DEEP-SEA DIVERS

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 12 January 1929, Page 9

DEEP-SEA DIVERS

A TRAINING School for deep-sea divers hais just .been established at the Washington Navy Yard, as one of the direct results of the disaster last December to. the U.S. submarine S 4, when 40 lives were lost, many of them owing to the inadequacy of rescue methods.

Tire 'graduates of t'ke diving school will be available for quick rescue work wherever submarines operate, writes a correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian. ’ ’ The physical tests for candidates for training will be unusually stringent. In addition, men must be of the right degree of fatness and age. Xt is stated that the best type for diving .work is the main between 20 and 30, thin and wiry, and phlegmatic in temperament. Men of this type are less susceptible to “caisson The accepted theory of the cause of this disease is that bubbles of nitrogen arc liberated in the blood and the various tissues of the body upon a decrease of water pressure. If the decrease is sudden, owing .to a too rapid ascent by the diver, the sudden release of the nitrogen in solution may cause death in a few minutes or hours. It is stated that a- notable advance has taken place in eliminating the disease, following the U.S. Navy's experiments in co-operation with the Bureau of Mines at Pittsburg. The experiments showed that helium could be used most effectively in decompressing

AMERICAN TRAINING SCHOOL

divers who. had. descended to .great depths. As soon as the diver reaches the surface ha goes' into a decompression tank containing an abundant supply oif helium, and .the decompression tanes but half >the time it did in the okL days. The system was used during the diving operations fox S 4, 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 build up a force of o2 deep-sea divers, and the men will be so. distributed that they will be available wherever submarines operate. Graduates of the school will be assigned to. the submarine base at New London., and the base at Coco: Solo XPanama Canal zone), to Hawaii, to. the submarine divisions of the battle fleet and the Asiatic fleet, and bo 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. 150 feet, Avhicli navy officers believe is the minimum practice to keep divers in tit condition .to respond readily to emergency calls. The 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 Avork, is attached to. the fleet in each of the principal zones of submarine operation.