The man behind the greatest submarine rescue in history
by Peter Maas
Harper Collins, 1999
Comments: This is a dramatic account of the successful rescue and subsequent salvage of a U.S. Navy submarine that sank near Portsmouth, New Hampshire in 1939. The USS Squalus went down due to a mechanical failure on a training run near her home port. The event resulted in an immediate loss of life by some of the crew, but left the majority trapped alive at a depth of 300 feet. Prior to that time the rescue of lost submarines was essentially not possible, normally resulting in certain death for all hands. However, in the years just prior to this disaster a naval engineer named Swede Momsen, a former submarine commander himself, had been developing and testing several new rescue techniques. The sinking of the Squalus was the first time that any of these had been used and the ultimate successful outcome helped shaped the advancement of future rescue technology.
Beyond the difficult rescue, the salvage of the Squalus itself was an even more complicated and risky operation. It took several months and hundreds of individual dives by a team of divers using experimental breathing gear and working almost beyond the limits of human survivability. Momsen is again at the center of that story, as both commander of the extraordinary salvage effort, and developer of the helium-oxygen breathing technology that made it possible. Behind the drama is the story of a brilliant engineering genius and his drive to succeed, often at odds with an entrenched naval bureaucracy. This is a gripping story of human heroics and a remarkable man whose work had a profound effect on the future of submarines and diving science.
Copy Notes: Hardback, first edition
