Fifty Years Ago, an Unusual Vessel Made History

Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh, a Naval Academy classmate once observed, "had adapted himself readily to Navy life." This sometimes included battling just to stay in your bunk, a situation that Walsh had experienced on board the destroyer escort Lewis (DE-535) before dawn on 23 January 1960 as he felt her "rolling . . . in her best destroyer escort manner."

Awakened two hours after the end of the midwatch, Walsh, the officer in charge of the bathyscaph Trieste, was relieved that he could finally get up. "All I had to do that day," he later recounted: "was get into a small steel ball and dive to the bottom of the deepest part of the world's deepest ocean, the 'Challenger Deep.' . . . I had the momentary feeling that it might be wiser to stay in bed."

That dive, some 35,840 feet down, set a record that has never been matched by another human and only equalled by two robotic craft.

The story of the unusual craft in which he made the dive dates back to 1937, when Swiss physicist and balloonist Auguste Piccard began work on a deep-sea research submarine-a bathyscaph-in Belgium. He suspended his research during World War II, resuming it in 1945. Piccard later worked with the French government to develop the craft, and after moving to the independent city-state of Trieste in 1952, he finally began building the bathyscaph.

More than anything, the submersible resembled an ocean-going blimp, albeit one with buoyancy provided by an envelope full of gasoline, which is lighter than water, rather than helium. Suspended beneath the literal "gas bag" was a finely machined 6.5-foot-diameter steel pressure sphere, which could house two researchers. Two hoppers with nine tons of magnetic iron shot fore and aft of the sphere provided ballast, which could easily be released to regain the surface.

Completed on the southern shore of the Gulf of Naples, the Trieste made her first trial dive on 11 August 1953, with Piccard and his son, Jacques, descending to a depth of five fathoms. After she operated in the Mediterranean from 1953 to 1956, discussions with the Office of Naval Research eventually resulted in the Navy's purchase of the submersible in 1958. The craft would be perfect for Project Nekton-an inspection of the oceans' deepest abyss.

A little less than an hour and a half into the afternoon watch on 19 January 1960, the tug Wandank (ATA-204) took the Trieste in tow and stood down the channel from Apra Harbor, Guam, bound for her assigned location over the Challenger Deep, her unwieldy charge riding along 800 feet astern. About an hour later, the Lewis got underway, soon passing the Trieste and the tug. At the end of the forenoon watch the next day, the Lewis began taking soundings.

The tug, meanwhile, was having a difficult time with the bathyscaph because the submersible was, Walsh later observed with wry humor, "as well suited to the high seas as your house is to travel on a superhighway." The towline parted 15 minutes into the forenoon watch on the 20th, but quick work had the two again linked within 30 minutes and resuming their slow voyage. At 0328 on 23 January, the tug sighted flares laid by the Lewis about five miles distant, marking the position over the Challenger Deep.

On the Lewis's bridge, Walsh joined Andreas B. Rechnitzer, the civilian scientist in charge of the project, who was monitoring the soundings. Given the length of time it had taken the most recent sounding to reach the bottom and return to the surface, "Andy" Rechnitzer cheerfully said to him, "Son, we have really found you a hole."

Fortified by "orange juice, dry toast, and tea," Walsh began the short-but dangerous-trip to the bathyscaph. High swells made launch of the tender boat impossible, so an inflatable rubber boat was used instead. Lieutenant Lawrence A. Shumaker, assistant officer in charge, and Giuseppe Buono, "the master mechanic from Naples who, like Jacques, had been with the Trieste ever since she was built," preceded Walsh to the bathyscaph where they discovered and repaired minor damage that occurred during the tow.

Walsh, timing his actions precisely with the Trieste's heavy rolling, boarded her and began preparing for the descent. "Everything seems to be in order," Walsh noted once inside the sphere, which smelled of rubber and solvent. Bags of silica gel had kept the humidity down to 12 percent. "Dive No. 70 of the U.S. Navy Bathyscaph Trieste," Walsh spoke into the tape recorder, "On board are Lieutenant Don Walsh, U.S. Navy, and Mr. Jacques Piccard." Piccard soon joined him, and after exchanging goodbyes with Buono, the hatch was secured and the Trieste began to slip beneath the waves.

While observers on board the two support ships recorded the moment and position, the Trieste began her five-hour descent, with Walsh recording the play-by-play and the times, depths, and communication with the ships above. Amid the "deep hum of the transformers in the electrical equipment," the hiss of air pumps, and the crackling of static from the underwater telephone, the two men went about their tasks, checking instruments, making necessary adjustments, and talking little. Because of the 54-degree temperature, they changed into warmer clothes before reaching 4,800 fathoms. Doing so "in a space 38 inches square and only five feet, eight inches high" was "quite an operation to see," Walsh later wrote.

At 1258, the fathometer indicated the bottom was just 42 fathoms below. When the Trieste reached 20, Walsh recorded: "[It] looks like we found it, Jacques." Four fathoms from the bottom he noted, "Quite light outside now, the light [from the Trieste] reflects off the bottom." Shortly thereafter Walsh recorded, "We have landed!" The recording depth gauge read 6,300 fathoms, while the direct reading depth gauge showed 6,150. (These figures, the maximum almost 2,000 feet deeper than the actual bottom, were the result of the Piccards calibrating the pressure gauges using distilled water. They had not been corrected for saltwater's different density. To the Navy's embarrassment, it used the depth reading of 37,840 feet in its initial press releases before the discrepancy was discovered.) At 1312, they established contact with the Wandank; "We had almost perfect communication, slightly garbled and slightly weak but quite good." Fearing there was a crack in the antechamber window, Walsh thought "we better surface as soon as possible." They began their ascent at 1324, Walsh estimating that they would be on the surface at 1700, which they were.

She came up about 2 3/4 miles from the Lewis and Wandank. The ships quickly converged on the Trieste as two RF-8 Crusader photo reconnaissance aircraft flew low overhead and a rescue plane from Guam circled the area. Photographers braved 25-foot seas in a rubber boat to get pictures of Walsh and Piccard as they emerged from the Trieste. Once back on board the Lewis, the two deep divers faced newsreel cameras and participated in a brief commemorative ceremony during which "an American flag [en]capsulated in plastic was committed to the depths."

The tug once again took her charge in tow, and by the second dog watch, they were on their way back to Guam. Departing the dive area at about the same time, the Lewis moored at Guam the following morning. Four days later, on the 28th, the bathyscaph was back as well.

For the Trieste, more work lay ahead, highlighted by her August 1963 discovery of debris from the sunken nuclear-powered submarine Thresher (SSN-593). Ultimately, the submersible was transported to the Washington Navy Yard and placed on exhibit in the Navy Memorial Museum (now the National Museum of the U.S. Navy) where she can be seen today.