Submerged: Adventures of America's Most Elite Underwater Archeology Team

by Daniel Lenihan

  It’s interesting for me to listen to Larry and the lads agonizing over these issues. They debate research strategies and question each other rigorously on the social or historical benefits of taking each step. Do the ends justify the means? Are there sufficient returns to justify each impact to the site? So on and so forth. Kathy Billings is the ultimate decisionmaker, and she works well with the team as they bounce ideas and suggestions off her.

  After our dives Dave and I move to the little command center for the ROV on the Memorial. Matt stands in the room, water dripping from his face and wet suit, the latter stripped carelessly to waist level. “What did we find in those aft compartments?” He has been tending the cable in-water. Having assigned the job to another, he is now able to see some of the results of the ROV’s last foray into the ship. Dave, now dry and back in uniform, has been monitoring the location of the vehicle and the various instrument outputs. He is about to pause the operation so that Matt can review the tape when he is interrupted by Bob Christ, who is piloting the VideoRay: “All Stop!”

  “We’re hung up again.” Dave speaks into the microphone, “Slack three meters, Brendan, slack three.”

  “Roger that, slack three,” echoes back electronically from the diver tending the cable on deck. He is speaking through wireless coms back to a receiver we have deployed just beneath the Memorial.

  After some deft maneuvering on the joystick, Bob tells Dave to have Brendan bring in the cable three meters. “In three” comes the response from below.

  “Yeah, okay, we’re free,” from Bob. “Where to now?”

  Matt and Dave consult the as-built plans Brett has incorporated into a program in the laptop computer nestled between first aid boxes on the table. The room we’re in serves as a first aid station and all-around utility room—it is about the size of a family bathroom with some of the same lived-in atmosphere derived from weeks of wet feet entering and no ventilation. As usual, if there is an accident involving any of the 5,000 visitors shuttled out here from the visitor center each day, we are expected to halt operations, switch hats, and help the interpretive ranger on the Memorial deal with the emergency.

  “Head aft, Bob.”

  This from Matt, after a short palaver with Dave. We are inventorying the second deck for sediment deposition, depth of oil on overheads, and general physical integrity of the metal bulkheads. The research problems are as complex as they are significant. Many other nations are just becoming aware of similar problems, and with the exposure our work has been generating from media our web site is full of inquiries. “Greetings, I manage many shipwrecks in Truk Lagoon.” Or “Here in Australia we have such and such.” Or “The warships in Scapa Flow present a similar conundrum.”

  “Damn, look at that!” Bob interjects. Having fixated for days on getting measurements, correcting problems with the pH meter, repairing drill heads that aren’t making sufficient contact for corrosion potential sensors—one falls into the mode of seeing the ship in a clinical light. Suddenly, while moving methodically from compartment to compartment, with its little mechanical claw full of sensors, the ROV has stopped dead, the operator seemingly paralyzed by the image clearly displayed on the monitor. It’s an ordinary enough scene on the surface but here it makes the hair stand up on my neck. The VideoRay has entered a closet, or “hanging locker,” in Navy parlance. It is sending back a signal that reconstitutes on the screen as an officer’s dress jacket, still neatly arranged on its hangar where it was placed sixty years earlier, probably on the night of December 6, 1941. A wispy brown veil of . . . of something, delicately covers the jacket and drapes eerily from several empty wire hangars behind it. The jacket has an epaulet on the right shoulder but we can’t make out the insignia without removing the underwater equivalent of cobwebs. We don’t. We’re not here for that.

  As the robot moves on and the drone of cable directions and scientific measurements resume, the observers are silent. Dave pauses, glances back at Matt, and says, “Whew.”

  A slow shake of the head and a “no kidding” from Matt. We are working in a special place, and anytime we forget, it seems the ship has a way of reminding us.

  The last tour boat leaves, and we can start working more openly, even spreading instruments out to the Memorial proper. Until 4 P.M. we are conscious of not wanting to interfere with the visitor’s experience. Now we can yell like banshees and no one will hear. For some reason we rarely raise our voices. Even a hard-bitten group like SCRU, masters of irreverence and acerbic humor in most places, often seem like choirboys on this site.

  This will probably be my last visit to the Arizona. I can literally find my way around the ship with my eyes closed and I still carry on my private dialogues with her sailors. I will miss this place when I make my last dive.

  But I feel I leave it in good hands. And I don’t just mean Larry. The Matts, Bretts, and Daves who have come into their own in SCRU are exceptional young men, rising stars in their respective fields. They’ve paid their dues through years of apprenticeship and are quickly adding their own special styles to the mix. There’s a representative from the Canadian Park Service working with us this trip—he’s about the same age as our up-and-comers and he’s of the same caliber. Marc-André Bernier will be making a name for himself in this business, and he’s just the kind who should.

  The young Canadians, Mexicans, Australians, and Brits coming up in this field are cause for real hope that there will be a submerged heritage for future generations to enjoy. Besides being principled, they’re academically well-trained, damn good divers, and very much in tune with the modern computerized world. They see applications of emergent technologies with an ease and facility that is remarkable to someone like myself—who with astounding prescience, once predicted word processors would never make it in a world in which there were perfectly good electric typewriters. I find as I begin to psychologically separate from a quarter century in SCRU that I tend to regard these young men as heroes rather than the reverse. These fellows don’t need any more wolf-pup talks. They’re grabbing up the reins with confidence. As fearsome as the challenges are to maritime preservation in the coming decades, I feel they’re up to it. They are also up to the adventures that accompany the challenges.

  They’ll become familiar with the emerald green haunts of lost steamers at Isle Royale, learn to enjoy swimming with the great whites as they search for Manila galleons at Point Reyes, dive to the flooded homes of the Anasazi in Glen Canyon, pause their research to engage in rescues and recoveries, spread preservation ideals to the far reaches of the Pacific, and undertake myriad adventures I can only dream of.

  In their turn, they see the importance of the generation following them. It makes me smile to see how they’ve taken under wing Brendan, a newbie, “fresh meat.” Brendan is a senior in high school just about to launch on his great college adventure. He’s logged more than forty working dives on Arizona during the past three weeks, served as light-man for Brett, hauled ROV cables for Dave and Matt, and labeled artifacts on the deck with Jim Bradford. On one dive, he was assigned to help carry down an urn filled with the ashes of an Arizona survivor, a man who had lived through the sinking of the ship, and, after a full life, wanted to be interred with his shipmates.

  Brendan admires the hard-chargers he’s working with and even enjoys the constant hazing from the “older guys.” He’s stoked—he loves the work and just being with this crowd, doing what it does. He and his regular dive partner, Aaron, come from a long line of wild-eyed Irish-Polish immigrants, unpredictable by nature. No telling what they’ll do after college. But then, I’ll be tracking them pretty closely—after all, they’re my sons.

  Index

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  Abandoned Shipwreck Act

  Abbey, Edward

  ABC

  Adair, Bob

&n
bsp; Adak

  ADAP (archeological data acquisition platform)

  Agegian, Kitty

  air

  carbon dioxide and

  carbon monoxide and

  contaminants in

  free flow and

  helium and

  nitrogen and

  nitrogen narcosis and

  overstuffing cylinders and

  oxygen and

  Alabama, CSS

  Alaska

  Aleutians

  Alcatraz

  Aleutians

  Algoma

  Allard, Dean

  Amer, Chris

  America

  American Samoa

  Amistad Dam and Reservoir

  Amygdaloid Ranger Station

  Antelope

  anthropology

  archeology, underwater

  anthropological issues and

  defining values in

  and International Committee

  of the Underwater Cultural

  Heritage of ICOMOS

  inundation and; see also

  National Reservoir Inundation Study

  mobile units (MDSUs) in

  National Park Service and

  New Archeology and

  oceanographic institutions and

  propwash deflectors and

  remote vehicles (ROVs) in

  sonar transducers (SHARPS) in

  technological advances in

  television series on

  treasure hunting and, see treasure hunting

  see also shipwrecks

  Arizona, USS

  Arkansas

  Arnold, Barto

  ASAM dive club

  Askins, Adriane

  atomic bomb test sites

  Attu

  Audubon, John James

  Babelthaup

  Bachrach, Art

  Bass, George

  Bay of Pigs

  BBC

  Beaver

  Beck, John

  Behnke, Al

  Beitel, Warren

  Belau (Palau)

  bends

  Bernier, Marc-André

  Bigler, Carmen

  Bikini Atoll

  Billings, Kathy

  Billy Budd (Melville)

  Biscayne National Monument (Biscayne National Park)

  Bismarck

  Blaiyok, Vince

  Blitz dives

  boat ramp experiments

  body recovery missions:

  at Amistad

  at Ginnie Springs

  near Mariana

  Bond, George

  Boylan, Mike

  Bozanic, Jeff

  Bradford, Jim hiring of

  Briel, Larry

  Brooks, John at Alabama site

  Brown, Don

  Buchanan, Jerry

  Budlong, Robert

  buses, school

  Bywater, Wayne

  Caloyianis, Nick

  Canepa, Joe

  Cape Disappointment Coast Guard Station

  carbon dioxide

  carbon monoxide

  Carrell, Toni

  in Belau

  hiring of

  at Isle Royale

  in Kosrae

  cave diving

  death from, see death

  in Florida

  grating caves against

  lines used in

  in Mexico

  safety and

  SCRU training and

  see also diving

  Caverns Measureless to Man (Exley)

  Chalkley, Tex

  Channel Islands National Park

  Charleston Harbor

  Cherbourg, France

  Chisholm

  Christ, Bob

  Chuuk (Truk)

  Cianci, Paul

  Civil War

  Alabama in

  commerce raiders in

  Hunley in

  Shenandoah in

  Classen, Cheryl

  Clausen, Carl

  Cockrell, Sonny

  cold

  drowning and

  regulators and

  Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

  Columbia River

  Columbia River Maritime Museum

  commerce raiders

  Congdon

  Conlin, Dave

  Corry, Jim

  Croll, Stu

  Crosson, Dud

  Cuba

  Cumberland

  Cummings, Calvin

  Cummins, Gary

  Curtsinger, Bill

  Cussler, Clive

  dams

  altitude of

  inundation and; see also

  National Reservoir Inundation Study

  Day, Fran

  death

  cold-water drowning

  grating caves and

  in sinking cars, boat-ramp experiments on

  see also body recovery missions

  decompression

  ASAM divers and

  Deep Drone

  Delgado, Jim

  at Bikini

  at Isabella site

  DeLoach, Paul

  in Mexico

  Desautels, Dave

  Dickinson, Bill

  Discovery Channel

  Disney Corporation

  diving:

  air in, see air

  in caves, see cave diving

  in cold water, see cold

  decompression in,

  dry suits for

  lengths of dives, and safety

  lines used in, see lines

  pressure and

  Doolittle raid

  Drake’s Bay

  dry suits

  unisuits

  Dry Tortugas

  poaching in

  Windjammer site in

  Dry Tortugas National Park (Fort Jefferson)

  Dudley, Bill

  Ehrlich, Paul

  Ejit Truck Dump

  Eliot, John

  Ellis Island

  Emperor

  Energy, U.S. Department of

  Eng, Mike

  England, Russ

  Englebrecht, Ken

  English Channel

  Erhlichman, John

  Exley, Sheck

  on body recovery mission

  death of

  deep diving records set by

  in Mexico

  Farley, Corky

  Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) see also Micronesia

  Final Report of the National Reservoir Inundation Study

  Fischer, George

  fish and other marine fauna:

  jellyfish

  lion fish

  sharks

  Fisher, Mel

  Florida:

  karst system in

  treasure-salvage operations and

  Florida

  Florida State University (FSU)

  Fogarty, Frank

  Forman, Steve

  Fort Jefferson, see Dry Tortugas National Park

  Fowey, HMS

  France

  Fuchida, Mitsuo

  Fulghum, Ken

  Garrison, Ervan

  Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

  Ginnie Springs

  Glen Canyon

  Glenlyon

  Global Positioning Systems (GPS)

  Gould, Dick

  Great Lakes

  see also Lake Superior

  Green, Cliff

  Guam

  Guerout, Max

  Gulf Islands National Seashore

  Gulf of Mexico

  Hatteras, USS

  Hawaii, University of

  Hawaiian Islands

  Hayes, Bully

  helicopters

  helium

  Hemingway, Ernest

  Henley, Ron and India

  Hiner, Kent

  History Channel

  Hole-in-the-Wall

  Holmes and Narver Company

  Hood, HMS

  Hornet, USS

  Hotel Tanunil


  Housatonic, USS

  Hunley, HL

  ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites)

  Interior, U.S. Department of

  International Committee of the Underwater Cultural Heritage of ICOMOS

  inundation study of, see National Reservoir Inundation Study

  Isabella

  Isle Royale National Park

  diving schedule at

  jellyfish

  John, Teddy death of

  Johnson Sea-Link

  Kalaupapa National Historical Park

  Kalaupapa Peninsula

  Kamloops

  Kan, Isaiah

  karst systems

  in Florida

  in Mexico

  Kauhako Crater

  Kearsarge, USS

  Kerbo, Ron

  Kerley, Barry

  Keys, Florida:

  Biscayne

  treasure hunting in

  West

  Kiska

  Kosrae

  Kozak, Gary

  Kristof, Emory

  “Kubla Khan” (Coleridge)

  Kwajalein

  Labadie, Patrick

  Lajuan, Jean

  Lake Michigan

  Lake Superior see also Isle Royale National Park

  Lang, George

  Lelu Harbor

  Lenihan, Aaron (son)

  Lenihan, Barbara (wife)

  Lenihan, Brendan (son)

  Leone, Mark

  Leonora

  lines

  in mapping of sites

  offshoot

  lion fish

  littering

  Little River Spring

  Little Salt Spring

  Livingston, Jerry

  at Arizona site

  at Bikini

  hiring of

  at Isle Royale

  Log from the Sea of Cortez, The (Steinbeck)

  Longley, W. H.

  Lorelei

  Luna, Pilar

  McCampbell, David

  McEachern, Lee

  McLean, Dave

  McWilliam, Scott

  Madison Blue

  Maine, USS

  Majuro

  Malloy, Dale

  Manet, Edouard

  Mante

  Marden-Jones, Brian

  Mariana

  Marshall Islands

  Majuro

  Martin, Charles

  Maurer, Ellen

  May, Alan

  MDSUs (Mobile Diving and Salvage Units)

  Media Luna

  Melville, Herman

  Merritt’s Mill Pond

  Merryman, Ken

  Mexican Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH)

  Mexico

  Michener, James

  Michigan State Police