited time, the men found it hard to concentrate on the job at hand. They were unknowingly affected by nitrogen narcosis.  The publication of the first US Navy Diving Manual and the establishment of a Navy Diving School at Newport, Rhode Island were the direct outgrowth of experience gained in the test pro gram and the USS F-4 salvage. When the United Stares entered World War I, the staff and graduates of the school were sent to Europe, where they conducted various salvage operations along the French coast. The physiological problems encountered in the salvage of the USS F-4 clearly demonstrated the limitations of breathing air during deep dives. Continuing concern that submarine rescue and salvage would be required at great depth focused Navy attention on the need for a new diver breathing medium. In 1924, the Navy joined with the Bureau of Mines in the experimental use of helium-oxygen mixtures. The preliminary work was conducted at the Bureau of Mines Experimental Station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Experiments on animals, later verified by studies with human subjects, clearly showed that helium-oxygen mixtures offered great advantages over air for deep dives. There were no undesirable mental effects and decompression time was shortened. This early work laid the foundation for development of reliable decompression tables and specialized apparatus, which are the cornerstones of modern deep diving technology. One year later, in September of 1925, another submarine, the USS S-51 (SS-162), was rammed by a passenger liner and sunk in 132 fsw off Block Island, Massachusetts. Public pressure to raise the submarine and recover the bodies of the crew was intense. Navy diving was put in sharp focus and the Navy realized it had only 20 divers who were qualified to go deeper than 90 fsw. Diver training programs had been cut at the end of World War I, and the school had not been reinstituted. Salvage of the USS S-51 covered a ten month span of difficult and hazardous diving, and a special diver training course was made part of the operation. The submarine was finally raised and towed to the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York.  Interest in diving was high once again and the Naval School, Diving and Salvage, was reestablished at the Washington Navy Yard in 1927. At the same time, the Navy brought together its existing diving technology and experimental work by shifting the Experimental Diving Unit (EDU), which had been working with the Bureau of Mines in Pennsylvania to the Navy Yard as well. In the following years, EDU developed the US Navy Air Decompression Tables, which have become the accepted world standard, and continued developmental work in helium-oxygen breathing mixtures for deeper diving. The loss of the USS F-4 and USS S-51 provided the impetus for expanding the Navy's diving ability. However, the Navy's inability to rescue men trapped in a disabled submarine was not confronted until another major submarine disaster occurred. In 1927, the Navy lost the submarine USS S-4 (SS-109) in a Collision with the Coast Guard cutter USS Paulding. The first divers to reach the submarine in 102 fsw, 22 hours after the sinking, exchanged signals with the men trapped inside. The submarine had a hull fitting designed to take an air hose from the surface, but what had looked feasible in theory proved too difficult in reality. With stormy seas causing repeated delays, the divers could not make the hose connection until it was too late. All of the men aboard the USS S-4 had died. Even had the hose connection been made in time, rescuing the crew would have posed a significant problem.  The USS S-4 was salvaged after a major effort, and the fate of the crew spurred several efforts toward preventing a similar disaster. Lieutenant C. B. Momsen, a submarine officer, developed the escape lung which bears his name. It was given its first operational test in 1929 when 26 officers and men successfully surfaced from an intentionally bottomed submarine. The Navy pushed for development of a rescue chamber that was essentially a diving bell with special fittings for connection to a submarine deck hatch. The apparatus, called the McCann-Erickson Rescue Chamber, was proven in 1939 when a submarine sank in 243 fsw. The USS Squalus (SS-192) carried a crew of 50 [56 and 3 civilians]. The rescue chamber made four trips and safely brought 33 men to the surface. The rest of the crew, trapped in the flooded after-section of the submarine, had perished in the sinking. The USS Squalus was raised by salvage divers using air and helium-oxygen mixtures. Following renovation, the submarine, renamed USS Sailfish (SS-192), compiled a proud record in World War II.
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Thanks Sam J
Good music to celebrate yet another successful fundraiser J
Lots of memories rekindled for this old Bubblehead. If time permits, I'll try to include a story or two... Photos by request.
Thanks for the kind words, Spooky.
Post em if you got em, please.
Thanks for the compliment DD.
Donna M. Tobias was the first woman to become a US Navy Deep Sea (hard hat) Diver in 1975. She worked on search and salvage operations, underwater repairs of surface ships and submarines, and on the conversion of two YFN (barges) into diving and salvage liftcraft. She also served as a submarine escape instructor, hyperbaric chamber operator and a SCUBA instructor at a Navy SCUBA diving school . In the late 1970's she participated in leading-edge hyperbaric treatments for medical purposes and the evaluation of one-person portable recompression chambers.
Navy divers secure hatch on Apollo 11
The WHITEHURST hit a whale off the coast of California resulting in a bent prop. The damage to the screw caused extreme vibrations and had the prop not been changed, more damage to the shaft and bearings would have been the result.
Utilizing the crane and rigging crews and we divers from the tender, the screw change operation was completed in about 12 hours.
The WHITEHURST pulled alongside the tender mid afternoon. We hit the water and began removing dunce cap and related nuts and bolts. Using the tender's crane, we broke the boss nut loose and ceased operations for the day.
The following morning, we were in the water at 5:30 am. We applied three turns of primer cord to the forward side of the prop. At 6:00 am, the Boatswains Mate piped reveille and at 6:00:15 we yelled "Fire in the hole," cranked the hell box and set off the explosive charge. The charge "broke the seal" of the hub to the shaft. A chocker was attached to the padeye inserted into the screw's hub and hooked to the balance beam holding the other prop.
The boss nut was removed, the damaged screw was pushed free of the shaft. The balance bar, now holding two screws was rotated, the new screw inserted onto the shaft and the boss nut re-installed.
You can probably imagine the surprised sailors when that explosion took place. They came topside in their skivees to check out what all the noise was about.
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Today's classic warship, USS Rockford (PF-48)
Tacoma class frigate
Displacement. 2415
Lenght. 303'l1"
Beam. 37'6"
Draft. 13'8"
Speed. 20k.
Complement. 190
Armament. 3 3", 4 40mm., 9 20mm., 2 dct., 8 dcp., 1 hedgehog
USS Rockford, projected as PG-156, was laid down 28 August 1943 as PF-48 by Consolidated Steel, Los Angeles, Calif.; launched 27 September 1943; sponsored by Mrs. Harry L. Crotzer; and commissioned 6 March 1944, Comdr. D. H. Bartlett, USCG, in command.
Following shakedown off Los Angeles, she reported to the Pacific Fleet and got underway 25 June 1944 for the southwest Pacific, On 2 July she attacked an enemy submarine with depth charges, doing some damage. She made a second antisubmarine attack with "hedgehogs" on 7 July and proceeded via Espiritu Santo to Australia arriving Cairns 23 July.
On 2 August Rockford moored in Mime Bay and operated on convoy escort duty and antisubmarine patrol off the New Guinea coast until 23 September when she made a brief run to Manus Island, Admiralties.
She then returned to New Guinea until 15 October when she steamed via Manus Island and Pearl Harbor. En route she attacked a Japanese submarine 13 November with hedgehogs, resulting in possible damage. She arrived San Francisco 17 November for scheduled repairs.
Rockford then reported to Commander, Alaskan Sea Frontier for duty, 4 January 1945, and operated until August at Dutch Harbor, Cold Bay, and Adak as pilot vessel for the AM-222 group.
Rockford was leased to the Soviet Union 27 August 1945, and returned to the United States at Yokosuka, Japan, 1 November 1949. She was then loaned to Korea 23 October 1950 to enforce the blockade against North Korea and harass the enemy. She served the Korean Navy as Apnokkang (62) until returned to the U.S. Navy 3 September 1952 and assigned a status of inactive out of commission in reserve. Rockford was struck from the Navy list 26 May 1953 and sunk as a torpedo target 30 September 1953.
Rockford earned two battle stars for World War II service.
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