Seventeen Fathoms Deep: The Saga of the Submarine S-4 Disaster by Joseph A. Williams

Author:Joseph A. Williams [Williams, Joseph A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Published: 2015-08-31T22:00:00+00:00

It was the quartermaster, hastening down from the Falcon’s chart house, who first greeted Ellsberg. They knew each other from the S-51. Ellsberg wrote that this exchange occurred:

“Where’s Hartley?” asked Ellsberg.

“Turned in, sir,” replied the quartermaster.

Ellsberg then inquired about other officers he knew from the Falcon.

At last the quartermaster said, “I tell you, Commander, we’re all dead on this ship from what we’ve been through all day long in this storm, and now that we can’t dive, everybody has turned in. We’re at anchor, and I am simply the anchor watch.”

“All right,” said Ellsberg. “What’s going on?”

“Well, the only thing that’s going on is we’ve got some divers that were tangled down below in the recompression tank.”

The quartermaster then told Ellsberg the story of Michels and how, after being pulled up to the surface, was thrust in the tank. “It looks bad for Mike,” said the quartermaster.

Ellsberg headed to the decompression chamber and opened the first round door that took him into the iron doctor’s antechamber. He was shut in, then he turned on a valve that released compressed air. Because of the mechanics of compression, the air was warm—Ellsberg thought it hot enough that he removed his overcoat, hat, and mittens. The design of the chamber was such that the door to the interior compartment would only open when the pressure of the antechamber was nearly equal with it. This was to prevent compressed air from escaping the inside. Occasionally, Ellsberg would impatiently test the inner door, which would not budge until the pressure equalized.

Finally the door opened and Ellsberg peered within. Ellsberg later wrote:

My heart sank at what I saw. On the deck, naked, stiff, unconscious, lay Fred Michels whom last I had parted from long months before at the Navy Yard in New York. Working over him, one on each side, chafing his muscles, rubbing him with hot towels, were Tom Eadie and Bill Carr, striving desperately to bring him to.

Ellsberg knelt beside the divers, who offered no verbal recognition that their old commander had returned. In dribs and drabs Ellsberg learned what had happened. Michels’s fouling, Eadie’s incredible rescue, and how, with a foaming mouth and eyes rolled back, Michels had to be cut from his suit. The divers had found him as stiff as a board and had been working on him for more than two hours. They had tried to give him something to drink, but his teeth were clenched. It was only a few minutes before Ellsberg arrived, at 3:30 AM, that they had managed to get a hot drink down his throat.

Ellsberg studied Michels, looking at his pale, still face.

Then, suddenly, Fred Michels’s eyes fluttered open.

“Why, hello, Mr. Ellsberg!” Michels said. “What are you doing here?”

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