“DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN”

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3290, 9 March 1926, Page 14

“DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN”

They are human sumarines— Uobot-like machine-men in shining armour —these men who have gone into ;the depths of the sea to search tor the lost British Ml (says the "Chronicle'’). Their strange calling sometimes gives them gruesome glimpses of the secretls 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 over.

The export German divers, who went to England with uieir marvellous outfit to take part in the search of the ocean bed tor the ill-fated Ml, are men who have some sjtrange adventures while pursuing their calling as "human submarines.”

The principle of the quaint-looklng 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 |tho ocean bod with brilliant light by means of which the strange denizens of the deep can be seen through the protected eyes of th e outer steel casing of the human submarine. The diving suit is a miniature workshop, equipped with all the tools necessary for the diver’s calling ,and these fbol» 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 precsure and sits on a bicycle seat inside his steel casing as rigid as though he ere on a workman’s bench at home. I't has been found possible to go eighty fathoms deep, but is 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 sudmarine than any of his follows. In the Baltic something went wrong with the operations of a U boat attacking the 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. Experience gained In wartime turned the thoughts of th e 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 was a possible development of the suo. marine arm of the service. Weil is probably the only diver in the world who was sent down in the middle of a great naval battle .for at Jutland, when the Gcrmajis 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 th e spot where one of the British ships had been seen to sink.

“I located tho ship and found it was impossible to gelt into the cabin owing to the bulk of my outer cas. ing,” said Weil. “However in one of Hie cabins of tho stricken .ship was an awe-inspiring sight. Oflicors and men ware sitting around a table In

such a manner that it was impossible to believe they were all dead." 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 says, "was when 1 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. x

“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 1 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 w'cird light projected undersea by my outfit I could not fail to note the extreme brilliance of these precious stones.

“On my way back, I had a weird experience . Wedged between two jutting reefs in a manner that gave him the appearance of being a sen. try at his post was a British bluejacket. I do not know how long he had been there, but it ib not unususal lor remarkable preservative powers to be found in certain parts of an 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 me to move in his direction, but X came up with the vivid impression of that strange sentinel of the underseas tombs so flrmly in my mind that it was weeks before I could stop seeing ;the impassive face of that English sailor in his strange gratae, so many fathoms deep.”