by Keith Gordon

Lot 751 at the auction of the collection of the late Kelly Tarlton in Auckland attracted my attention. It was November 2002 and the auction of Kelly's Shipwreck Museum collection, including a number of items of historical diving equipment, had attracted a large interest and the bids were high. A Siebe Gorman double dive pump had sold for NZ$13,000 despite the auction catalogue indicating a pre-sale estimate of $4000-$6000, and a 12 bolt SG helmet with a SG pump had sold for $34,000. I was beginning to give up hope of successfully bidding for any item of my old dive mate's gear. However Lot 751, described as - "An Italian hand operated dive pump and aqua-lung," stirred something in my memory from diving days long past, and had a pre-sale estimate of $300-$400; I thought I would have a go at bidding. I lost - it sold for $900.
 

Although the system was incomplete, I went away from the auction trying to recall where I had come across this piece of equipment in the past. It was not until some time later that the puzzle was answered. I was re-reading an old diving book that had held the interest of us young divers back in the mid-1950's, "The Marvellous Kingdom" by Pierre Labat - and there in the book were photos of this same apparatus. Translated from the French, the book describing the diving adventures of a group of French youths had made a big impression on our young minds. There were not many books available on diving in those early days of sport diving and we eagerly absorbed anything we could get our hands on in our quest to learn more about the new world we had ventured into. Labat's descriptions of diving played with our imaginations and were fodder for our aspirations to explore the ocean. Using homemade surface supplied gear Labat described his first dive:   Slowly I went in. At first the water was foamy against the glass, almost impenetrable; then the miracle happened. The sea closed around me; the light became liquid and without shadow. The world of man disappeared and my real life begun. At first I could see nothing but a deep blueness, a calm blue without blur or crack, only with here and there an arrow of deeper light like those that filter through the stained glass windows of a church or through the foliage of a forest interior, shafts of diffuse brightness, some slanting, some parallel, some even converging, like the spokes of a wheel, on some mysterious depth. With descriptions like this we were sold; in those days we didn't have, nor needed, underwater images on TV or in glossy dive magazines to hook us on diving. But Labat'ss book also describes dangers involved with diving and probably helped to instil some caution that helped us to survive. Likewise the book publishers sobering short note that followed the Preface by J.Y.Cousteau: 'We deeply regret to record that in August, 1953, Pierre Labat dived for the last time into the Marvellous Kingdom.'  It is a great book and well worth the read. However back to the piece of dive equipment that had attracted my attention at the auction. Following inquiries I tracked down the person from whom Kelly had obtained the apparatus. He informed me he had got it off one of his fellow workers when they were constructing the Wellington Harbour slipway, probably in the late 1950's. I also contacted Neil Walker who had won the auction bidding. Neil owns Stirlings Dive Shop in Auckland and had

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The brass and copper construction of this surface supply diving system, is of a quality this well-known Italian maker of dive helmets is renowned for. The double cylinder surface pump supplied air down to a copper reservoir tank strapped to the diverÆs back, then through a manifold to a twin hose mouthpiece assembly. The maker's plate on the tank states; Ditta Roberto Galeazzi - La Speizia - Apparecchi Per Lavori Subacque A Qualsiasi Profonditaö (Company Roberto Galeazzi - La Spezia û Equipment For Underwater Works - At Any Depth). The apparatus enabled Labat and his young fellow divers to make the transition from vertical diving using primitive open helmets, to free-swimming in a horizontal position.  They later went on to use Commeinehes GC 47 and Cousteau-Gagnan scuba systems, but it was the primitive surface supply systems that first opened the doors to the 'Marvellous Kingdom' for these young divers. Many older readers will no doubt recall experiences with using similar equipment in their endeavours to enter the submarine world those many years ago.

As told by George Wookey to David Strike

Up until the sixties, the major advances in diving technology were driven by big budget, military programmes.  Extending the depth limits to which a diver might safely go - and still be capable of performing meaningful work when he got there - had a practical purpose. Submarine rescue and recovery was the incentive behind the series of Deep Diving trials conducted by the British Admiralty during the thirties, forties and fifties.  Setting out to extend the deep diving limits, the Royal Navy programme established a world depth record, in 1948, of 540-feet. Wearing a Siebe-Gorman helmet incorporating the Davis Injector system, flexible dress, and using the fast dwindling supplies of American Lend-Lease helium, Petty-Officer Bollard had set a depth record that was to last eight years before the baton passed to another. 

Just over fifty years ago (12 October 1956) Senior Commissioned Boatswain George Wookey, made a descent to 600-feet (183-metres), establishing a depth record for a surface-supplied, helmeted diver wearing flexible dress that has never been equalled. In this article OZTek Co-organiser and HDS SEAP member, David Strike, talks to George Wookey about his life of diving and that record breaking helmet dive.

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Joining the Royal Navy as a boy, about a year before the beginning of World War II, George Wookey transferred to the submarine service, before qualifying as a diver in August, 1944. Commissioned in 1948, Wookey was appointed to the Diving School in HMS Defiance, training X-Craft crews in submarine escape and boom defence net penetration, before, in 1949, being sent to HMS Reclaim - the Navy's deep diving experimental ship for deep diving training. It was a vessel that he returned to again in 1951, to assist in the search for the sunken submarine, HMS Affray, in which seventy-five men lost their lives entombed inside the hull. Perhaps as a natural consequence of a peacetime submarine disaster, there was an emphasis on trialing new methods of submarine rescue and recovery.  In June, 1956, George Wookey found himself once more aboard, Reclaim for trials of the Navy's new experimental one man observation chamber. Although the preliminary work took place at various sites off the west coast of Scotland, the deeper trials were held in the fjords of Norway where the one-man observation chamber made 37 dives to depths between 400 and 1060 feet. "At the same time that the chamber dives were taking place", recalls George Wookey, "a number of flexible-suited dives using various mixtures of oxy-helium were made to moderate depths.  The existing decompression tables, however, proved inadequate with a high proportion of the dives resulting in the bends. Clearly more investigation was necessary.  A team of physiologists from the RN Physiological laboratory re-assessed the former data and by August 1956, a new set of tables for depths ranging from 300 feet to 600 feet were supplied." At Fort William, in western Scotland, preliminary dives using the new tables proceeded normally and without incident. HMS Reclaim set sail for Norway, arriving at Osterfjord on the 10th October, 1956. Despite bad weather, and the loss of one of ReclaimÆs four anchors while mooring in deep water, diving operations began.  The first dive - to a scheduled depth of 450 feet - resulted in Chief Diver Bob Linscott and his SDC attendant contracting bends. Overnight Surg Cdr Bill Crocker and physiologist, Ray Hempleman, worked yet again on the decompression tables,

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 The date was still Friday, 12th October.  Our deadline was Sunday the 14th October, on which day the ship was scheduled to depart for our home base in Portsmouth.  It was important, since we had now achieved success at 450-ft., that we attempt to reach 600 feet - the main object of this series of experimental dives. The fact that this dive would have to be undertaken at night was of little consequence since there would be no material light - day or night - below about 200 feet.The decision taken, the work bench was lowered to 600 feet and two submarine lamps freely suspended from the bow of the ship to 260 feet and 600 feet, some 50 feet away from the work bench.  A final analysis of the gas mixture in the main storage cylinders and by 19:15 hrs that same evening all was ready. Normal deep diving routines for diving deeper than 300 feet was for the diver to make a normal descent on compressed air to 120 feet, then wait briefly at that depth while the composition of the breathing gas was changed to 9% oxygen, 91% helium.  The diver would then continue with the descent to, in this case, 600 feet.

With the preliminaries over and the routine tests completed, George Wookey entered the water and waited, half-floating, one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder and his helmet a couple of feet below the broken surface.

I watched the SDC - with my attendant, diver 'Geordie' Clucas, inside - slowly leave the surface, bubbles gushing briefly from the opened lower hatch as the rising air pressure within kept out the invading water.  Then suddenly the SDC vanished below me, the drone of the winch and the purchase wire, not two feet away, speeding it into the water to 220 feet, where Clucas would await my return from 600 feet. The order, "On to the shot rope and carry on down" boomed over my intercom.  Sliding down to 120 ft took less than one minute and the order to, "Stop!  Remove mouthpiece and start counting" came as no surprise, for this is where my normal air supply, ie Nitrogen/oxygen, would be substituted by the appropriate mixture of helium and oxygen.

 Helium is, of course, lighter than the nitrogen it replaces - approximately seven times lighter - and the vocal effects are quite startling making speech difficult to interpret by those unaccustomed to it. "Regain mouthpiece and carry on down." came the next order. Already it was much colder as the helium permeated my system. Within seconds my heavily booted feet were clanging on the side of the SDC where Clucas waited in his solitary confinement.  He waved through the open lower hatch as I sped past, the light from within dazzling me briefly and then rapidly diminishing as I left it far above me.

 The water turned from a bright, crystal clear, green to a deepening opaque, then finally, and quickly, complete blackness. Gradually I found my descent slowing and my legs tending to float upwards as I slid down the shot rope and I realised that my new found buoyancy was due to the increasing length of umbilical hose being paid out by my attendants on the surface. 
I knocked hard on my relief valve inside the helmet, releasing as much gas as I could.  Soon I could distinguish a faint, intermittent glow that increased steadily as I pulled myself down, hand over hand, to the work bench at 600 ft.

At last I'd made it.  "On the bottom",  I reported.  A remote voice jerked my mind back to the job in hand, "Your gauge depth is 600 feet.  Carry on with your work."  The screwed shackles secured by the previous diver had been screwed up tightly and seized with rigging wire. My exposed hands were fast becoming numb. Cold crept steadily through me and I had a passing thought,  'One of these days they'll invent heated suits!'. 

 After what seemed a lifetime the job was done and I reported, "Job completed". The order, "Stand by to come up", reached me.  I tried to clamber on to the top of the workbench but for some reason I was being restrained - the slack telephone breast rope secured to my helmet had caught under the suspended bench, and as those on the surface pulled so I was being dragged under the bench. After a frightening few minutes of struggle to clear myself and not being able to make myself understood over the intercom, I was, at last, free and hung there, briefly exhausted, before the long ascent to my first decompression stop at 260 feet. This was to take 12 minutes, and allowed plenty of time for reflection:  Thankful that I had been able to pull myself clear of the bench; elated that we had been able to prove that a diver could do useful work - possibly vital to a damaged submarine - under difficult conditions at 600 feet; and finally that I'd achieved a personal ambition of many years standing.

The increasing cold brought me back to reality.  I'd never been so cold in my life and my exposed hands were really hurting.  My fingers seemed swollen to the size of sausages. By 10 feet stages I reached 220 feet where I remained hanging on to the steel ladder suspended from the opened lower hatch of the SDC.  After 10 minutes the SDC was raised to 210 feet where Clucas waited to assist me into the SDC. 

"Let me be the first to congratulate you, George!", he said as he removed my helmet - releasing air line and telephone breast rope from the helmet so that they might be pulled to the surface, then shutting the lower hatch and enclosing us both within the confined space of the SDC. At 200 feet the gas mixture reverted to oxy/nitrogen.  The SDC was then hoisted inboard with Clucas and myself remaining inside to complete our tediously long decompression in ten-foot stages to 30 feet.

The last decompression stop at 10 feet seemed interminable, but was in fact only 30 minutes.  I had become numb to the discomfort after about six hours since leaving the surface and I was so cold! Slowly the pressure dropped to atmospheric and I stretched upwards to hammer the clips off the upper hatch of the SDC when, to my dismay, I felt the distinctive pain creeping along my arms and across my back. I felt transfixed and scared, having had several bends in the past, the last serious one having landed me in the hospital.  I knew what a bend in the back could mean. Clucas scrambled over and past me and through the upper hatch. "Better haul him out quickly!",  I heard him say.  Four hands grabbed me by my upraised arms and yanked me bodily out of the SDC and I followed headlong into the main RCC after Clucas.  The door slammed shut, compressed air screamed into the RCC and within seconds the quickly mounting pressure slowly began to relieve the now intense pain in my arms and back.

 Five hours later, at 07:35 on the 13th October, I crawled tiredly out of the main recompression chamber and into a hot tub in the sick-bay.

George Wookey had proven that it was possible for a flexible suited diver operating from the surface to do useful work perhaps vital to a sunken submarine, and in depths that just a few years previously was thought to be impossible.  His efforts were honoured with an M.B.E.

During 1957 the Royal Navy abandoned this form of deep diving as being too hazardous to the individual diver and concentrated their efforts instead on developing the principle of diving from a manned underwater capsule from which a diver could emerge at the operating depth on the end of a short umbilical whilst closely attended and observed from within the capsule.

"Such", says George Wookey philosophically, "is progress!".

George's subsequent diving exploits were varied and numerous and included, in 1961, being sent on loan to the Royal New Zealand Navy where he commanded the diving school and deep diving vessel HMNZS Manawanui.  Returning to the UK, in January 1964, the next two years were spent with the Mediterranean Fleet Clearance Diving Team, based in Malta, as a Bomb & Mine Disposal Officer, during which time he was also sent to Aquaba to train Jordanian service personnel. Resigning from the Royal Navy in 1966, George Wookey bought a boat and immediately set sail for New Zealand, via the Suez Canal.  Arriving in Western Australia in May 1967, he established a commercial diving operation that he ran until his retirement in 1984. In October of 2006, George and his wife, Patrice, were invited back to Norway to attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of his world record-breaking deep diving achievement and the unveiling of a plaque in his honour on the side of the fjord where he had set his record, 50 years to the day after the original event.

Subsequently diagnosed with cancer, George Wookey passed away on Wednesday 21st March (2007) at the Busselton Hospice in Western Australia, close to his home. 

By John Osmond

I didn’t care if it was a six or 12 bolter when I heard the news that a Siebe Gorman diving helmet was sitting on the floor at my mate’s place waiting to be picked up. It turned out to be a six bolter. I believe it’s an ex-Melbourne Ports and Harbours’ helmet which has been used for the shallower maintenance and wharf construction work as suggested in the Siebe catalogues of the day.
It was pleasing to find the corselet, brails, faceplate and helmet had the same matching serial number: #14461. Generally it was in good condition but unfortunately it had been a mantelpiece ornament and somebody had buffed all the tinning off, exposing the raw soldered joints. At the time I didn't realize this had affected its ability to keep out the salt water and during the first dive it leaked like a bloody sieve.
 

Having no intentions of half fixing the problems I set about removing all parts and fixtures. Taking a hot gas torch to your helmet is a nerve racking experience, but something I could not trust to anybody else. I was able to identify that the side lights were flat hand cut glass, not optically corrected and held in place by red-lead putty and some light cordage. The communications port wiring was set in bee's wax,  having a waterproofing effect as well, but a brass ‘comms’ cap must be used if you cannot attach a surface ‘comms’ line or the water pressure will force the wiring and wax into the helmet.  All washers for the face plate, exhaust valve, and corselet were leather of different thicknesses. There were old gasket paper packers under the corselet leather to adjust for the not-so-perfect mating rings. The interrupted thread was in good condition and just needed cleaning. The front faceplate was bent and the thread damaged (maybe it had been dropped at some stage). This took the most amount of time to repair and involved taking out the glass, and being shown an old trick of using a small wooden flat stick, soft piece of leather and a mixture of metal cutting paste and diesel to gently reform the threads.  I couldn't get a die to match the damaged ‘comms’ port thread. I was told that the threads were not standard profile and that manufacturers would often set their own to render their gear unusable if it fell into enemy hands. It sounded good anyway. So it was back to the stick paste and diesel. The soldering repairs involved cleaning the brass with a solvent and using a solder stick and gas torch to build up where they had buffed away. I think this is an area that could easily end in tears and recommend some practice before lighting up.

 It is easy to overheat the surface and lose more solder than you are putting in. This process also affects the beautiful brass patina finish to the helmet, so if you don’t want to dive with a shiny brass fish lure on your head, then take it slowly.

I also suggest you look at as many pictures as you can and read whatever you can lay your hands on. But this still doesn't cover it all and you will have to make some uninformed decisions. Putting everything back together didn't pose any problems and, yes, I did use authentic red-lead paste. So if you get to dive it you don't have to worry – it sets harder than concrete. New leather washers were all cut by hand and leather spacers were cut to go between corselet and brails. This prevents wings nuts being over tightened and distorting the curves of the brails when helmet is not attached to a suit. I haven't  reset the ‘comms’ in bees wax yet because I need to source a genuine Bakelite speaker for inside the helmet. Currently you can see where it has been broken off its mounting. The one speaker was used for both incoming and out going communications over and above line signals. In the mean time I have just installed a blank brass ‘comms’ cap, with a leather washer to seal it. 

My second dive in the helmet wasn’t as wet,  but water was still leaking in around the joint between corselet and helmet. I got a standby diver to note where the air was coming out after shutting exhaust and over pressuring the suit. The answer was a simple fix just needing some packing under one side of the neck ring washer. When I was at the Penguin Naval base in Sydney I was told how they check for leaks in the suit. They would put the suit and helmet together, stuff beer bottles down the arm cuffs, then hang the whole lot up by the helmet and fill the lot full of water. This would identify helmet and suit leaks in one hit. There was no way I was going to do that, because I can’t simply go to naval stores for a replacement anymore. And how the hell did you get the beer bottles out - break them?    Currently the things left to do include getting the ‘comms’ up and running. This must be genuine parts though. And I need to try and find an airline regulator valve. My vintage Siebe didn’t have a helmet mounted inlet valve because air volume was controlled by the hand pump attendants on the surface. Not a smart option if you’re using compressed air. I must say I’ve dived helmets with a chin activated exhausts and it makes life easier for the diver that just can’t get the in-gas and the out-gas balanced. I don’t think I will worry about the tinning, the exposed brass makes it look like it’s done some work and I can assure you it won’t be spending to much time on the mantel piece if I can help it. 
I would like to thank all the people that helped with parts knowledge and encouragement Des Williams, Jeff Maynard, Mal Venturoni, Rob Conn-the leather guy, The Thread and Die guys from Dandenong, the retired Naval divers from HMAS Penguin NSW, anybody that let me pick their helmet up turn it upside down and take photos and finally to any maritime museum curator that humored me while I went where the public was not supposed to go to obtain any tidbit of information I could get.
Photo and text, Copyright: John Osmond. 2007

By – Keith Gordon
 

In our younger diving days we often read in NZ newspapers, stories of the feats of commercial diver Les Subritzky. Later in the 1960’s, I met up with Les carrying out an inspection of the Apia, Samoa, wharf concrete pilings. While testing a Desco full facemask hooka rig on the newly constructed wharf, I had come across a number of piles where, underwater and out of sight, a number of pilings were minus their concrete casing, only the steel beam and wire cages existed. Les was by then a well- known commercial diver and was brought in from NZ to inspect the contractor’s work. Over the years since, I have read many antidotes on the underwater adventures of Les. Recently I visited his son Ken who kindly allowed me to look through old family scrapbooks of news and magazine articles reporting Les’s diving history - much more than can be related in an article such as this.  Les came from a seafaring family and as a small boy growing up in Northland, New Zealand; he read every book on the undersea world he could get his hands on. In 1937 at the age of 14, he built his first surface supplied underwater breathing rig using gas mask components and dived the system in the local river - he was bitten for life. During the War, Les was involved with constructing a harbour boom defence and the Navy supplied him with a basic oxygen diving apparatus to aid the work, he immediately stripped it down and modified the rig to work better than original. Following the War, Les worked for a period with TEAL at their Mechanics Bay, Auckland, flying boat base.  Working off ocean pontoons the mechanics often dropped tools and equipment into the drink. Les constructed a diving apparatus using an old fire extinguisher cylinder, a gasmask face-mask and breathing tube and a length of hose with a float used as a ‘snort’ tube for breathing out – this he stated, prevented bubbles near his head which caused vibrations in his ears. Using this rig and wearing shoes to protect his feet, Les would, with the aid of a 56-pound weight lowered by rope and hauled up later, submerge down to around eight-metres and recover the lost equipment. He could remain underwater by reaching behind when he required a breath, turn the valve on and off for air supply, then hold his breath, let it out and then repeat the performance.  The local press picked up on his diving activities and a feature appeared in the local papers on the “amateur frogman” who walked on the harbour bed and remained underwater for 30-minutes. Encouraged by the possibilities that lay underwater, Les thought there must be an easier way and made a demand-valve from information he found in an American magazine.

 After a lot of experimenting and modification he used this “terrible-looking” demand-valve for many years. Les later patented a demand regulator of his own design but earlier, using acquired wartime oxygen rebreather systems and equipment of his own manufacture including a homemade “dry-suit”, he had started to make a name diving around the Auckland waterfront carrying out various underwater tasks. This included police work; on one such callout he was required to search the harbour bed below a docked ship for a knife used in the slaying of a crew member. Ken recalls Les received threats on his family if he searched for the knife but re-assured by the police of their protection, he went ahead and found the killers knife on the seabed below the ship. 

Les designed and made several underwater camera housings and took some of the first underwater movie film recorded in NZ. His movie camera housings were pieces of art and one was fitted with an “aqualung” system to equalize the housing pressure. He made the majority of his equipment on the basis that he knew he could rely on it and was not depending on others for his safety. He recorded many underwater scenes on film including in 1955, his exploration of the wreck of the Wiltshire in a depth of 100 feet. With the advent of television and using a studio TV camera (long before hand held video cameras), Les made an underwater TV system designed for use to 180 feet. He first used the system to survey an oil leak in the stern tube of the MV Rangitane.
 Shipwrecks that dotted the coastline had at that time, had little salvage work carried out on them and attracted Les’s attention. These included the Wiltshire, the Waiarapa and the Elingamite, all wrecks which had been only dived previously by helmet divers. One story told to me, was of when Les decided to have a go at salvaging the condenser off the Wiltshire, sunk 1922 off Great Barrier Island. In need of explosives, he anchored off the Auckland Naval Base and rowed ashore to cajole a supply of explosives. However not having any suitable explosive material, Les was given a number of old squid bombs to use. By now the weather had come up and he was unable to row the bombs back out to the dive vessel, so he loaded them onto the back of an old pickup he used. For the next week he drove around Auckland with the squid bombs on the back of the truck before he got them loaded aboard. Things concerning underwater salvage were done different then!
Les dived the Elingamite at the Three Kings Islands on his own. When surfacing after a 20-minute dive he found he was being swept away from the surface vessel by a strong tidal current – he was lucky a crewmember spotted him and a huge relief when the boat recovered him a short distance from rocks. He would later recall that among all his dives, this was one of the closest he had to death.
In February 1955, Les made what was reported as the deepest free-diving descent using scuba in NZ waters when he dived to 180-feet, and on March 7 the following year, he dived to 250-feet breaking the Australasian depth record. The dive lasted seven minutes and was carried out under the auspices of the Mercury Bay Game Fishing Club who issued a certificate recording the dive and new record. A telegram dated that day to his wife, now in Les’s scrapbook, states, “ Successfully dived to 250 feet am OK – love, Les”. 
In April 1956 Les made a number of descents for the Ministry of Works beneath the sluice gates at the Whakamaru dam on the Waikato River, to tighten and replace countersunk screws that had become loose in the roller track. Using scuba Les worked in a narrow five-foot by two-foot channel with water 30-feet deep rushing past him at about 12-knots. A steel plate shield was positioned to give the diver some protection from the strong current while he worked however on his sixth dive, Les descended into the swirling waters below the sluice gate to inspect an obstruction. Without protection by the shield plate in the diversion channel, his equipment became entangled in some of the obstructing rubbish. Les realized he was in trouble and in desperation he freed himself from his entrapped gear. The strong force of the swirling water flow carried the diver through the diversion cut under the dam, a distance of about half a mile underground and underwater. Les had prepared for such a situation and had divers positioned downstream with a rope stretched across the river. He was pulled out in a semi-conscious state. On being questioned by the press about the incident, all Les would say was; “I took the risk and made it.” 

His underwater exploits were often recorded in the Press, who by then had dubbed Les the name, “Submaritzky” and a 1966 issue of the Australian “People” magazine, featured a story on Les headlined, “Australasia’s Greatest Diver”. It was a time when the public held divers with some reverence and followed their adventures with great interest. One story often told was of Les’s “lucky watch” which he said he never dived without. The story stemmed from an incident when Les was working in Auckland harbour using an oxygen rebreather and a guide line tied to him. He had breathed his O2 down to near zero and was making his way up the anchor line when the guide line became taut, holding the diver ten-feet below the surface. With no knife, Les resorted to using the sharp edge of his watch back to cut through the line and reached the surface with practically no gas left. On reviewing this incident, Ken mentioned to me he still has Les’s dive watch, an Enicar, amongst his father’s belongings. 
Les Subritzky died in 2003 at the age of 80. Today, items of underwater equipment he made and used are displayed in museums and it is planned to record his early underwater film footage onto video – a fitting reminder of a diver who became a New Zealand diving legend. 
Picture and text copyright: Keith Gordon 2006

By Peter Illidge.
 

The role of Torres Strait Islanders in pearling is currently being celebrated with a 12 month display at the Gab Titui Cultural Centre on Thursday Island (TI).  A highlight of this salute to pearling occurred in September 2006, when history was brought back to life with a historic-diving display at TI.  These activities were commissioned by the Torres Strait Regional Authority and carried out by Oceania Maritime. Torres Strait connections and innovations: The romantic vision of a diver drifting along in a Heinke helmet below a lugger while picking up shell, is often considered to be from a lost era and relegated to archival evidence.  However, tangible connections remain today in the form of the memories of still living (though elderly) ex-pearl divers and their vessels.

They are both getting on now but you can still talk to the old divers on TI plus look at old luggers such as the Antonia in Townsville and the Floria in Cairns, where this part of our maritime heritage is appreciated and conserved. 

Torres Strait Islanders were first to harvest the pearl oyster from the shallow waters surrounding their islands for food, tools, trade and adornment. The exploitation of pearl shell for commercial interests began in the 1860’s and soon depleted these easy-access shallow beds.  Thus, fishing attention was turned to new, deeper beds, which meant the introduction of standard dress diving to Torres Strait. 

In the large, cumbersome suit of the standard dress, the diver is kept completely dry and warm (if wearing the appropriate under-clothing inside the suit). While this is entirely necessary for Europe or the colder waters of Western Australia, it seemed overkill for the warm waters of Torres Strait.  Locals there soon modified it to produce the half suit. Old suits had their sleeves cut off just below the elbow or above the rubber cuff and the legs cut off at the crutch. These modifications allowed the diver to slip into the suit with little effort. Woollen long pants and shirt were worn underneath for some warmth when required and to alleviate chaffing. On their feet divers wore sandshoes both low cut or the ankle high basketball shoe or Dunlop dairy boots with the laces removed for ease of removal to shake out sand and other debris.

Adaptation through minimisation was taken one step further by many in Torres Strait, with the introduction of the ‘helmet only’ rig.  This consisted of helmet and corslet only. Weights were added fore and aft to the corslet to counteract the helmets buoyancy, and anti-chafe shoulder pads were fashioned from old blankets to stop the helmet wearing a hole in your shoulder.  Woollen shirt and pants, plus a pair of sandshoes completed the rig. This very simple outfit was perfect for Torres Strait conditions.  Compared to the cumbersome standard dress, it also allowed for quick diver dress in, and reduction in diver turn-around times. 

The cultural connection between pearlshell and Torres Strait Islander life began hundreds of years ago and continues in strength today.  While the golden era of commercial pearling has long gone, it is kept alive in memories and celebrated in many activities, including song and dance.  The current display on TI, ‘the first pearlers’, celebrates this connection from pre-European contact, through the commercial period, and to the present day.  In September last year we had the privilege of bringing a little piece of this history out of the gallery at the cultural centre and back to life in the turquoise waters of TI harbour.

Bringing history to life.

This diving demonstration was the first hard-hat diving to take place in the Strait since the 70’s.  It included a standard dress dive, then a helmet only dive to highlight the Torres Strait modifications.

Though TI is riddled with experienced divers from the crayfishing industry, there are not a lot of experienced standard dress divers under seventy years old.  Thus we put a team together from the Townsville area. The team consisted of Denis Lee Sye, Brendan Furey, my wife Libby and our three kids. Den and Libby are both level 2 commercial divers, Brendan a diving instructor and the kids, well when are they too young to have an adventure like this. The advantage of taking so many people is that you have all that extra baggage allowance to get gear up on the plane with you rather than putting it on the barge from Cairns. 

Having previously lived in Torres Strait for seven years, we had the advantage of an extensive network of interested friends through whom we could organise logistics and bludge gear and accommodation. The Hughes family provided the umbilical and Matt Connor of Peddels Ferry Service lent the SCUBA tanks. We set up a basic SSBA kit with the air running through a two-diver panel. Rather than run a noisy compressor while trying to narrate the activity, we hooked-up two SCUBA cylinders to the panel  (one as back up for the other).  Brendan dressed in with SCUBA gear as stand by diver, just in case.

The chosen day dawned with blue skies and clear water, and more importantly, neap tides so that we avoided the typically strong TI currents.  There was a buzz of excitement as we set up the gear and the crowd gathered.  Around 160 people were soon lining the wharf waiting for the action to start.  As we were setting up, Brendan did a great job entertaining the crowd with a resin replica helmet we had borrowed from the cultural centre display.  He took it around the crowd for onlookers to try on, to get some semblance of what it felt like to look at life through a helmet.  Comments ranged from ‘wow this is unreal’ to ‘get the bloody thing off me’. 

I started the show with a brief recount of the history of diving, followed by a commentary as we dressed Den in for the full suit dive. We used my Korean helmet and suit with Heinke weights and boots. The standard dress dive went well with the crowd breaking into spontaneous applause as Den came up the ladder, which was very moving. We then had photo opportunities with the diver, and some of the old-timers had their photo taken with him.  Poor Den – this went on for a while and we probably should have taken the weights off him at least.

I did the helmet only dive, which also went well and without incident. During my commentary I encouraged people to come in close and have a look and heft the gear and ask questions. 

After the demonstration, the offer was made to dress some of the onlookers into the gear.  Those that accepted included young Torres Strait Islanders whose relatives had participated as divers during the commercial pearling days.  It was an emotional experience, despite not being able to actually dive with the gear. 

For us, perhaps the best part of the demonstration was getting to meet some of the old divers and seeing the enthusiasm felt by young people for their history. Thursday Island is a multi cultural melting pot and is well worth immersing oneself in if given the chance. I was well pleased with the turn out but was moved when one of my friends said ‘you would have had an even bigger turn out if the demonstration had not coincided with the burial of one of the old divers on (nearby) Hammond Island’. 

We must preserve our diving heritage. 

Text and picture Copyright Peter Illidge, Oceania Maritime, 3 Warboys St, Magnetic Island 4819. 
email: oceaniamc@bigpond.com.au

By Mel Brown
 
 

The first readily available air supplied scuba in the Sydney region was the ‘Lawson Lung’, so named due to in being made in John Lawson’s Greenwich Industries factory at Greenwich, North Sydney. Scuba historian Mel Brown explains the development and operation of this early unit.  Prior to 1952 a few Sydney based members of the Underwater Spear Fishermen’s Association (USFA) began using wartime Salvus lung-operated self-contained breathing equipment. Initially these had been made available by Pat Williams, a former navy diver who also provided expert technical guidance on their use. Later Salvus units became readily available through wartime equipment disposal stores. The Salvus units consisted of a steel cylinder containing 16 cu. ft. of oxygen at a pressure of 1800 psi, a hand-adjustable valve cock, an inflatable rubber bag (worn across the back of the neck), a metal can containing soda-lime and corrugated rubber connecting tubes of the type used on wartime gas masks.

Pat Williams successfully designed a unit which eliminated the soda-lime container, replacing the inflatable bag with a flexible rubber bag of ‘concertina’ design which expanded and contracted as the breath was drawn and exhaled. This unit was equipped with a dial indicator showing the rate of consumption from the oxygen cylinder.
Although the dangers of using pure oxygen below 33 ft were well understood and deeper dives up to 120 ft were being carried out with the cylinder charged with a mixture of 60% nitrogen and 40% oxygen, a growing death toll made the development of an air breathing apparatus essential.

Sydney divers were aware of the invention of the Cousteau/Gagnan Aqualung but none of these units were available in Australia. This led to group of Sydney diving enthusiasts, all members of the USFA, to band together in an attempt to build their own. An article in ‘Popular Mechanics’ provided the impetus to build a unit using an aircraft oxygen diluter, although the particular diluter recommended in ‘Popular Mechanics’ was not available. Their first scuba unit was made in a small factory in Day Street, Sydney that constructed juke boxes. This led to this unit being known as the ‘Day Street Juke Box Lung’.

It was first tested at Obelisk Beach, and while it worked up to a point it performed so badly it was scrapped shortly afterwards.
It was becoming apparent that time spent experimenting with the basics was required. Various high pressure regulators were dismantled and design features noted. Sketches of a possible demand regulator were drawn. This process was halted in the summer of 1952/53 when a genuine Cousteau/Gagnan regulator was acquired on loan from Emil Landau, a Hong Kong based French business-man who often spent time in Sydney. It was tried out at Smedley’s Point near Manly, with trial dives being a complete success. The unit was then quickly dismantled and careful note taken of its individual components before being re-assembled and returned to its owner. Within a month the group had produced their first run of twenty units. The machining of parts and the assembly and testing was carried out at John Lawson’s jewellery factory at Greenwich, North Sydney.
Although this unit was based on Cousteau’s Aqualung it was modified in some areas to take advantage of parts readily available from disposal stores, which were beyond the group’s capacity to produce.

The brass cans which comprised the two halves of the demand regulator were spun on steel moulds machined by the group, altogether some 500 cans being spun. Dies, drill jigs and master patterns were used to ensure all parts were interchangeable. 
The original large cloth impregnated rubber demand diaphragms underwent several quick updates to finally be moulded of rubber with four teats to which the backing plate was easily fixed.

The first underwater tests were of short duration as a practical method of filling cylinders had yet to be devised. The divers were excited to be able to stay down at the deepest part of Clovelly Pool and breathe comfortably, but while still exerting themselves. Early experiments determined that breathing was easier in a swimming position with the demand valve below the chest, resulting in a unique harness design which carried the regulator across that area.

A high pressure hose was used to bring the air from two inverted tanks carried on the back and attached to the regulator harness. The regulator was attached by rings to the harness allowing an easy method of ditching the unit if an emergency occurred.
Initially ex-aircraft 38 cu. ft. oxygen cylinders were used but when these went off the market it left only the smaller 27 cu.ft. size available.

The problem with obtaining a high pressure air supply for filling cylinders was solved when John Lawson installed a large four-stage Gibb and Miller compressor at his Greenwich factory. This compressor supplied 30 cu.ft. of air per minute at 3500 psi. This compressor had six filters, the first three removing moisture, the last three remaining clean.
Another version of the “Lawson” lung was made by Jack Hogg using the facilities of the Eveleigh Railway workshop. Jack made about 12 units, discontinuing production when warned by Don Linklater he was infringing on Cousteau’s patent.

The Lawson Lung was used in the Australian film ‘King of the Coral Sea’. In this film actor Charles ‘Bud’ Tingwell dons a Lawson Lung before swimming down to rescue Chips Rafferty who was diving traditional helmet gear and had got his air line stuck. Well done Bud!

Text and picture are copyright: Mel Brown 2006