SALVAGING SUBMARINES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20106, 27 March 1928, Page 11

SALVAGING SUBMARINES

AN ADMIRAL’S PROPOSALS RELEASE OF CAPTIVE BUOYS. An apparently useful suggestion for raising sunken submarines in time to rescue their crews is offered by Admiral Sir Charles Ottley in a letter to The Times, appropos of the loss or the American submarine S 4, with all hands.

“A modern submarine,’’ he says, “although of huge bulk and heavy displacement, docs not weigh, in water, when trimmed for diving, more than n few tons. Even when holed, as was 84, tho dead weight in water may quite possibly have been within the capacity of the capstans of large vessels. The real difficulty is to fix quickly the lifting chains to the sunken hull. ‘ ‘ Many devices suggest themselves. Perhaps the simplest would be to use, in peace time, stream-lined salvage buoys clamped against the submarine's outer skin and capable of release in case of emergency by the crew inside. The lower end of each buoy-rope would be made fast to the salvage chains. The salvage procedure would be simplicity itself. The rescuing vessel or vessels would pick up the buoys, bring them to their capstains, and ‘heave round.' In due course the salvage chains would heave in sight and ‘take’ the capstans. The subsequent raising of the conning-tower of the submarine above the brim of the sea should not take more than half-an-hour.

“If it be objected that the weight of heavy steel chains would be an inconvenience to the submarine when cruising, they might be carried normally by other ships. The. only additional weights to be borne on the hull of the submarine in this case would be the buoys themselves, and the relatively light buoy ropes, down which the rescuing vessels ■would send their chains, fitted with suitable grappling devices. A contrivance of this kind was tried ■with success in the Mediterranean Fleet many years ago, on a small scale, for fishing up disabled Whitehead torpedoes. “A long familiarity with the ideas of inventors induces scepticism and caution, but I venture none the less to make these suggestions in the hope that the whole problem may be ventilatedl. ’'