Descent into Darkness by Edward Raymer

Author:Edward Raymer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781612511023
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

VI

USS West Virginia

FIRE PHENOMENON

On the day of the attack, the West Virginia was struck by seven torpedoes that opened a three-hundred-foot-long hole in her port side. A wall of burning fuel oil from the stricken Arizona surrounded her. The order was given to abandon ship.

Tugboats came alongside in a vain attempt to extinguish the flames. They were met with a fire phenomenon not seen before. As the flames were controlled in one area, fire broke out in adjacent spaces. The blaze was not contained for thirty hours, and it caused considerable damage to the interior of the ship.

It was later determined that this peculiar aspect of the fires was caused by burning oil-based paint on one side of a bulkhead igniting paint on its opposite side. The navy learned a valuable lesson in the future maintenance of naval ships from this disaster.

Warships were stripped of all oil-based paint and repainted with fire-retardant paint. This requirement saved many ships and lives that might otherwise have been lost to the ravages of fire.

WE GET A LESSON IN DIVING

Our team began to survey the long gash in the West Virginias side to determine the best salvage method to raise her.

This preliminary survey would give Pacific Bridge engineers the information needed to plan the type of external patches needed and alert the shipyard to the magnitude of work that lay ahead.

We were getting ready to put the first diver over the side when I spotted Bosun McClung in a boat signaling us that he was coming alongside. Accompanying him was a huge chief petty officer. The two men stepped aboard the barge, and McClung introduced the chief.

“Men, this is Chief Duggs, master deep-sea diver. He was my diving instructor at the Deep Sea Diving School.” The bosun continued, “He was one of the heroes from the submarine Squalus salvage job. I requested Washington to transfer him here to give us a hand, since he is an acknowledged salvage expert.”

The chief was an enormous man, dwarfing most of us. He was six feet five inches in height and weighed 275 pounds. There were traces of gray in his brown curly hair, and his face was craggy, deeply tanned and weather-lined, clearly identifying him as a man who had spent much of his life out-of-doors.

“The chief will give us the benefit of his expertise, and he will be attached to the Salvage Unit at the shipyard. He will be directing the efforts to survey the damaged areas on the West Virginia. He’ll be responsible for making a sketch of the underwater damage and will then submit it to me. You men have much to learn from the chief about salvage.” So saying, the bosun boarded his boat and headed back to Ten-Ten Dock.

The successful salvage effort in raising the sunken submarine Squalus in 1939 was a heralded event throughout the U.S. Navy, and the circumstances of its salvage were known to every diver. Our diving crew felt privileged to have one of its bemedaled heroes onboard to give us the benefit of his experience.

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