SUBMARINE from page 1 November 2004 |
On the morning of Tuesday, May 23, 1939 the Squalus left its mooring in a cove just below Portsmouth for a test dive five miles southeast of the Isle of Shoals, 15 miles from the coast. In addition to tests of equipment that had been a problem on earlier runs, they wanted to meet the “60 seconds to periscope depth” goal. Approaching the dive point their position was radioed to the Navy yard.
After no contact with the Squalus for three hours, the Navy yard sent out the sub Sculpin. When nothing was sighted by noon the sub was assumed down. But the Squalus’ position had been misread at Kittery and the Sculpin was five miles from the actual location. The Squalus had been sending up rocket flares at intervals. At 12:40 p.m. the sixth rocket was finally seen from the distant bridge of the Sculpin. A marker buoy sent up by the Squalus was found and brought aboard the Sculpin, in it was a phone line to the sub. The Squalus made phone contact, but within minutes rising swells broke the line and the Squalus was lost again. On the bottom, in 33 degree water, the crew pounded signals on the hull. Huddled in the damp and cold of the control room were 18 men, 15 more in the forward torpedo room. Grouped standing together, sitting alone on the tile deck, wrapped in wet blankets or already soaked from escaping the rush of sea water, they tried to listen past the erratic hissing of valves under enormous pressure for the sound of rescue ships. In the dark, except for dim light from hand held lanterns, they breathed the foul air, knowing that at any time it might be mixed with chlorine gas that could seep in from the forward battery. The certainty of death for submariners in either combat or equipment failure-related sinkings became the driving force of one submariner, captain and inventor, Charles “Swede” Momsen. It was Momsen who, after the sinking and loss of the crew aboard the submarine S4 in 1929, developed rescue equipment, and tested it at the risk of his own life. He was the only man on the planet on May 23, 1939 considered capable of attempting a rescue at 243 feet. Momsen had developed the “Momsen lung” which contained air and functioned as a lung while worn like a life jacket. It was successfully used at shallower depths. But it was a pressurized diving chamber, which Momsen developed that he brought to the Squalus. He had experimented with it in deep muddy rivers and offshore, but never in an actual submarine emergency. Momsen was called in and a rescue effort initiated. Living in Virginia, he went directly to a flight to Portsmouth aboard a Navy pontoon plane. Newspaper reporters from many cities were also en route by planes, trains and cars. Those from the nine Boston papers were first on the scene. Arriving at the Navy yard, Momsen made the decision to attempt to use the bell to reach the sub. It was coming in on the minesweeper Falcon from New London, Connecticut and arrived at dawn on the 24th. Divers were needed to attach guide cables to the sub’s hatch for the chamber to track on. Diving to 243 feet was practically unheard of in 1939. This was before scuba gear; diving was done wearing a heavy spherical metal helmet and bulky heavy rubber suit. Air was supplied by a hose from a pump on the dive boat. Working on the bottom in knee deep mud beyond the known depth at the time, the divers were winging it. Overexertion might cause grogginess that could make a diver open his pressure valve too far, blowing up his suit and sending him to the surface like a rocket, crippling or killing the strangely contorted victim. That was the disaster of choice over “the squeeze.” Helmet pressure had to be nearly equal to that of the surrounding sea. If a diver fell suddenly, like off a sub deck, pressure per square inch went up fast. If the diver did not make an immediate adjustment, the pressure squeeze began in his feet and ran up his body until his body was squeezed into his helmet. The Falcon was anchored over the sub. A Coast Guard cutter carried a load of reporters to the site. Planes circled overhead. With only a few minutes at a time on the bottom, the divers set up the down haul for the chamber. Thirty-three of the Squalus crew were accounted for, the others were believed trapped or drowned in the aft torpedo room. The plan was to lower the pressurized bell with two men aboard, attach it to the ring around the sub’s hatch, open the hatch and bring up the crew, seven at a time. A plan easily proposed from this point in time, in 1939 it had never been done. Momsen had developed the chamber for this purpose, as well as techniques for pressurizing and controlling the open-bottomed chamber in deep dives. Momsen had led an experimental deep diving unit in Washington, D.C. He was aware of the stories of men drowned on
The bell went down, just before 10 a.m. About forty minutes later it was attached, the hatch opened and crewmen were seen staring up at the two men in the chamber. Hot coffee and sandwiches were handed down and seven crewmen climbed out. Forty minutes later they were aboard the Falcon. Three more trips were made. On the fourth trip, with light fading, the bell was sent down and the last of the survivors brought on. As it came up the chamber stopped rising at 150 feet. The crane tugged at it, but nothing helped. Momsen sent down a diver, who found a length of cable tangled and freed it. But he also found all but one strand of the cable broken. After three divers attempted to fix it, Momsen decided to pull the bell up by hand with nine crewmen. Pressure in the bell was raised and ballast reduced in a delicate balance to maximize buoyancy while the cable was hauled in over the side. At midnight, 39 hours after the test dive had begun, all accounted for crewmen were aboard the Falcon. Now it was time to open the aft torpedo room hatch. The next morning, May 25th, with the bell cable replaced, the fifth decent began. The descent cable was moved from the forward to the aft hatch. In the process of doing this the diver succumbed to the pressure and was brought up. Another diver went down, but was brought up immediately. The third diver completed the task and the bell was lowered. The hatch was opened, but the aft torpedo room was filled with water right up to the hatch opening. The loss of the other crewmen was certain, but for the first time, death in a sunken submarine was not. What is considered the greatest submarine rescue in history was completed. But the Squalus had to be raised to determine what sank her. The plans to build many more Squalus-type subs were riding on the answers to this question. There were reports being spread around that it was sabotage. Press interviews of crewmen reported that the high induction valves had definitely been closed and the control board lights supported that conclusion. These reports fed the conspiracy fever. Earlier reports of mechanical difficulties with those intake valves seemed to get second billing. The rescue effort was a highly focused singular task with a narrow window of opportunity. Raising the Squalus was a monumental engineering feat reliant on experimental technologies and an open-ended schedule. The plan included the use of five 32'x15' barrel shaped pontoons to lift the sub. There were also lift lines, miles of cable, teams of divers working at record depths, as well as a half dozen ships to work from and to supply the operation. When the dozens of lines to two levels of pontoons were in place, the lifting began. When the sub broke free of the mud it started to rise, but the aft was hung up. The bow lifted, then the aft freed up and the sub headed for the surface, bow first. Momsen was orchestrating the lift in a motorized whaleboat from the middle of the ring of ships at the site. He saw the sea boil around him and suddenly the Squalus bow burst straight up through the surface. It shot up to 30 feet, seemed to hang there and just as suddenly as it appeared, dropped below the surface headed back to the bottom. Momsen rearranged the positions of the pontoons for the second lift. Weeks were spent stripping the tangle from the Squalus. It took 58 dives to get rid of just three of the lines. It was not until September 13th that they were ready. It went as planned, and the conning tower of the Squalus finally broke the surface again. One hundred and thirteen days after it went down and 640 dives to get her up, she was under tow to the Navy yard. Although the control panel light indicated it was closed, the air intake valve was found to be open and the cause of the sinking. All but one of the crewmen’s bodies were found in the aft torpedo room. The missing crewman was believed to have crawled to a hatch that might have been forced open by sudden air pressure and reclosed by water when the air escaped. The sub was recommissioned on May 15, 1940 and renamed the Sailfin. Four of the Squalus survivors sailed on the Sailfin. |
