CHRONOLOGY OF DIVING HISTORY

 

1908

(surface air; scuba). In 1906 the British Government asks John Scott Haldane, an eminent Scottish physiologist, to do research in the prevention of decompression sickness. Two years later Haldane, Arthur E. Boycott and Guybon C. Damant, publish their landmark paper on decompression sickness (from hyperbaric experiments done on goats). "The Prevention of Compressed-Air Illness" lays the groundwork for staged decompression. Tables based on this work are soon adopted by the British Royal Navy and later the United States Navy, and save many divers from the bends. (See Chapter 9)

1912

(surface air; scuba). The U.S. Navy tests tables published by Boycott, Damant and Haldane.

1917

(surface air). The U.S. Bureau of Construction & Repair first introduces the Mark V Diving Helmet. When attached to a deep sea dress and umbilical, the Mark V becomes the underwater work horse for decades to come. It is used for "practically all salvage work undertaken during World War II...the MK V Diving Helmet becomes the standard U.S. Navy Diving equipment until succeeded by the MK12 in 1980." (U.S. Navy Diving Manual). "So sound was its design that very few modifications were ever incorporated, and recent models vary only slightly from the 1917 version." (Leaney 1993)

1920

(surface air; scuba). Research is begun in United States into the use of helium-oxygen mixtures for deep dives. To the beginning of World War II, the U.S. maintains a monopoly on helium.

1924

(surface air; scuba). First helium-oxygen experimental dives are conducted by U.S. Navy and Bureau of Mines.

1930

(vessel). William Beebe, a diving pioneer and "oceanographic naturalist" descends 1426 feet in a round, 4'9" bathysphere; it is attached to a barge by a 7/8" non-twisting steel cable to the mother ship. Of this dive Beebe later writes:

...There came to me at that instant [1426 feet down] a tremendous wave of emotion, a real appreciation of what was momentarily almost superhuman, cosmic, of the whole situation; our barge slowly rolling high overhead in the blazing sunlight, like the merest chip in the midst of the ocean, the long cobweb of cable leading down through the spectrum to our lonely sphere, where, sealed tight, two conscious human beings sat and peered into the abysmal darkness as we dangled in mid-water, isolated as a lost planet in outermost space.

1930s

(breath-hold). Guy Gilpatric, an American ex-aviator living in southern France, pioneers use of rubber goggles with glass lenses for skin diving. By the mid-1930s, face masks, fins, and snorkels are in common use. Fins are patented by a Frenchman, Louis de Corlieu, in 1933 (called "Swimming Propellers") and later popularized world-wide by an American entrepreneur, Owen Churchill (see 1940). The modern mask (covering eyes and nose, as opposed to simple eye goggles), evolves from the ideas of various people, including the Russian Alec Kramarenko, and the Frenchmen Yves Le Prieur and Maxime Forjot. In 1934 Gilpatric writes of his Mediterranean exploits for The Saturday Evening Post, and in 1938 publishes The Compleat Goggler, the first book on amateur diving and hunting. Among the book's readers: a French naval lieutenant named Jacques Cousteau.

1933

(breath-hold). First sport divers club is started in California, called the Bottom Scratchers; a year later an amateur diving group, Club des Sous-l'Eau, is founded in Paris. A primary purpose of these and similar clubs is underwater spear fishing.

1933

(scuba). French navy captain Yves Le Prieur modifies the Rouquayrol-Denayrouse invention by combining a specially designed demand valve with a high pressure air tank (1500 psi) to give the diver complete freedom from restricting hoses and lines. The apparatus contains no regulator; the diver receives a breath of fresh air by opening a tap, while exhaled air escapes into the water under the edge of the diver's mask. (In the late 1930s Cousteau used this apparatus but, as he wrote in The Silent World, "the continuous discharge of air allowed only short submersions.") In 1935 Le Prieur's SCUBA is adopted by the French navy.

1934

(vessel). On August 15 William Beebe and Otis Barton descend 3028 feet in a bathysphere near Bermuda. This dive sets a depth record that remains unbroken for 14 years.

1936

(scuba). Le Prieur founds the world's first SCUBA diving club, called the "Club of Divers and Underwater Life."

1938

(surface air; scuba). Edgar End and Max Nohl make the first intentional saturation dive, spending 27 hours at a depth of 101 feet in a Milwaukee hospital hyperbaric chamber. Decompression takes five hours and one of the divers (Nohl) suffers the bends.

1939

(vessel). The first completely successful rescue of submarine-trapped men is carried out. On May 23 the USS Squalus, a new 310-foot submarine, sinks in 243 feet of water during a checkout dive in the North Atlantic. Twenty-six of the crew die instantly in the flooded aft compartments. The forward, unflooded area holds 33 men (including the captain) with enough air and water to last several days. Within hours the largest submarine rescue in history is underway. By midnight of May 25 all 33 men are rescued by a new diving bell, the McCann-Erickson Rescue Chamber. The chamber fits over an escape hatch on the submarine; when the chamber and submarine hatches are opened the men enter the bell under one atmosphere of pressure. Four separate trips are used to rescue the men. The submarine is later salvaged and renovated, and enters World War II duty as the USS Sailfish.

 

Figure 4. Vertical cross section of the McCann-Erickson Rescue Chamber. (Courtesy U.S. Navy Diving Manual.)

The Gagnan-Cousteau regulator fundamentally altered diving. Its simple design and solid construction provided a reliable and low-cost unit for sport diving. Air Liquide put the equipment into commercial production, but it couldn't keep up with the demand. Competitors tried to capture the growing market by producing imitations or making slight adjustments... The devices revolutionized man's perception of the planet. Not unlike the Portuguese, Spanish, and Chinese explorers of the fifteenth century who doubled their knowledge of the size of the world, Cousteau and Gagnan helped open a vast portion of the globe to human exploration. They offered the opportunity for extensive undersea investigation to enthusiastic scientists, engineers, and sportsmen.

1943

(scuba). Cousteau and two close friends, Frederic Dumas and Philippe Tailliez, make over five hundred dives with the aqualung, gradually increasing the depths to which they plunge. They have developed the first workable, open-circuit demand-type scuba apparatus. In October Dumas, in a carefully planned dive, descends to 210 feet in the Mediterranean Sea and experiences l'ivresse des grandes profondeurs - rapture of the great depths.

1946

(scuba). Cousteau's Aqua Lung is marketed commercially in France. (It is marketed in Great Britain in 1950, Canada in 1951 and the USA in 1952).

1947

(scuba). In August, Dumas makes a record dive with the Aqua Lung to 307 feet in the Mediterranean Sea.

1948

(vessel). Otis Barton descends in a modified bathysphere to a depth of 4500 feet, off the coast of California.

1940

(breath-hold; scuba). First year of production of Owen Churchill's swim fins. Initially, only 946 pairs are sold, but in later years production increases substantially, and tens of thousands are sold to the Allied forces.

1941-1944

(scuba). During World War II Italian divers, working out of midget submarines, use closed circuit scuba equipment to place explosives under British naval and merchant marine ships. Later in the war the British adopt this technology to sink German battleship Tirpitz.

1942-43

(scuba). Jacques-Yves Cousteau (a French naval lieutenant) and Emile Gagnan (an engineer for Air Liquide, a Parisian natural gas company) work together to redesign a car regulator that will automatically provide compressed air to a diver on his slightest intake of breath. (Prior to this date, all self-contained apparatus still in use supplied air continuously, or had to be manually turned on and off.

For unclear reasons, the 19th century demand regulator of Rouquayrol-Denayrouse had long been abandoned.) Cousteau and Gagnan attach their new demand valve regulator to hoses, a mouthpiece and a pair of compressed air tanks. In January 1943 Cousteau tests the unit in the cold Marne River outside Paris. After a modification (placing the intake and exhaust valves at the same level), they patent the Aqua Lung...