ON SEA FLOOR

Evening Star, Issue 19762, 12 January 1928, Page 12

ON SEA FLOOR

FIGHT FOR DIVER'S LIFE LINES FOULED. Diver Thomas Eadio tolls an amazing story of Ms descent to the sunken submarine S 4, and of bis thrilling under-water rescue of another diver, whose lines had become fouled in the wreckage. “ I landed,” he says, “ upon tho extreme top of the conning tower, between the periscopes. I climbed down to the forward deck, and there heard faint signals on my telephone. I hadn’t then sent any signals, but the fellows inside must have heard my lead-weighted boots walking over the deck. I started along the deck, and heard another tapping sound. I finally located the sounds when they hit the hatch just under my hand. “ The temperature of tho water was 34deg,” said Eadie. “I had to return to the surface. Bill Carr then went down. Later the tender ship Falcon was yawing badly in heavy seas. “Under normal circumstances no more diving would have been attempted. By this time Chief Torpedoman Michals had descended. He signalled two minutes later that his airline was fouled. “TelJ Eadie to bring heavy wirecutters,” Michals warned. LIFELINE SLIDE. “I just slid down Mike’s lifeline and found him lying face down on the forward deck of the submarine. His airline was drawn across his back in a big loop, and was fouled in tho wreckage. I telephoned the Falcon for a hacksaw, and with it tried to cut through tho heavy angle iron that imprisoned Mike, who by this time was practically unconscious. I got him partly free, and then climbed over the side of the submarine. I felt myself falling. I bumped down 10ft or 12ft, catching my trousers on some jagged metal, ripping a hole in my diving suit. I felt the water coming in, and it got up to my neck, but it couldn’t got into my helmet. “Finally,” Eadie continued, “I signalled them to haul up Mike, but they pulled me up instead, and I found our lines badly tangled. In the mix-up 1 lost Mike entirely. I was getting so cold I couldn’t hold out with my clothing soaked through, and signalled to be pulled up. They had, already hauled Mike aboard. It was eight hours before he recovered consciousness.”