The Naval Diver’s Strenuous Day.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 29, Issue 46, 15 June 1917, Page 2

The Naval Diver’s Strenuous Day.

When the full story of our great victory of! the Horn Reefs is told in detail there will be brought to public notice for the first time the very gallant work of a' section of naval personnel, whom none of, up to the present, have figured in the Press eulogies of war service in the Royal Navy. But there is no class of men braver and more necessary in all our naval forces.

The worker in waters is drawn from the Lower Deck. His extra pay is reckoned in penw» only. Yet he and Irie mates indispensable. For tJtiey are the men who patch up a or *, rupture with steel pluJv, <>.',.■'«!# the maimed worship to <•.{«*p tow*, or keep the sea till rcli»f com«».

E»ery ilrrt-class fighting 'iWp has a divci’o crew on brtard, most carc'ully rigged out, from the sharp knife in it’s sheath stuck firmly into a '>oc'.-.cu by the diver's side, to the air-pump that, when worked slowly round by He two men, sucks in the fresh air to force it through valve and valve Into the white rubber air-pipe, and so to the back of the diver’s helmet where another valve by the double nuts swings open to let it into the great globular casque. Their training and work are under the captain’s direct responsibility. Physically all of them are the finest men in the Navy. Mentally, they are the sharpest, and of keen initiative, for as( often as not they have only their wits ic> depend upon for their safety and return to fresh air and flay sight. Tne diver and his mates may have to go overboard to the rescue of their mighty sea mammoth, and patch the ragged fiosure that has been made by a floating mine or a torpedo striking some well-protected part. They then have to cold rivet the plates covering the irregular patch, while the many thousand ton hall rolls and dips above them, and the waters cuck and claw against them They hold their lives in their hands by a hair’s-breadth as, supported by the twisting, dangling ropeladder, they ply their craft deep from' the surface, the huge ship bulking over them with her heavy broadside in the lift of the seas.

Again, they may have to effect temporary repairs under the water such as on her rudder-head or on her stern frame while she is heaving about. The merest slip or miscalculation brings death instantly upon them.

Even when their vessel is at her anchorage, or in harbour, they are called upon for dangerous work. For them to effect a sure examination of her hull plates, etc., or to clear away the sea-growths that, accumulating during the weeks of her cruise, lessen her speed, is mere child’s play. But, theirs is also to handle the mines protecting the deep-water channels to the anchorage or the base —and that is handling instant and terrible death.

The naval diver is the highest type of intrepidity. Often one in the course of his vessel’s cruise is called upon to clear wreckage or entanglements off the guards fending her propellers, or to open up the blocked mouth of some inlet pipe. Even this simple work has its terrible dangers,

ad the following incident shows

Horae years ago one of the Camperdown's divers was sent down to clear a r. anchor, and got hung up in the tangle round it so that he lay by it all one night head-downward, enable to move. During the night it jams on to blow, and those on the life-line feeling only dead weight at the end of it thought the man was dead. But the air-pump was kept going nil that bitter night.

As soon as possible in the morning another diver went down. He found bis mate’s life-line wound round and round his arms and body, and caught in the great stock of the anchor. Some powerful eddy had twisted him round and round like a stick and so made him helpless. His mate cut him clear, and brought him up, believing bim to be dead. Reverently they opened his face-plate—the round hole some six inches across in the helmet heavily glassed—and called to him by name. “Why, chums,’’ he pumped out huskily, opening his eyes, “I ain’t gone* ! Bloomin’ cold down there, though. A drop o’ rum ’ud warm me.’*’

A drop of rum he had, and then a basinful of hot tea, and down he went again, and finished the work.— “Weekly Telegraph.’’