DEEP SEA DIVERS

Evening Star, Issue 20151, 16 April 1929, Page 11

DEEP SEA DIVERS

Af/lEIiICAH TRAINING SGHSsCL A training school for deep-sea diver: lias just been established at tlic M ash ington Naval Yard, as one of tin direct results of the disaster last De i comber to the United States subniarim S 4, when forty lives were lost, man’ : of"them owing to the inadequacy o rescue methods. The graduates of the diving schoo will bo available for quick rescue worl wherever submarines operate, writes t correspondent of the ‘ Mancheste: Guardian.’ The physical tests for can didates for training will be unusual!;' stringent. Jn addition, men must ht of the right d roe of fatness and ago It is stated that the best type for div mg work is the man between twenti and thirty, thin and wiry, and phleg matic in temperament. Men of the typo are less, susceptible to “ caissor disease.’’ Tin; accepted theory oi tin cause of this disease is that bubbles o nitrogen are liberated in the blood am ■ the various tissues of the body upon : decrease of water pressure. If the decrease is sudden, owing to a 100 rapic ascent by the diver, the sudden release of the nitrogen in solution may cans*, death in a few minutes or hours. It is stated that a notable advance has taken place in eliminating the disease, following the United State: navy’s experiments in co-opcrntioi ! with the Bureau of-Mines at Pittsburg The experiments showed that licliun could bo used most effectively in decompressing clivers who had descender to great depths. As soon as the divei readies the surface he goes into a dcI compression tank containing an abundant supply of helium, and the decompression fakes but half the time it die in tlie old days. The system was usee during the diving operations for ST which lasted about four months. More than a score of divers were employed but only ten cases of the disease occurred, most of them of a mild nature. The Navy Department hopes to built up a force of lifly-two deep sea divers and tlie men will he so distributed that they will be available wherever submarines operate. Graduates of the school will bee assigned to tho submarine base at Now London, and the base at Coco Solo (Panama Canal isoncl, to Hawaii, to the submarine divisions of tho battle fleet, and the Asiatic fleet, and to the control force. Qualified men will have to keep in rigorous training and be required to make at least four dives every six months to depths of not less than l-l Oft, which navy officers believe is tile minimum practice to keep divers in fit condition to respond readily to emergency calls. Tho Navy Department has also added to the number of .salvage ships on duty with the fleet, and one of these ships, specially fitted for submarine work, is attached to the fleet in each of tlie principal zones of submarine operation.