DIVER/UDT/SEAL                     

                                                 
   Corpsmen NEC: HM8492(Diver)  & HM-8493 (Special Ops Tech)  

Today, Jan 16  2007, I received a phone call from MCPO Roy Dean Matthews a retired U.S.Navy SEAL.  He said, "Rio, you were a diver much longer than you were a Navy SEAL, why don't you post something about Divers?    Okay Roy, here they are !

All UDT-SEAL are SCUBA Divers. They are Combat Swimmers but not Deepsea Divers (hardhat divers.)   Some UDT - SEALs were both ! 

                            
Master Divers Web Page                The (John) Roat Deal

The 1st Class Deepsea Diving School was at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory, Wash. D.C. and the Salvage Diving School was at Bayonne N.J.  There were many 2nd Class Deepsea Diving  Schools throughout the U.S. Navy Diving Navy.  Diving  shore duty billets included both the Submarine Escape Training Tanks in 
New London Conn. and 
Pearl Harbor Hawaii.  

E. "Doc" Riojas was fortunate enough to have been stationed at both of them.  The other cushy shore duty billet was at the U.S. Naval School for Underwater Swimmers (UWSS) in Key West FL.  I also pulled shore duty there.  All the Navy's Tenders had billets for Divers, those were also great billets for married sailors who did not want to go to sea often. I did duty on the USS Fulton (AS-11), 
USS Proteus (AS-19) and the 
USS Simon Lake (AS-33). 

Diving Pay varied for each class diver.  1st Class divers would pull  a monthly diving pay plus footage pay, I believe it was $0.05 a foot.  Hospital Corpsmen (Deepsea Diving Techs) drew 1st class diving pay and underwent the same training as 1st class divers in D.C.

Did you know that?   

 The ASRARSASSN.ORG's web site was closed due to lack of interest by the members.  By order of the Sec.-Treasurer, we stopping paying for our domain name and opted to get a FREEBE website.  this is the URL:  The Official web site of the ASR/ARS Assn.  HERE ! It is all about Deep Sea Diving during the era of the MKV helmet and the modified MKV for helium-oxygen deepsea diving off ASRs.  ARS divers did not have the He02 capabilities.

                                        
                                   Chuck Micele (Sec-Treas.)  E. "Doc" Riojas (Webmaster)

 An Email from my Teammate LCDR Roy Boehm "The First SEAL."

                                          click on photo

To the Doc's Riojas:  here is how it was when I found out that I didn't have any idea what I was doing for ten years. Before Diving School. This a part of my book (The First SEAL)  that did not make it into the pages. 

DEEP SEA DIVING SCHOOL, U.S. NAVAL GUN FACTORY,  Washington, D.C. 

Prior, to reporting to my new command for duty under instruction. The moving of a family was first priority, we had decided the only way to remain together during all these changes of duty and travel was to provide affordable housing, the way to accomplish this was with a trailer. Money as always was scarce and we had bought a Masonite trailer, (superior.) This luxury item, was equipped with a bed, room for the kids, a convertible couch, table and kitchen (that I preferred to call the galley,) bath room facility was a chamber pot. 

The trip from Long Island to Washington, D.C. was rather slow and uneventful with the exception, of those terrifying moments, when the device, towed behind me, took on the human characteristics of a clod. This happened once or twice, mid the hysterical screaming of my mate. This always produced the calming effect, I am sure it was intended too. The arrival in the District of Columbia resulted in two positive accomplishments. Roy, (my first born) quit sucking his thumb as I had told him he would not be allowed to enter Washington, D.C. `our nation's capital' if he sucked his thumb. The second was, I was able to unhook that monster I had been towing, as the shrieks of hysteria subsided, and it again looked like I might get to share that "chamber pot." My second son Robert D. was thoroughly entertained by all that took place especially the swaying vehicle followed by his mother's Hysteria. He felt that, this all was done, solely for his entertainment. 

With the family settled in it was time to hit the books, It was also time for me to be shocked into the world of realism. I had been diving for ten years, and did not know the first thing about it. This was a higher level, with in depth medical lectures on diving physics, and the absorption of breathing gases into fat tissue. The whys and wherefores of decompression and the use of the decompression chamber were also subjects that had to be perfected. We learned how to mix gases as a breathing medium how to extract CO2 from your recycled air, and how to use the decompression tables. On the practical side we accomplished the overhead patch, a challenge in a deep sea diving-rig. We Learned to weld, both underwater and on the surface. Proficiency in oxy arc, (oxy-arc a tubular cutting rod) and a hydrogen torch, also for under water cutting of heavy steel. Each educational step, meeting a sadistic test designed by extremely competent instructors, with a sense of humor. 

One project was to build a ten-inch box out of 3/8 inch steel, six ten-inch squares were cut with an acetylene torch. The edges ground at a forty-five degree angle and the box tacked and welded inside and out with the exception of the one side that went on last. this was drilled and tapped to receive an air hose. The project was completed on Friday afternoon each box was submerged in a drum of water located in the machine shop. the air hose secured tightly in place, then the air hose was turned on the air pressure was 100 Pounds per square inch. At first nothing happened my steel box was perfect! . . . I did it! . . . As the air pressure forced the water out, my project looked more like a shower head than an airtight box, blowing water all over the shop. We were all in the same boat. The instructor said, "Well its time for me to go home." Come, Monday morning, a box that won't hold air or a machine shop that does not shine . . . Will require your presence at the office with a packed sea-bag. You may at that time pick up your orders, back to the Fleet. Needless to say all home plans, or anything coming under a heading of `my wife, she' . . . `my car, it' . . . or household affects came under, the heading of, . . . . `not now dear.' We pitched in together and by 2200 (ten PM) Saturday all of the boxes held air and the Machine shop never looked better. We slept through Sunday. 

Charles Hiltry Jones was slower then the second coming of the late J.C. of Biblical fame. or the first depending on your preference. I was his opposite so in their infinite wisdom, the instructors made us diving partners. I guess they figured I would speed him up, and he would slow me down. The conversations between us, (we could talk to each other by touching our helmets together,) would have made good material for Bob, and Ray of radio fame. We dove with Emil Mikich he later became my commanding officer in USS Penguin (ASR- 12), Bos'n Domagalla and Tom Moss, our instructors became our Bos'ns so we were under the watchful eyes of our peers. H.R. Williams (Willie Lump Lump) a shipmate from my past was also a classmate and our journey through the Navy would continue together. This friendship could not be considered, a career enhancement arrangement. `We were always in trouble.' 

Enters Snake Dennison another instructor they were all-perfectionist. The dive was called a balancing dive. The tank it was to take place in contained twelve feet of water. A diver in full rig, depending on height, runs a little over eight feet. On the command from the instructor viewing you through a glass port. The diver would grab his chin exhaust valve in his right cheek and his air intake valve in his right hand and try to make himself neutral. The requirement being don't break the surface and don't touch the bottom. Three to four minutes of balancing was usually enough to pass this phase of the test. When my turn came Snake had heard me say "piece of cake." I balanced for ten minutes, never touching the bottom or breaking the surface, when I heard the intercom say O.K. yellow diver prepare to surface. Upon getting undressed from the diving rig I went down to see Snake Dennison, "What kind of Mark did you give me Snake?" Not looking up he grunted, "three point seven five.". . . "Hell that was a perfect balancing dive!" Said I indignantly! . . . "Look Boehm I'm only a three eight point five diver myself and you sure in hell ain't as good as I am!" I laughed and said, "damned if you don't learn something new every day." 

It wasn't all work and if we had a short day which was seldom we would stop off for a drink before going home for the day. One of the ex instructors having lost his eye in a diving accident took care of the issuing of gear at the school, for the days activities. Stopping in for a quick drink before heading home we encountered Fogwell (Foggy for short) I sat on one side of him and Williams (Lump Lump) on the other. We bought Foggy a glass of beer, he thanked us and told me to watch his beer, he had to pump bilges. He took two steps, came back and said never mind I'll watch the beer my self and dropped his glass eye into the glass of beer. Lump said he don't trust you, and I don't blame him. Then there was the time that Foggy drank his eye, we don't know whether he recovered it or not, but he had sort of a shitty outlook on life after that incident. One weekend, expecting Harry Richard Williams Alias Lump Lump, over for dinner, we couldn't help but wonder what happened, he was late. going out the door to see if he some how got lost. I notice a note, tacked to my door. The following was scribbled on it. "I said what is it? upon my visit. The trailers rocking. I wont bother Knocking." I told the wife Lump says he can't make it. 

I was scheduled for the USS Penguin ASR-12 upon graduation, when the orders came through, the senior officer had changed my orders to his ship in New England `the  USS Skylark (ASR-20), ' I asked him how that happened? He laughed and said "I can't understand it?". . . Time to pay a visit to an old friend Edmund B. Taylor at this time a senior captain in the Navy, and over at the Bureau. I walked into his office and asked his secretary if I may see him? She informed me that he was in conference. Captain Taylor said "is that gravel voiced visitor by chance named Boehm?" I nodded. She said "yes sir." He said "send him in." The captain had about four other captains in his office he introduced me, offered me coffee and said stick around this is just about over. After the meeting we kicked around old times, I told him I wasn't flying under any false flags, I was here for a favor. He laughed and said then we don't have to work up to the problem delicately. Hell no! This guy had my orders changed for his ship when I had already been assigned to the USS Penguin I'd like to carry out my original orders, if you can swing it I would appreciate it. If not that's okay too. . . . Nothing happened from my visit to my old skipper and the orders apparently had not been modified. . . . As I was leaving the building, transfer papers for the USS Skylark in hand, the yeoman came in with the mail and said "hang in there Boats! I have a change of orders for you." Following him back into the office he presented the change to the officer in charge. "How in the hell did that happen" he asked, I laughed and said "I can't understand it." 

The diving school published THE FACEPLATE a newspaper that was sent to all the Submarine rescue vessels it had all sorts of good information. The ships in their summery of operations kept the school informed and it contained information, pertinent to operations and personnel. Often you would make your first dive with a man that you had never met but read about and you felt you knew him. This also was an informative, communication of the problems and how other ships were addressing them. An organization united by a common bond can accomplish much. I would live to see divided rivalries, result in discord and ruination of morale Usurping our Navy of a needed capability. 


                                           

GRADUATION OF DEEP SEA DIVERS SCHOOL 

Charles Hiltry Jones, Tew, Barker, Darby Lt. Mulrooney, Gerry, Boehm, Williams A thank you note is in order here, for if it were not for the girls on 8th street providing answers for our home work and tests we may not have passed. Jimmie Dean "B.S." (Before Sausage) and Roy Clark, provided the entertainment in Maryland a friendly barn. We thank you, also . . . for your support, ---`the drink chit's helped.' 

May 3, 1952, we hooked up the Masonite monster and headed for Kittery Main pre commissioning detail of the USS Penguin. We swapped the Superior in for a Walco trailer shower and bath inside, but it was to light for all weather use, and wasn't rugged enough for the Travel we would subject it to. We swapped the walco in on an Anderson thirty five and a half feet long. That not only did the Job but went through a hurricane unscathed. Our trailer later appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in a (Trailer Coach Manufacturing Add.)

Tu Amigo,  Roy Boehm

More from Roy:

The U.S.S. Penguin was busily conducting an event one thousand drill (SUB SUNK EXERCISE) There became a lull in the physical activity, and that  was always a dangerous thing to happen where  Lump was concerned. 
 Any idleness immediately transmogrified Lump  (H.R. Williams)  into a mischievous youth seeking adventure.  In this case it was a weather balloon about three feet in diameter that caught his eye.  He filled it with helium and, tying a string to its neck, he began to cavort about the deck as the crew watched amused by his childlike  antics.  At one point, Lump skipped past the evil  engineers who ran the deck machinery from the safety of the first deck-- that is, the one just above the main deck.  With a swift cruel move --a nasty engineer reached out and touched his cigarette to Lump’s toy.  The balloon exploded with a  loud bang!  Poor Lump.  He not only lost his balloon, he had to endure our taunt.  We all kidded  about life being full of mean engineers.
 Undaunted, my friend went off in search of another.  Finding one he filled this one up with a mixture of acetylene and oxygen from the-arc welding tanks. Tying a string, just a tad longer to his second balloon, he repeated his cavort about the fantail of the Penguin doing a passable Freddie Bartholomew.  He began maneuvering close to the bad man that first broke his balloon.  Several attempts to reach out and break the other balloon were made, as Lump, ever the Wile evasive rascal, dodged off.  As Lump danced closer and closer, the holder of the cigarette tried harder and harder to reach the balloon.  Stretching out, he finally made contact with Lump’s three foot bomb.  It exploded with a deafening roar, singing the engineers hair and eyebrows. Lump was never bothered again by the First-deck Mafia, no matter what - he danced around the fantail with.

NOTE:  Roy, why was did not included in the book?   doc Rio

Med. Diving Tech.

drawing                                         by Doc Rio

                                  Emails from Shipmates

From: chuck detmer
Date: 01/19/07 09:30:52


All Team guys had at least one Hard Hat Dive because making a dive to
determine if you were claustrophobic was part of what you had to do to get
into training. Newell got talked into eating a banana underwater in a tank
during a demo at Panama City while we were stationed down there. Also a
place to look for pictures is from the Key West guys because we taught
Second Class Diving to both Regular Fleet Divers as well as EOD guys. Myself
and a few of the other team guys went through the training while in Key
West...Unfortunately no pictures.

From: Tom & Peggy Shoulders Date: 01/19/07 08:48:16   Good God Almighty, I had forgotten O'brien had a red DC tattoo put over his caduceus, became a Boatswain and a MDV. Tommy

  Hey Doc, I'm not sure what your looking for.  Horse Kurcinski was a salvage diver, "Red S" that went through Bayonne. Team guys that I know of that became Master Divers after leaving the Teams were Dusty Rhodes, Tom King, Tom Shoulders, and one guy whose name I can't think of that was a certified underwater welding guru at SIMA Little Creek.  Check out      http://www.masterdiver.com

                                              No Muff Too Tough,  Will Dive For Five

This is no shit;  William Berryman HM1, and I were stationed at the USNAS Corpus Christi TX.  He was a Pharmacy Tech and I was a Fleet Marine Force Tech.  One day he came into Sick Call where I was assigned and asked me if I was bored being stationed here.  I said I was not because I had just gotten married to a local girl and was quite happy working 8 hours and going home to my wife.  He then told me that I would be doomed to be stationed on Naval Air Stations and Aircraft Carriers as he was if we did not go a school that would change that.  I asked him which school he had in mind.  He said Deep Sea Diving School.  I laughed and told him to go back to the Pharmacy.

It was colder than a witches tits in the Klondike when I reported to the U.S. Naval Diving School at the U.S. Naval Gun Factory in Washington D.C. in late January to start class four (4-55) February 1955.  Six months of school plus one extra month for Mixed Gas Lab and advanced aspects of medical diving medicine.  Our class proctor was an SF1(DV) George Stromer.  He made a statement at the classroom  indoctrination that there were four pecker checkers in class 4-55 and that he NONE would graduate!  

About 1962, I  was an HMC (DV) (nec: HM-8492) and reported to  the USS FULTON (AS-11) at State Pier New London Conn. after graduating from a Deep Sea Diving refresher at DSDS in D.C.   I had to check into the Diving Locker where SF1 George Stromer was the senior diver.  I reminded him that he was my class procter at DSDS and that I was one of the four pecker-checkers that graduated with class 4 back in 1955.  He remembered vividly.  George was promoted to CPO the following year.  He reported to the goat locker for the usual CPO initiation.  We were on a shake down cruise down in Norfolk Va.  It was winter.  I am willing to bet that to this day George still remembers me, Doc Riojas, who made his miserable BOOT CPO initiation a living hell!  That was the good old days. I believe CPO's don't go through that kind of initiation anymore.  We became very good shipmates and diver brothers.  I do not know if he is still alive. I hope he is.

SEAL Team TWO Corpsmen that were Hard Hat Divers

Don Stone
Richard Martin
Erasmo Riojas   Check out the ASR/ARS Web site HERE !
Bo Burwell
Bob Clark

were there others after I left?

                                          Hard Hat Divers, My Shipmates

                  
Lowell "Bo" Burwell                     Thomas E. Blais

                                                  Tender is Bob Shouse
Bob Shouse going through 2nd. class diving school at the Navy Ship yard, San Diego, CA in early 1953. The picture in the rig is Ens. Gleason and I'm tending. We had to go to second class diving school before going to EOD school, Indian Head, MD .  Hoot Andrews was in my EOD class in 1953.

                                                            "Hoot" Andrews

Rio, 

James "Hoot" Andrews  went thru 2nd class diving school aboard the USS FULTON.  Mike Murphy and DiCatarina were the Master Divers and in charge of the school.  I also qualified as a 2nd class diver at EOD School in 1953, along with Bob Shouse. 

                                      
                                           Doc Berryman                                                               Doc Riojas   

   
LCDR Linda Ball, best looking DV in the USN!

     Photo is a LINK click on it !

     The  Diving Gear that is long gone and Forgotten

             Here is a LINK to some details of the gear and  other facts.

                                     
                                                The Newest TOYS for the DV boys!

                                      USS Thresher (SSN-593), 1961-1963.

Whereas at approximately 7:47 a.m. on April 10, 1963, while in communication with the surface ship U.S.S. Skylark, and approximately 300 miles off the coast of New England, the U.S.S. Thresher began her final descent;

Not to blow my own whistle, but as historical record, I was JOOD on the USS Skylark (ASR-20) when we lost the Thresher.  Contrary to the story on THE HISTORY CHANNEL TV Show, there was no oil slick, there was no debris, there was no radiation on the surface of the water.  Master Diver Hyrum Mullikin and GM1 (DV) Ira Salyers went around the Skylark dropping hand grenades and I had a SN going around getting me buckets of water to check for radio activity with our geiger counter.

It was until the next day that we were relieved by some destroyers that continued the search.  The weather turned very heavy and we departed for New London Conn, our home port.

Because I was an HMC I was given the third degree at the board of inquiry as to my seamanship qualifications for standing the JOOD watch.  I had experience on the USS COUCAL (ASR-8) as an HM1(DV) in CIC watches  back in Pearl Harbor and Japan.  The only question that hangs in my mind is that one of the officers on the board asked me to explain the "Williamson turn."  I had just finished a Seamanship course and since we practiced man overboard drills, i may have surprised them with my answers.   Anyway, what is a JOOD, just another better paid man than a seaman who is there to keep the OOD awake?  Just my opinion, I dunno?          Erasmo " Doc"  Riojas  HMC (SEAL) USN Ret.

                              http://www.cduniverse.com/productinfo.asp?pid=5054421

                                     Andy Adams (MDV) USN Ret                                  

     Andy Adams was my shipmate aboard the USS COUCAL (ASR-8), home port Pearl Harbor Territory of Hawaii 1956.  He is a Retired USNavy Master Diver and lives in the Corpus Christi TX area.

                            Gerry Flowers , Canadian Vietnam Veteran

                                       U.S. Navy Deep Sea diving helmet

The US Navy developed a Mark V recirculating helmet. They started by modifying a Mark V mod 1 helmet. In the pictures below you see one of those early recirculating hats. You see that it features a banana exhaust on top. It had to be moved there because of the canister attached to the back. Some divers died using this hat: water leaked into the banana exhaust (when the diver is upside down for instance) and reached the extremely dangerous natron. I will explain that later. 

In the final design the perforated end of the banana exhaust is replaced with a second control valve. This valve looks a bit like a Chinese straw hat so it was referred to as a China Hat Model. The helmet was called the Mark V mod 4.  A  large canister was attached to the rear of the bonnet. This canister contained a carbon dioxide absorbent. Gas is supplied to the diver through a normal hose to the divers supply valve. However, the main supply valve is kept closed. Just to the side of it is a much smaller valve called a "hoke". It is attached to one side of the absorbent canister. Look at the little valve you see in each picture below. The gas supply goes from the hoke to a jet nozzle that acts as a pump to circulate the gas through the canister where carbon dioxide is removed. The fresh gas enters the helmet on the other end for the diver to breathe. Thru the nozzle a constant flow of fresh gas ventilates the helmet. The exhaust valve is normally kept close to repeatedly reuse the gas.

Have a look at the third picture, the rear view:

• the big canister holds the absorbent. On the right side you see the Hoke
• Above that from right to left you see:
•                 a gooseneck for gas-inlet in case the hoke fails or the diver wants/needs extra gas in suit and helmet
•                 the exhaust that is brought to the top of the helmet (the China Hat)
•                 a metal ring to lift the helmet of the divers head (with a steel wire for instance)
•                 the telephone inlet
•                 the inlet for the underwear heating system. The Navy developed electrically heated underwear because
                  helium takes heath from the body very fast

The Mark V deep sea helmet was the first heliox hat (for military purposes) in the world

Introduction

Soon after initial problems like air-supply and protective suits were solved, divers began to experience some physiological difficulties after deeper dives and longer exposures. In fact they suffered from:

• decompression sickness
• oxygen poisoning
• nitrogen narcosis

without knowing it. This caused terrible suffering and death in the early days of diving. For many years the causes and cures for these illnesses were unknown due to a general lack of knowledge in the physical science.

Here are some names and dates of interest:

• Robert Boyle discovers the relationship between gas pressure and volume in 1662
• Daniel Rutherford discovers the gasses nitrogen and oxygen in 1772
• Paul Bert studied the effects of high and low pressures on the body. In 1878 he proposes a controlled decompression procedure to avoid the formation of gas bubbles in the bloodstream

With this knowledge around the turn of the twentieth century, it was custom to lower and raise divers very slow: only a few feet eacht minute. Even with these precautions many times problems occurred at greater depths.

John Scott Haldane did some important work in this matter. He found out that existing air pumps were not very suitable for greater depths: Due to bad ventilation of helmets carbon dioxide build up inside them causing problems for the diver. He also developed a "stage decompression" in 1905 that was accepted by the British admiralty. Haldane was the godfather of the decompression tables that we use today. 

Understanding and controlling oxygen poisoning did not go that fast. Henry Fleuss invented the first oxygen rebreather in 1876 but he did not have a clue that the gas could be very dangerous under pressure. Many trials in the years after that showed that oxygen could be dangerous under pressure. In WW II many secret military operations were carried out with oxygen rebreathers.

Nitrogen narcosis proved equally difficult to cure. Every diver was influenced by it in some degree. For many years no suitable solution to the problem was found.
In the early 1900's, compressed air diving was limited to depths less than 300 feet. 

Mixed Gas

In 1912, the US Navy began a continuing series of programs to expand diving technology and techniques. They experimented with gas mixtures other than air. In 1924 an experimental dive was made to 150 feet (about 50 meters) using a mixture of helium and oxygen. Substitution of helium for nitrogen in the breathing mixture produces two main effects upon the diver under pressure:

• helium causes no narcotic influence
• the absorption rate in the body is different

By using a mixture of helium and oxygen (called Heliox) the working depth is no longer limited. Heliox is now used to depths up to 1500 feet and more ! It is also the second lightest gas known. Absorption and dissolution out of the body tissues is much more rapid than that of nitrogen. This all means that a diver can go down deeper, stay there longer and have shorter deco-stops on coming up !

However, there is one problem in using Heliox: As depth increases, the danger of oxygen poisoning rises unless the amount of oxygen in the breathing mixture is carefully controlled. For this reason helium and oxygen are mixed together before the dive for that specific depth. We have a minimum amount of oxygen for any dive for the diver not to die, we also have a maximum amount for the diver not to die of oxygen poisoning !

This type of diving is called mixed-gas diving.
Breathing mixtures are classified as:

• "air" (21% oxygen , 78% nitrogen and 1% other gasses) or
• "gas" (pure oxygen, a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen or Heliox)

The US Navy played an important role in Heliox experiments: In the US there were natural gas fields of Helium. In Europe there were none. Therefore experimenting with the gas was very very expensive for the Europeans. Practically all the efforts in this field go to the United States.

   Diving Museum at Islamorada Key  Fl.
                     Photo Album

      this is a must see if you are a Diver!

                  
                Joe   "Doc" D'Angelo                                                  Bill "doc" Berryman

My very first Diving duty after Graduation from DSDS class 4/55 at USNavGun Factory D.C.,   "The Tank" Subase, Pearl Harbor, T.H.  This photo was taken from the tank in 1955 with a brownie camera.

HM1 Doc Erasmo  Riojas graduated in CLass 4/55 at DeepSeaDivingSchool (DSDS), U.S> Naval Gun Factory, Wash, D.C.  He was transferred to the Subase, Escape Training Tank, Pearl Harbor , Territory of Hawaii in September of 1955.  HM2 "Red" Maurath quit diving just as the USS Coucal (ASR-8), his duty station,  was about to make a WestPac Trip.   Doc Riojas was transferred to the Coucal.   Best thing that ever happened to him even though he left his wife pregnant at Navy Housing.

 Master Diver Bob Sheats put all Tank Instructors through SCUBA class at the Tank.  I learned SCUBA very well from him and his crew and I was hooked on SCUBA diving at work and on Liberty.  My hobby was SCUBA diving for sea shells and sea coral.

I learned to be a Deep Sea Diver on the USS Coucal (ASR-8).  We dove a lot at LaHaina, Maui. I Cannot remember the name of our Master Diver, but we had a terrific diving gang.  The Coucal set the record in 1956 for the deepest McCann bell transfer of men from a bottomed submarine in Hawaii.  I forget the depth, I wish I would have kept a diary.  The Story was in the ALL HANDS magazine.

Wrong Year?! 

   The Official Web Site for the ASRARS Association is HERE !

One night when we were sitting around in the After Battery somewhere between the last reel of Cheaper By The Dozen and the arrival of mid rats. Some lower-order citizen in raggedy dungarees and a four-week old beard looks over at the chief and asked,

“Hey Dutch, you believe in angels?”

“Sure, horsefly. Not the kind with wings… The kind who wears rubberized, canvas suits and bronze helmets… Descend from above to save you… Navy Divers. When you hear those magnificent bastards clomping around on your walking deck, you can go back to issuing liberty cards.”

Nobody respects and honors Navy Divers more than the lads who ride underwater ordinance platforms. Any man stupid enough to speak ill of a hardhat diver in the presence of a smoke boat sailor could count on the next twenty to thirty seconds of his future being filled with activity specifically designed to place his dental work flush up against his spinal column.

There’s a line in an old vaudeville song called the Darktown Strutters Ball. It goes,

“Be down to getcha in a taxi, baby…”

…Or something close to that. They should paint that on the side of every ASR. That’s what they do for a living… They come and get you. If you can reach bottom with watertight integrity, they will come get you. You can make book on that.

If you are beyond the ‘Continental shelf’, you will end up wearing your pressure hull as a pea coat and spending eternity with your crew… Either way, God and the United States Navy have removed all doubt about the ultimate outcome.

Our ‘rescue vessel’ was the USS Kittiwake. She was always tied up aft of whatever nest we happened to be in. There was something very comforting about her being there.

They used to do something with those big ugly looking diving suits… I think the proper name was ‘deep-diving dress’. God did not provide me the size testicles it would take to use ‘Navy Salvage Diver’ and the word ‘dress’ in the same sentence. They would hang those deep-diving suits up and perform some kind of maintenance on them.

Looking at them gave a kid riding submarines a good feeling… They were a silent symbol of a navy that gave a damn about her undersea bluejackets. If you could be gotten, men who wore those canvas suits would come get you. You knew that and it made you feel good about the outfit you belonged to.

That was a confidence the poor bastards who rode Russian boats never had… Or if they did, it was an ill-placed confidence, as became all too evident with the Manny, Moe and Curley ineptitude shown in their repeated attempts to bring up the lads of the Kursk.

If those idiots had placed a 911 call for U.S. Navy Divers, I have no doubt that a few more Russian boat sailors would be tossing down vodka with an arm full of Olga and Natasha tonight. The poor sonuvabitches ran out of air while a clown act tap-danced all over their superstructure. What a way to turn in your gear… Sitting in darkness, listening to idiots trying to ‘get it right’.

Salvage divers hold a very special place in our hearts… As well they should. There are boat sailors alive today who got the opportunity to grow old, compliments of Navy Divers. Forget that and you become at best, an ungrateful sonuvabitch.

The ones I had the honor of meeting were big burley rascals, with hands the size of a picnic ham and fingers like half smokes. I never shook hands with the Jolly Green Giant but it has to be like shaking hands with a diver.

The rascals splice steel cable. I was a leading seaman… I know how to splice 3 and 5 lay hemp line… But gahdam steel cable? You’ve got to be out of your mind! That is how they get those oak bark fingers. You spend your career getting wire cuts all over your fingers and God compensates you for your trouble with hands like a junkyard crane bucket.

Fine brave unselfish bastards… God’s weirdest emissaries, who descend from above in bronze helmets with lead belts and heavy boots to save mother’s sons who make their living riding this nations submarines.

I work with a gentleman named Bill Duvall. I have known Bill for many years of professional association. He is an executive engineer with the federal government.

The other day, I learned that Bill Duvall was once Lt. Garner W. Duvall, a rated Navy Diver and OPS officer on the salvage ship, USS Cree. Bill Duvall, a Navy Diver.

This means I am obligated to buy this old saltwater ‘breathe through a hose’ bronze helmet soul-saver, cold beer and listen to his sea stories. E-3s learned early that if you failed to buy a hardhat diver his first beer, you ran the risk that the bastard would splice your toes together and hang you upside down in his paint locker.

But the best thing about learning that Bill was a diver is that it lets me say a long overdue ‘thank you’ to men who took incredible risk on our behalf… And Bill is the kind of man you expect a diver to be… A big smiling rascal with those vice grip mitts and an I-beam spine built to haul a couple of hundred pounds of working gear.

God bless all deep-depth divers…. wherever in the hell you are.

 

 

 

> Frank De La Oliva,   Master Diver            Photo Page

David "Doc" Ball

From: David Ball  To: 'Doc Riojas'  Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2008 8:49 PM  Subject:  From "Nukes" to DSDS in D.C. Yup, you were before my time. I didn’t graduate from high school until 1959. Joined the Navy in 1960, spent four years in schools, and at NavHosp, Portsmouth, NH. 15 months on the LPH-5 (USS Princeton) and a couple of WestPacs. SubSchool in Dec 1965 to August ’66 and to USS Tecumseh (SSBN-628) and then to Tautog (SSN-639) and a northern run. Dive school October ‘69 to May ’70 (the full gamut – SCUBA, hard hat air and HeO2, and demo.  Took my indoc dive in hard hat at the tank in Pearl while on Tautog (69)  Then to HCU-1 and RVN doing salvage, then to DevGrp San Diego for Saturation, then disappeared in Special Projects for five years and reappeared at NEDU in “77. Made deep Dive ’77 (1,510 FSW) for 37 days total.  Rehired in Feb 1980. Went to school and received BS in accounting at San Diego State University in ’84 and MBA from University of Redlands in ’90.  Retired in May 2007, but still working for SAIC as a consulting employee.  Amazing how well us dick smiths turned out. David About going from Nukes to DSDS: I was shocked myself, when the XO on the Tautog allowed me to submit my request for Dive School.  I guess he thought, like everyone else, that there was no way in hell I was going to get orders from a Nuke after I had been trained and all.  He was floored when I got my orders after returning from the Northern run. So I went through school in D.C. at the best time of the year – diving and swimming in the Anacostia from October to May. Smart move on my part.   Doc Riojas COMMENT: David;  My Class 4/55 was also a winter class on the Anacostia River.  One advantage is that our diving floats were one rung on the ladder to the water.    I wonder if you had to learn gas analyzing on that old Haldane apparatus they had in the mixing gas lab at DSDS.   We also had to use a boat to break up the ice.  I remember that we had NO diving suits that did not leak.   In spite of all the coldness and harrassement from the instructors, we made it. My class included three HM's and One Warrant Hospital Corps Officer.     Doc Riojas This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm

 

                                     photo  INDEX of  Pages

click on tabs to go to page

Smallest Photo Ablum of  Ole SEALs

  Mi Vida Loca - Copyright ©1998 - All Right Reserved        webmaster:  Erasmo "Doc" Riojas :                       email:  el_ticitl @yahoo.com