'DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.'

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 7, 9 January 1926, Page 11

'DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.'

HUMAN SUBMARINE'S THRILLS GRUESOME SECRETS OF SEA. GLIMPSED BY THE DIVER. _ They are human submarines —Robotlike machine-men in shining armour — these men who went into the depths of the sea to search for the lost British Ml. Their strange calling sometimes gives them gruesome glimpses of the secrets of the ocean, and they have seen the dead heroes who sank "with their ships and still lie undisturbed in the still waters, and rich gems are there unclaimed, and perhaps to rest unclaimed for ever. The expert German divers, who went with their marvellous outfit to take part in the search of the ocean bed for the ill-fated Ml, are men who have some strange adventures while pursuing their calling as "human submarines." The principle of the quaint-looking diving suits is to turn every man into a boat capable of remaining under water for a long time, able to move about, to pierce the deepest gloom, and flood the darkest recesses of the ocean bed with brilliant light by means of which the strange denizens of the deep can be seen through the protected eyes of the outer steel casing of tbe human submarine. The diving suit is a miniature workshop, equipped with all the tools necessary for the diver's calling, and these tools are manipulated by electricity by the man inside. All the air necessary is kept up, and tests have shown that there is nothing to prevent the average diver remaining below for hours to make a minute examination of the bed of the sea. He is indifferent to water pressure, and sits on a bicycle seat inside his steel casing as rigid as though he were on a workman's bench at home. It has been found possible to go eighty fathoms deep, but it is rarely that diving operations are necessary at that level. Most of the German divers have had war and peace experiences, and one at least, Hugo Weil, has gone nearer to being an actual human submarine than any of his fellows. In the- Baltic something went wrong with the operations of a U boat attacking tbe Russians. Weil volunteered to go down, and found that the mechanism for ejecting- the torpedo had jammed. Setting to work he released it, and discharged the torpedo in the direction of the nearest Russian boat, which sank at once. , A New Development. Experience gained in war-time turned the thoughts of the Germans towards the possibility of making their diving suits into human submarines, capable of being submerged from the decks of warships to attack with greater certainty enemy ships, and experiments suggested that this is a possible development of the submarine arm of the service. Weil is probably the only diver in the world who was sent down in the midcHe of a great naval battle, for at Jutland, when the Germans'thought that it might be to their advantage to obtain copies of the orders of the British Commander-in-Chief, Weil was sent down .in the neighbourhood.of the spot wherejone of the.British ships had been seen to .sink. "l located the ship, and found it was impossible to-get into the cabin owing to the bulk of my outer casing," said Weil. "However, in one of the cabins of the stricken ship was an aweinspiring sight. Officers and men were sitting around a table in such a life-like manner that it was impossible to believe they were all dead." Among Gold Ingots. Another member of the German diving team has had a good deal of experience in the North Sea, and in searching for wrecks has come across many relics of war, days. ... .■■■■••■ "The .strangest experience I ever had," this man said, "was when I found myself in the presence of a huge cargo of gold ingots which had gone down with one of the ships bound for England and torpedoed in the early part of 1916. "I could see stack on stack of these precious things, more than enough to make a millionaire, but I was unable to benefit by my discovery, for I could not touch one of the ingots.

"On the -same ship I saw a safe which had been partly burst open by the force of the explosion, and which was filled with sparkling gems. Even in the weird litrht projected nndersea by my outfit I could not fail to note the extreme brilliance of these precious stones. Sailor's Ocean Tomb. "On my wav back I had a weird experience. Wedged between two jutting reefs in a manner that gave him the appearance of being a sentry at his post was a British bluejacket. I do not know how long he had been there, but it is not unusual* for Temarkable preservative powers to be found in certain parts of the ocean bed. The man stood there as though indeed in life, and I expected to hear him challenge my right to invade the privacy of the dead. "My line did not permit mc to move in his direction, but I came up with the vivid impression of that strange sentinel of tbe undersets tombs so firmly in mv mind that it was weeks before I could stop seems: tlie impassive face of that English sailor in his strange grave so many fathoms deep."