Info Manned deep submersibles, a brief history

[Akimbo]

​

---

​

---

​

---

 

[Jared0425]

The "bathysphere" is specifically the one used by Barton and Beebe, so it was not used for salvage. However, one atmosphere observation bells have been used on a number of famous gold salvage jobs including the SS Egypt in 1922 and the RMS Niagara in 1940. These bells were more cylindrical with the one person standing and looking out through viewports all around the upper portion.

View attachment 761983​

@happy-diver sent me a vintage copy of GOLD FROM THE SEA. The Epic Story of the "Niagara's" Bullion. by James Taylor which is much appreciated. It described the salvage in great detail.

The Italian Galeazzi Butoscopic Turret was still being sold in the 1960.

View attachment 761991

They were similar to the bells used on the Egypt and Niagara. Here is an image from the Undersea Industry catalog, a short-lived division of Scubapro.

View attachment 761992

Another bell was the McCann Rescue Chamber used to rescue men from the sunken USS Squalus (SS-192) submarine. We were still training on the McCann bell in the 1970s. The DSRVs obsoleted them but the Navy still had them onboard their newest generations ASRs (Auxiliary Submarine Rescue vessel) well into the early 1990s.

Any other good sources of deep wrecks prior to the 1970s?

 

[NothingClever]

Superb thread!

Thank you very much for sharing.

 

[Akimbo]

Any other good sources of deep wrecks prior to the 1970s?

A lot of gold was salvaged from the SS Laurentic by Royal Navy Divers. A more recent salvage was $220 Million in gold bullion Recovered from HMS Edinburgh in 1981.

Are you only interested in gold salvage? There are some pretty amazing stories about the salvage of submarines.

• Submarine F4
• Submarine S-51
• Submarine Squalus
• Submarine K-129
• Submarine Kursk

 

[Jared0425]

A lot of gold was salvaged from the SS Laurentic by Royal Navy Divers. A more recent salvage was $220 Million in gold bullion Recovered from HMS Edinburgh in 1981.

Are you only interested in gold salvage? There are some pretty amazing stories about the salvage of submarines.

• Submarine F4
• Submarine S-51
• Submarine Squalus
• Submarine K-129
• Submarine Kursk

I'm interested in the early explorations and salvage of wrecks in the late 19th to the mid 20th century.

There was a radio program from the 1950s called Suspense. One episode had a very detailed and realistic story of a tug captain after a cargo ship carrying gold that went down in 400ft of water. Long story short the wreck was found after weeks of dragging a hook system and a bathysphere to confirm its identity. All is well until he dynamites the hull and the ship shifts on top of the bathysphere trapping him forever with the wreck.

How were wrecks found before the invention of sonar? How was deep operations before helium conducted? How could one plausibly find a deep abyss wreck without sonar? This is what fascinates me prior to the 1960s. The search and investigation into the USS Scorpion sinking is absolutely fascinating in the way that it was the first true abyssal exploration of a man made object and the incredible challenges that persist to this day on it.

 

[Akimbo]

How were wrecks found before the invention of sonar?

The main method was to drag hooks by a single vessel or cables with two ships.

How was deep operations before helium conducted?

With great difficulty. See this story about the F-4. That salvage led to the development of Helium-Oxygen mixtures.

The search and investigation into the USS Scorpion sinking is absolutely fascinating in the way that it was the first true abyssal exploration of a man made object and the incredible challenges that persist to this day on it.

John Craven used passive sonar data from the SOSUS Network (Sound Surveillance System) to find the Soviet K-129 years before the Scorpion. The K-129 was deeper and Dr Craven had no idea where the boat was operating.

They had a pretty good idea of where the USS Thresher (SSN-593) was lost but it still was a big search area in the days before GPS. I'm not even sure that the the USS Skylark (ASR-20) (ship tracking them) had LORAN-C coordinates. I'm pretty sure it was too cloudy for sun shots with a Sextant. I believe the USNS Mizar (T-AGOR-11) finally found the wreckage with a Proton magnetometer rather than Sonar.

 

[WeRtheOcean]

The bathyscaphe concept was developed by Professor August Piccard, a Swiss physicist. Piccard set a world altitude record in 1931 at 15,781m/51,775', 9.806 miles in a hydrogen balloon with a pressurized "gondola". Bathyscaphes were analogous to his hydrogen balloon except it used aviation gasoline for buoyancy and a MUCH higher-pressure sphere for the manned “gondola” or cabin suspended below. Air ballast was vented at the surface to descent and iron shot was released to ascend.

Thank you for the definition. I had heard of bathyscaphes, but I was confused about how they differed from bathyspheres and submersibles. It seems in some ways like the differences between a dirigible, a zeppelin, and a blimp; that is, all similar in concept, but using different buoyancy techniques.

The Italian Galeazzi Butoscopic Turret was still being sold in the 1960.

I noticed what looked like the JIM suit, or something similar, in the background of that picture.

JIM Suit - U. S. Naval Undersea Museum

navalunderseamuseum.org

 

[Akimbo]

I noticed what looked like the JIM suit, or something similar, in the background of that picture.

You are correct, it is a one atmosphere suit - not very successful but on par with suits in that era. The concept goes back centuries but had to wait for O-ring, machining, and metallurgical technology to make it work well.

 

[Bob DBF]

Are you only interested in gold salvage? There are some pretty amazing stories about the salvage of submarines.

• Submarine F4
• Submarine S-51
• Submarine Squalus

For those three, go to PigBoats.com and look up the boat for pictures of the salvage, that Ric could find.

For books:
On the Bottom: The Raising of the U.S. Navy Submarine S-51
Blow All Ballast!, but it's easier to find The Terrible Hours, or Back From The Deep.

If searching the web, check for links to Naval Proceedings or Naval History and Heritage Command which have the Navy perspective of the incidents and salvage.