In the S-51 problem, conditions were vastly different. To lift the submarine with the pontoons built and building, we were required to make the after half of the submarine watertight. We could not afford to let a pontoon weighing forty tons fall one hundred and thirty-five feet on our submarine; that would smash it like an eggshell and ruin our chance of lifting the boat.
The S-51, at her depth, was of course wholly out of our sight, yet we had to land our pontoons close alongside her, not more than eight feet away. In addition, to allow us to get the six forward pontoons in position where we needed them for lifting, we were required to plant them one ahead of another with only a six-foot interval between the end of one pontoon and the front of the next pontoon astern.
A somewhat analogous problem would be to lower a heavy Pullman car from the top of a fifteen-story building which was swaying violently, due to an earthquake, to the street, in the middle of a black night when you couldn’t see the street, nor the car either after you started lowering; and then land the Pullman car in a vacant space in the middle of a train standing on a track in the dark street below without dropping the car on the diner ahead or the car just behind the vacant space. Frankly, I always had a sinking feeling in the stomach whenever it came time to lower a pontoon.
But it had to be done, so we started out to do it. The stern and the bow of the S-51 were several feet clear of the ocean floor, since the ship was built somewhat like a rocker, deep amidships with a gradual rise of keel towards each end.
Michels was dressed to go down and pass the first guide line under her stern, just forward of the rudders. We gave him a small manila line with a cork ring life buoy tied to one end. This Michels was to push under the stern from starboard to port, and then let go. The buoy, floating to the surface would bring the line up with it, giving us a reeving line around the stern, with one end rising to the surface on each side.
Michels took the life buoy and was hoisted over the Falcon’s side. As he disappeared, Hartley paid out rapidly on the manila line. Michels hit the submarine over the engine room, slid down her side, walked aft along the hard gray sand. A stream of bubbles on the surface marked his progress. They stopped. He was at the stern.
“On deck! Look out for the buoy! I’m pushing it under!”
We strained our eyes, gazing at a spot near the bubbles where that white life buoy should break surface. However we might have spared ourselves the trouble. Another call from Mike:
“On deck! That buoy you gave me was no good. It sank the minute I let go of it! Send me another one!”
It made us laugh to think of Mike’s amazement. The trouble had not occurred to me before, though it should have. The high pressure on the sea bottom had forced water into all the air spaces in the cork, making it so heavy it could no longer float. No use sending down another buoy,—it would only get waterlogged and sink also.
Hastily we dressed Kelley, sent him down on the opposite side of the submarine with another line. Reaching under the hull, he took the end of Mike’s line, bent the two together, told us to haul away. We did, till the knot came on deck. Then we slipped a new line tied to a shackle down on each side to the divers there; they removed the shackles, bent the lines together, made sure all the lines were clear of each other, and came up.
We now had two small manila reeving lines under the S-51’s stern. To the starboard end of each line we secured a four-inch manila line and hauled up on the port sides, till the large lines came up on that side. These new lines were strong enough for heavier work.
To the starboard ends of the four-inch manilas, we shackled in one-inch wire hawsers, and hauled these wires under the stern and upon the port side. We were now ready for the first pontoon.
The surfboat towed alongside a pontoon which the Vestal had already rigged for lowering. It was an immense steel cylinder, fourteen feet in diameter, thirty-two feet long, practically a section of a submarine itself. It was heavily reinforced with steel frames inside, had flood valves, relief valves, air valves, and vent valves; pad eyes for towing and for lowering; and two long hawsepipes going down through it vertically to take the lifting chains. The chains, huge battleship anchor cables, ninety feet long with steel links two and a half inches thick, already hung in the hawsepipes, the upper ends held by large clamps on top of the pontoon, the lower ends triced up alongside the pontoon ready for us to shackle into the guide wires.
Floating high out of the water, the pontoon pitched up and down against our starboard rail as we worked on it. We connected the guide wires to the chains and cut the lashings which held the lower ends of the heavy chains against the pontoon; the chains dropped and we hauled up the slack wires on the other side of the submarine.
We secured a six-inch manila hawser to the lowering ring at each end of the pontoon, opened the flood valves on the end bulkheads, opened the vent valves on top of each compartment in the pontoon, and allowed the pontoon to flood. An airhose was coupled to the blowing connection at each pontoon compartment and attached to the air manifold on the Falcon’s quarterdeck.
Flooding down proved a slow process,—it lasted nearly an hour. Meanwhile, mindful that we ought to expect trouble in lowering, we determined the position of the S-51’s stern by getting our guide lines up and down in the water; then, as it was intended to plant the first pontoon on the starboard quarter of the submarine, we hauled the Falcon well over to starboard, so that the guide lines went down at an angle. Hartley estimated that the pontoon alongside of us was probably thirty feet to starboard to the submarine.
It was late in the afternoon and getting dark by the time the pontoon was flooded and nearly ready to submerge. A six-inch lowering line with several turns around a pair of bitts led to each end of the pontoon, the lines a little slack to avoid sudden jerks as the pontoon fell away in the trough of the sea. There was little buoyancy left. The pontoon failed to rise much as the crests passed; the waves started to break over the top and the seamen who stood there left and came aboard.
A little more water poured in through the open flood valves, a wave broke over the forward end of the pontoon and forced it down a little. The awash pontoon no longer had any stability; the water inside ran to the low end and that end went down hard, taking up all the slack in the hawser there, while the other end of the pontoon rose out of water.
For well over an hour, we tried everything we knew to try to get the pontoon to submerge evenly; it was no use, the moment we slacked the lines the pontoon started down on a sharp slant and tended to sink end first, not horizontally. That was dangerous, for the lines and chains were likely to get tangled up before it reached the bottom. But darkness had us and the wind was increasing; we could not hold the pontoon any longer. Reluctantly I opened the vent valves to allow the pontoon to fill a little more and submerge.
The cylinder lost all its buoyancy and started down, forward end first. The men at the bitts paid out on the starboard lowering lines; the men at the winches hauled up on the wire guide lines on the other side as the pontoon sank.
We tried to lower evenly. After only a few feet, the men at the bitts called out:
“She’s getting heavier!”
As the pontoon sank and the pressure increased, more water rushed in through the open flood valves, compressing the air inside.
At thirty feet down, the lines started to smoke as they ran out over the bitts.
“We can’t hold her!”
“Slack away freely. Let her run!” I shouted. The sailors tried to throw the turns off the bitts. No use. At forty feet the manila lines were going out so fast the men hauling in the wires on the other side of the ship could not take in slack fast enough.
At fifty feet out, Lieutenant Hartley sang out through the darkness:
“Forward line has carried away, sir!”
A second later, a voice came from the other pair of bitts:
“After line has parted!”
The freed pontoon fell eighty-five feet to the bottom. I hoped that we were correct in o
ur estimate that the pontoon was at least thirty feet clear on one side of the submarine’s stern before we started to lower it.
On the port side of the Falcon, the hauling wires, suddenly released from any strain, came up in loops and snarls.
We took the ends off the winches, ran them well out clear of the submarine, so we thought, and buoyed them off.
Under the piercing beam of the searchlight, the surfboat ran out among the mooring buoys, shot alongside each one in succession. Here the bowman, boathook poised like a harpoon, caught the toggle pin in the pelican hook as the buoy lifted on a wave, jerked out the pin, knocked clear the locking ring, and released the hawser as the bill of the pelican hook flew open. The Falcon reeled in the loosened hawsers, took her boat in tow, steamed clear, and anchored.
We agreed that the previous reports had been right when they stated the pontoons were “unmanageable.”
When next day, diving started again, Ingram went down first to learn how we had fared. It was a marked relief when he reported no damage to the submarine,—in fact he could not find the pontoon anywhere. It had vanished. He made a short circle on the bottom off the starboard quarter without running into it, but he did stumble across one of the chains, leading away from the submarine. He followed it a distance without seeing anything, then we brought him up. Eadie and Wilson followed him down, located the chain, and walked out along it, finally running into the pontoon standing on one end, looming up from the ocean bottom like a huge water tank. The two chains, twisted and kinked, lay in circles and heaps nearby; the hauling wires led away in a mass of snarls toward the submarine, sixty feet distant; the frayed ends of the broken manila lowering lines floated just above the top of the pontoon, undulating gently in the invisible current like cornstalks in a breeze.
With a Stillson wrench (always the diver’s most valuable tool, after his knife) Eadie unscrewed the shackle pin in the end of one anchor chain and released one hauling wire. Wilson traced out the turns and tangles of the other chain in the sand and at last located the end of it, but he was not able to do anything. The shackle was bent, the pin would not turn, and he could not free the wire there.
Before we could attempt to bring our pontoon back up it was essential to get both wires clear of the S-51. For the wire Eadie had unshackled, this was easy. We picked up the buoy we had secured to its other end, heaved in, and the whole wire, four hundred feet long, came up, kinked in many spots however.
The other was harder. It was still secured to the pontoon chain to starboard of the boat. Frazer, going down to work on the conning tower, reported that a wire, coming from under the port quarter of the vessel, ran forward and was tangled in the mast of the submarine, and then led away along the bottom at right angles from the port side of the vessel. Frazer climbed the mast, and tried to throw the wire clear, but found it was fouled in the signal yard. We heaved on the buoyed end of the wire, trying to pull it free, but merely succeeded in bending the mast badly over to port.
Several other divers with crowbars and wrenches tried to uncouple the shackle pin near the pontoon but without success. We worked on the job intermittently for two weeks, trying various methods of clearing the wire. I finally determined to try to burn it in half.
Both in Europe and in the United States, various navies had for fifteen years been experimenting with torches for burning steel underwater. A little success had been attained. It was possible then to light a torch underwater and even to keep the flame going awhile. We had with us the American Navy torch, such as it was. Two of our divers, Applegate and George Anderson, had practiced with it in the Navy Yard. Several times on the S-51, Applegate had taken it down and tried to burn steel with it, but he had great difficulty in lighting off and he had never succeeded in cutting.
Steel wire is much easier than steel plate to burn, as it takes but little heat to raise to the burning point the small strands which make up the hawser. We had not been able to cut steel; I hoped we might be able to cut this wire.
Consequently we rigged up the torch, brought out the oxygen and gas bottles, hooked up the regulators and pressure gauges, and then dressed George Anderson to go down to burn, with Kelley to give general assistance.
It was early November and getting cold, especially on the bottom. The divers were hoisted over, went down the descending line, Anderson with the torch, Kelley with the lighter.
They reached the submarine, slid off the starboard quarter, and after a brief search found the chain leading to the pontoon. They traced this till they reached the point where the wire, buried in the sand, first showed up across the chain.
They pulled on the wire, trying to get a little slack so Anderson could work more easily, but the wire was taut and they could not move the heavy links of the chain. In order to get a little space, Kelley dug a small hole in the hard sand with his hand, leaving the wire exposed a few inches all around. They were ready.
“On deck! Turn on the igniter!”
I turned the switch on the electric lighting device, while Hartley turned on the gases to the torch and adjusted the pressures.
“Hello, Kelley! The igniter is on!”
There were several flashes below as Kelley sent spark after spark across the tip of the torch which Anderson was holding. Finally I heard a bang. The torch had lighted.
Anderson kneeled down over the wire. Kelley stood close by to help if he could.
On the Falcon’s quarterdeck Hartley watched the pressures on his flasks. The minutes went by, the pressures dropped as the gases were exhausted, we switched over to new flasks. I could hear the banging of the torch down below. It was still lighted. We had not much gas left. Nearly forty minutes had gone by and Anderson had not yet reported finished, though occasionally a puff of smoke rose with the air bubbles to the surface, showing some results. I telephoned to Kelley to find out what progress was being made.
I could hear Kelley’s teeth chattering. Poor Kelley was evidently very cold, standing by in ice water, doing nothing except to watch Anderson, not daring to move for fear of disturbing his partner, and afraid to leave because Anderson might need him.
“Hello, John! How is Anderson making out with the torch?”
Kelley turned off his air. The roar in his helmet ceased. I could hear him plainly.
“Mr. Ellsberg, if I could only take my helmet off and get my teeth on that wire, I could chew it in half faster than that damn torch is burning it!” Kelley turned on his air again. The conversation was obviously finished.
Hartley looked glumly at the gauges. His last bottle of oxygen was going fast. In about one more minute it would all be gone.
A call from the bottom.
“On deck! The last strand is cut! We’re coming up. Take up the torch and the igniter!”
The divers came up, but in spite of decompression, Kelley developed a bad case of “bends” which kept him under treatment in the “iron doctor” all night long.
The next task was to raise the pontoon. Eadie went down, cut loose the broken ends of the original airhoses, coupled a new pair of blowing hoses to the air valves. He found a broken vent valve on the high end of the pontoon. We sent him a wood plug which he drove in the hole, sealing it. Eadie came up.
We coupled the blowing hoses to the Falcon’s manifold. A little juggling was required to lift the pontoon. No use blowing air into the high end (the pontoon was divided into two halves by a bulkhead halfway between the ends), for with the pontoon vertical, the air in that end would blow out through the open flood valve there as fast as we put it in. Nor could we put too much air in the low end to lighten it up, for if that happened, the low end would upset the pontoon and make it float on end again, but with the light end up this time; then all the air in that end would blow out the open flood valve there and leave us just where we started, with the pontoon still flooded.
Carefully Niedermair flowed air into the low end, a little at a time, while we tugged continuously on the hoses to get the first sign of motion. Finally it came. The hos
e to the high end started to run out. Hastily Niedermair stopped blowing. We tried the hoses. They now seemed the same length. Niedermair blew a little air into both ends. No bubbles rose to the surface. The pontoon was now lying in its normal position, horizontally.
Niedermair blew more air into what had been the high end for a few minutes to equalize the buoyancy, then started to blow both ends together. We pulled both hoses taut and waited. For fifteen minutes the air went down. Then the hoses slackened a little, came all slack. The pontoon was rising. In half a minute it burst through the surface at an angle of about 60°, blew like a whale from the end that rose first, then leveled off and blew air violently from the other end. It seesawed a moment, then floated level and rose about eight feet more out of the water as we blew it completely dry through the hoses.
The surfboat ran alongside, bent a line to the broken end of the lowering line trailing astern the pontoon, and took the line to the Sagamore. A seaman clambered up the slimy side of the pontoon, closed the flood valves, disconnected the hoses. The Sagamore towed the pontoon away to Newport.
It was evident that if we were going to raise the submarine, a new method of handling pontoons would have to be developed. The bottom of the ocean was too far away here to let us play with shallow-water practices.
That same night, another storm broke, the worst one so far. Our little squadron fared badly. The S-50 suffered the most, rolling and pitching madly. With all hatches secured it was a night of torture for her crew, tumbled about inside, unable to stay in their bunks. At last Lieutenant Commander Lenney could stand it no longer. He signaled the Vestal that he would have to seek shelter, and the low-lying lights of the S-50 quickly disappeared to the westward.
On the Bottom: The Raising of the Submarine S-51 Page 7
