In the Navy, drowning is the greatest single cause of death in time of peace, and, in time of war, death as the result of drowning or exposure exceeds total deaths from all other causes combined. Of the total World War II naval deaths of 62,114 officers and men, then, in excess of 31,000 lost their lives as the result of drowning or exposure after abandoning ship. This heavy loss of life was riot unavoidable and could have been greatly reduced had we had satisfactory life saving and accessory equipment and had our personnel been properly trained in the use of it.
We go to great lengths and devote much time, energy, and money in an effort to safeguard our personnel from disease, injury, and death from many causes. Much effort is directed toward the elimination or mitigation of even the most minor hazards. These hazards are recognized as such and the protective or corrective measures are generally obvious. But more serious thought and attention should be given to the hazard, drowning or fatal exposure which accounts for more deaths in the Navy in time of war than all other hazards combined. While we have recognized the hazard, we have accepted it without inquiring too closely into what could be done to overcome it. Neither the importance nor the nature of the problem of survival at sea has been well understood.
That the importance of live saving and accessory equipment has not been recognized is somewhat surprising. Men have sailed the seas for centuries and countless lives have been lost because of the lack of such equipment. A thoroughly satisfactory life preserver, at least, might have been developed hundreds of years ago but, for some reason, until recent years little serious thought has ever been given to survival equipment. One explanation for this seems to be the universal belief that has persisted for centuries that death at sea by drowning is the one occupational hazard which must be accepted. There seems also to be some disposition in the Navy to consider that survival is dependent upon keeping the ship afloat so that there is then no need for survival equipment. It may be, too, that it is commonly assumed that all that can be done is being done.
We like to think—and often say—that no man is irreplaceable. This in individual cases is generally true. It is also true that the replacement of any considerable number of experienced officers and petty officers in time of war is always difficult and often impossible. We are all aware of the burdens borne during the last war by certain key officers and men and of the consequences as expansion of the operating forces outstripped the supply of nucleus personnel. The loss of a very small percentage of such personnel would have seriously weakened, if it had not virtually destroyed, the effectivenss of the organization of which they were a part. Apart from humanitarian, morale, or monetary considerations, the loss of veteran personnel is a matter of critical military importance.
Nor is life saving and accessory equipment unimportant in terms of money. The direct cost of such equipment purchased during the last war approximated $250,000,000. The new equipment now being developed and slowly introduced into service will be four to five times more costly.
Prior to the 19th century there is no record of survival equipment. Survivors of marine disasters were few and these few owed their lives largely to chance. During the 19th century various individuals from time to time experimented with life saving equipment, but their efforts aroused little interest and developments were not pursued. During World War I the balsa float was introduced into our Navy along with the kapok filled life preserver. Between World Wars I and II there was virtually no development of life saving equipment. The reason for this was that there was little interest in the subject and- there were no demands from the fleet for improved equipment. It was natural therefore for the technical Bureaus concerned to assume that the equipment in service was satisfactory and that there was no need for improved or additional equipment. Such limited money as was available in those years was spent on the development of other equipment of greater importance or in which there was more interest.
Prior to World War II, those responsible for the development of survival equipment were apparently not informed that some other life saving device would be required after the planned removal of the ships boats in the event of war. In any event, the vacuum created by the removal of the ships boats at the outbreak of war was filled by increased numbers of balsa floats and by the adoption of floater nets. The floater net was devised in England in 1935, tested, and found wanting. It was used in approximately equal ratio with the balsa float because no more satisfactory equipment existed.
Similarly, the need for an inflatable type life preserver for those stationed in hot or confined spaces and the need for various specialized type preservers had not been made known prior to the war and such preservers were not, of course, developed.
Upon the outbreak of World War II we were faced with the problem of developing new equipment and with the necessity for answering various questions on equipment allowances and other matters which might better have been answered in the years before the war. Since little factual data was available, the decisions made were necessarily based on incomplete information. We were not then prepared to develop the new equipment required nor could we turn to domestic or foreign sources for equipment to satisfy our needs. Satisfactory life saving equipment simply did not exist.
No single item of life saving or associated equipment withstood the test of war and all were to a greater or less degree unsatisfactory. The most satisfactory item of equipment in use during the last war and the one which by far saved the most lives was the kapok filled life preserver. Unfortunately, however, this preserver was defective in design in that the distribution of buoyancy was such that it would not automatically maintain a relaxed man in an upright position. This defect, not corrected during the war, accounts for the many reports telling of bodies being found floating face down. War experience proved the necessity for fitting crotch straps to this preserver and the desirability of adding a pin-on type light. Kapok was found to be dangerously inflammable, and flame proofed envelopes were necessary. It is unfortunate that these faults were not discovered and corrected during all the years that this preserver had been in service.
A knapsack type kapok filled preserver was developed during the war to replace or supplement the jacket type preserver. Although this preserver was developed many years after the jacket type preserver, it was inferior to that preserver and was, in fact, very unsatisfactory for service use. After this preserver was placed in service it was found that it had a number of design defects, the most important being that it provided no support for the head and therefore required positive effort on the part of the wearer to prevent drowning.
All of the various types of inflatable preservers developed during the war were unsatisfactory. The popular belt type proved to be so faulty that stocks were destroyed at the end of the war. Belt type preservers provided no support for the head and were therefore useless if the wearer lost consciousness. The preserver was not, of course, self righting and it required positive effort on the part of the wearer to maintain himself in an upright position. The so-called Mae West type inflatable preserver developed late in the war suffered from many defects.
Neither the balsa float nor the floater net proved to be satisfactory life saving devices. The floater net was, with equipment, so heavy that it was difficult to launch manually. When launched, the net invariably tangled. No satisfactory method of securing equipment to the net was found and many were killed ©r injured from the missile effect of this equipment in a seaway. The net had a bad tendency to roll up and enmesh men clinging to it and many who otherwise would have survived were drowned. Balsa floats are little more than shaped logs. Both devices were capable of supporting survivors but this merely duplicated the function of the life preserver. Experience during the war proved that the majority of men clinging to floats and floater nets will die within three days in tropic waters, and that survival will be limited to a period of hours in colder waters. This would indicate that the floats and floater nets are of very limited value and provide little more security than is provided by life preservers alone. Neither the float nor the floater net was entirely worthless, however, since they provided a rallying point for survivors, and the equipment which they carried was useful under some circumstances. They were definitely of psychological value. But the basic and controlling objection to floats and floater nets was that neither provided any protection from exposure.
The accessory equipment with which the floats and floater net were equipped was found generally to be unsatisfactory. The archaic wooden water breaker, a relic of a bygone day which had been in use for so many years without complaint, was found to be entirely unsatisfactory. The rations supplied were generally unacceptable as to type and were also improperly packaged. The fishing kits, although generally excellent for normal use, were found to be of no value on floats or floater nets. Fault in some degree was found with all other accessory equipment and changes were made when possible.
Our failure to develop satisfactory survival equipment cannot be explained entirely by a lack of foresight, by the age-old fatalism with regard to drowning at sea, or by any lack of appreciation of the importance of the problem. One of the basic reasons was that our organization was inadequate to deal effectively with the subject.
The ramifications of the survival problem are extensive as is indicated by the following division of responsibility in this field. The office of the Chief of Naval Operations exercises power of decision with regard to allowance lists for survival equipment, determines the acceptability of new items, and keeps the Bureaus concerned informed of the need for new or improved equipment. The Bureau of Ships is responsible for the development of the bulk of the items of life saving and accessory equipment as well as for stowage and other technical matters. Eleven branches in three major divisions of the Bureau of Ships are directly concerned with survival equipment, and many other branches are indirectly concerned. The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery determines the contents and packaging of first aid kits, and procures and stocks these kits. This Bureau also recommends to the office of the Chief of Naval Operations the quantity of water and the quantity and type of rations which should be provided. It is understood that the subject of survival embraces six medical fields. In the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts, the Subsistence Division is responsible for the packaging and supply of the abandon-ship rations, and the Clothing Division is responsible for the development of immersion suits for use in very cold waters. Most items of life saving and accessory equipment are general stores items, and the purchasing and stocking of these items as well as the determination of stock levels is the responsibility of the General Stores Supply Officer. The Bureau of Ordnance designs, packages, procures, and stocks the pyrotechnic devices for abandon-ship purposes. Training in the maintenance and use of survival equipment and in survival matters is the responsibility of the Bureau of Personnel. The Bureau of Aeronautics is responsible for airborne survival equipment, and their interests parallel those for surface ship equipment in many respects. The Coast Guard and several branches of the Army develop or are interested in marine life saving equipment.
During the war we were generally quick to recognize and profit from our own mistakes and those of our enemies. Relatively little attention was paid, however, to the events subsequent to the sinking of a ship and no systematic analysis was made of all available facts relating to the experiences and recommendations of survivors. Although many Courts of Inquiry and Boards of Investigation examined into the circumstances attending the loss of ships, the members of such courts and boards were not usually versed in survival matters and, when such losses were considered singly, the pattern of events was not as clear as it would have been had the survival aspects of such cases been centrally reviewed. Since no one office in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations was responsible for survival matters as a whole and since, in some cases, responsibility was not clearly fixed within a Bureau, information was not completely disseminated to all concerned, continuity of action was often lacking, and there was no effective follow-up procedure to periodically check progress in the development of equipment.
Various agencies and individuals during the last war proposed additional equipment from time to time. There was no medium whereby these proposals could be jointly considered by all directly and indirectly concerned. When individual items are separately considered, it is inevitable that those which might prove useful under some circumstances will be added. This was the thought behind the addition of the fishing kit to the allowance lists for the balsa float and the floater net. It is not clear how it was intended that fishing gear be used by a man immersed in water up to his neck or how he was to cope with a fish in the event he caught one. There were no clearly defined limits on the weight and space which might be allocated to accessory equipment, and no effort was made to differentiate between essential and desirable equipment. It finally developed that the weight of equipment on the balsa float reached 180 pounds and that on the floater net 185 pounds, although only under the most extraordinary circumstances could much of this equipment ever have been used. The weight of rations on the 25 man float was 100 pounds for a planned survival period of three days, although food is not essential to survival for this period in warm waters; and in other than tropic waters, as will be seen, personnel could not survive long enough to have any interest in food.
All items of life saving equipment are interrelated and cannot be separately considered. Allowances for equipment proposed independently were usually approved because, considered separately, there was no way to tell whether or not the proposed allowance was correct. Who could say, offhand, whether we should have six, twelve, or two dozen pyrotechnic flares for each boat and float? Flares are not essential to survival and can only be considered after essential items are provided, and even then only in relation to available total weight and space and to other signalling devices such as dye markers, radar reflectors, radios, mirrors, and brightly colored panels. Should the equipment be the same for district craft as for a carrier or that on a carrier the same as on a destroyer?
There was no effective coordination between technical and operational personnel, nor between the technical and other personnel of the several Bureaus concerned. Central direction was lacking. The need for particular items of equipment was often not made known, nor in any case were the requirements the equipment should satisfy stated by operational personnel. This was left to the Bureaus concerned. But technical personnel rarely have had experience at sea, and their knowledge of operational conditions is often incomplete. A problem must be known before it can be solved, and it was not to be expected that the problem could be defined by technical personnel unaided. Experience has repeatedly demonstrated that the problems must be stated jointly by operational and all technical personnel concerned before they can be intelligently attacked. Independent uncoordinated work was more apt to create than to solve problems.
The various Bureaus exercised exclusive control over the items for which they were responsible and were free to initiate developments without reference to other Bureaus indirectly concerned. There was no effective way in which the interests of all could be represented or in which the knowledge of all could be pooled. Once development had been completed and large stocks obtained, there was little that could be done if it was then found that the new item did not satisfy the related requirements of all concerned.
It has been common practice for work in various fields to proceed independently. In developing the survival ration it was assumed that a certain quantity of water would be provided. The food required will depend on the water provided, and the water on the food. Both will depend on the degree of protection afforded by the craft in which the survivors are embarked, the clothing worn, and other factors.
During the war few if any items of equipment were thoroughly tested prior to being placed in service. Much of the testing was done in swimming pools where conditions differ from those at sea. Too often the faults with various items of equipment were revealed by reports of survivors or the mute evidence of those who did not survive. Experience has proved that merely to submit equipment to the operating forces for test and evaluation is not enough. It is clear that to be of value the evaluation should be conducted jointly by technical and operational personnel. Unless this is done there is danger that unsatisfactory equipment will be unwittingly accepted for service use or that recommendations of the forces afloat which are indicative of incomplete knowledge will be acted upon. Operational personnel cannot be expected to be conversant with survival equipment design or the past record any more than technical personnel can be expected to know in detail the operational requirements equipment should satisfy.
The files contain a wealth of little known data on all aspects of the survival problem. This data has never been catalogued and is not known or readily available today to all concerned. Many suggestions from survivors of possible merit were never investigated or considered because they never came to the attention of those responsible, because responsibility was not clear, or because a particular individual who might not have had any appreciation or comprehension of the situation did not choose to act. To have attempted to follow up a promising suggestion, particularly one involving divided responsibility or joint action of personnel of two or more Bureaus, would have involved considerable effort and administrative difficulty.
Some progress in the development of improved survival equipment has been made since the end of the war. All life preservers have been, and all accessory equipment has been, or is being, redesigned. But the most fundamental change in survival equipment and the one about which there seems to be the most misunderstanding is the replacement of balsa floats and floater nets with inflatable boats.
It was stated previously that the basic objection to the balsa float and to the floater net was that neither provided any protection from exposure. The importance of this fact is to be judged from the following tabulation, compiled from various authoritative sources, of the time to unconsciousness and death when immersed in waters of various temperatures:
Water Temperature Degrees (F) |
Approximate Time to Exhaustion or Unconsciousness (hours) |
Death (hours) |
32 |
¼ |
¼ - 1 ½ |
50 |
½ -1 |
1-2 |
60 |
2-4 |
6-8 |
70 |
3-7 |
? |
80 |
12 |
relatively safe |
These figures, arresting as they are, do not fully state the case. In many instances the time to unconsciousness and death has been much less and depends on many variables. Even in the warmest ocean waters (about 83°F), death will take place within three days in the majority of cases from the cumulative and various effects of exposure and other factors.
The table makes clear that protection from exposure is the first requirement, transcending in importance all other considerations. It is useless to consider food, water, and various equipment until means are provided that enable personnel to survive long enough to use it. Means must be provided not only to support men clear of the water but also to protect them from the sun in the tropics and the cold air in higher latitudes. The only practicable means of providing the required protection within naval space and weight limitations is by means of inflatable boats. Inflatable boats must be provided in number sufficient to embark the full complement.
During the comprehensive trials of life saving and accessory equipment jointly conducted by technical and operational personnel off Key .West, Florida, Balboa, Canal Zone, and Argentia, Newfoundland, in February-April, 1951, it was proved by a number of volunteers that the new inflatable boats would permit survival without impairment of health for at least five days with current food and water allowances. Off Argentia the volunteers, clad in usual clothing and equipped with life preservers, jumped overboard in water at a temperature of 39°F and boarded the inflatable boat. It was found that the boat, fitted with a double canopy but without a separate heat source, provided adequate protection. In connection with the prevalence of cold waters over vast areas of the globe, it is interesting to note that at the time the water temperature off Argentia was 39°F, it was 45°F off the Virginia Capes. In criticizing the inflatable boats it should be remembered that in the conditions off Argentia the men could not have survived for as long as a day had they embarked in an open boat instead of in the covered inflatable boat. All would have died of exposure and, even in tropic waters, men in open boats would under usual conditions endure great hardships over a five-day period. Unlike rigid boats, also, inflatable boats weighing, complete with all survival equipment, less than 300 pounds can be readily launched and boarded from the water. In seas too rough for launching and using rigid boats, the inflatable boat would be invaluable for picking up survivors.
Inflatable boats are not new. They have been in existence for at least thirty years and might have been developed prior to that had an effort been made to do so. Although the information available on the effects of exposure was not as complete or as well documented prior to the war as it is now, it was common knowledge that personnel immersed in cold waters could not long survive. It was known also that cold waters, 60°F or below, exist over very wide areas of the globe throughout the year. Under the circumstances it is surprising that no effort was made to develop inflatable boats for general use in surface warships many years ago.
There are a number of objections to inflatable boats. They are vulnerable, complex, and expensive. Extensive training in the maintenance and use of these boats will be required. We must, however, learn to live with them. There is no alternative. Our losses in the last war, heavy as they were, would have been far greater had it not been for the fact that most of our ships went down in warm waters with rescue generally taking place within a few hours.
The design of a satisfactory inflatable boat is not, as experience has proved, merely a technical problem which can be left entirely in the hands of a single Bureau. The cooperation of operational and the technical and other personnel of several Bureaus is required. One of the controlling design factors is the maximum permissible gross weight of boat and equipment. This question can.be answered by operational and not by technical personnel. In almost all ships it will be necessary to stow some of the inflatable boats under overhangs, in passageways, or in interior spaces adjacent to the main deck. It will always be necessary that boats so stowed be launched manually. And in the event a ship is abandoned prior to sinking, it will be highly desirable, particularly in cold waters, that all boats, regardless of where stowed, be manually launched. The total permissible gross weight of boat and equipment which can conveniently be handled manually aboard ship under the worst conditions likely to be encountered can be determined only after comprehensive tests aboard ship. This weight will determine the size and, to some extent, the design of the boats as well as the quantity and variety of boat equipment which might be provided. Equipment essential to survival for the planned survival period must be provided and other equipment may be added, in order of priority, up to the maximum permissible weight. The packaging of equipment for use in inflatable boats becomes important in that it may damage or destroy the boats. Packaging should not be determined independently without determining whether it is satisfactory for the use intended. The design of the equipment itself will be influenced by such considerations as that it must withstand, when packed with the boat in the boat carrying case, drops of sixty feet onto water or ten feet onto a steel deck. No equipment is as important as the boat itself. The survival problem is largely medical in nature, and in the design of inflatable boats the advice and assistance of a medical officer having special knowledge of the survival problem would be invaluable. The problems in the development of survival equipment are so numerous and cover such a wide field that the cooperative efforts of all concerned are required on a continuing basis. Coordination by informal efforts at cooperation cannot be effective.
Equipment in itself is of little value if personnel are not trained in the maintenance and use of it. With the equipment in use during the last war little maintenance was required and very little instruction in the use of the equipment was necessary. High maintenance standards will be demanded with the new inflatable equipment and considerable training in the use of it will be necessary. It may be found necessary or desirable to incorporate a knowledge of the maintenance requirements for the new inflatable and other equipment into the shipfitter or other rating. All officers and men should be trained in the use of the new equipment and in the salient points of survival. This could be accomplished, perhaps, by training films and routine instruction periods. A handbook on survival at sea, now being prepared, dealing with all aspects of the subject could be used for general instruction purposes. Experience indicates that lessons learned in the past at a price tend soon to be forgotten unless this knowledge is recorded and made accessible to all concerned. With good equipment and well trained personnel, loss of life at sea could be radically reduced.
Since life saving equipment and the survival problem encompass a broad field involving several Bureaus, the matters relating to survival at sea must be closely coordinated. Even if it were practicable to assign controlling responsibility for life saving matters, including the essential medical and training aspects of survival, to a single Bureau, close coordination with operational personnel on an administratively workable basis would still be essential. Survival at sea is a single subject having many ramifications and not, separately and independently, a medical, a training, an operational, and a variety of technical problems.
The auxiliary survival equipment problems have now been partially solved at the working level between the Bureau of Ships, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, and the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts. It is suggested, however, that the necessary coordination and central direction of effort can best be achieved by assigning responsibility for survival at sea matters to one specific office in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations. It is envisioned that representatives of the various Bureaus concerned, Operational Development Force, representatives of the Coast Guard, and various interested branches of the Army meet periodically as thought necessary, under the chairmanship of the designated Chief of Naval Operations representative, to jointly consider all matters relative to survival at sea. The group so organized would be responsible for the drafting of coordinated requirements for survival equipment in terms that would give adequate guidance to the technical personnel engaged in the solution of the problems presented, would periodically review progress in the various fields of endeavor, and would pass final judgment not only on the acceptability of new items of equipment but on all other survival at sea matters which might arise. In this manner all available knowledge from domestic and foreign sources could be brought to bear on the problems presented, the efforts of all could be closely coordinated and a high degree of mutual understanding developed. No Bureau would be empowered to independently initiate research and development work in this field nor to make final decision on the acceptability of the items of equipment developed. Control of the direction of effort and final power of decision would rest with the designated group under the chairmanship of the representative from the office of CNO.
While the organization proposed is unusual, the problem itself is unusual and no more acceptable solution presents itself. There is no denying that our past progress, within the framework of the present organization, has been slow and uncertain.
The problem of survival at sea will always be with us and will remain almost constant. No other field of endeavor offers greater promise of very substantially reducing the number of naval deaths.