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At random: The first boat known to have been navigated under water was built in 1620 by a Dutchman, Cornelius Van Drebbel. Van Drebbel is said to have developed a chemical which would purify the air and allow the crew to stay submerged for extended periods.
USS Indianapolis
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Gil
Posted 2018-10-18 11:20 PM (#90424)
Master and Commander

Posts: 1593

Subject: USS Indianapolis

I watched a public television documentary on her that was done  last year after she was discovered in 18000 feet of water.  She's fairly well preserved because of the coldness and lack of oxygen.

Nothing really new, but seeing the few survivors left talking about it is heart warming.  What they endured to survive tells you something about them.  One survivor said it would have been  easier to just drink the sea water and two hours later your eyes would pop out and you'd be daffy and maybe out of your misery- he says he saw that happen many times.

They were pointing out metal things that they said were deployed when it sunk.  They look like metal frames kind of shaped like beds on the outside.  I didn't understand them or their purpose - they kind of intertwined it with nets.  It's in the first fifteen minutes of the documentary.  Anybody have a clue about them and what they did - they implied they saved many lives on ships sinking.
Dave S.
Posted 2018-10-19 7:36 AM (#90426 - in reply to #90424)


Senior Crew

Posts: 141

Location: Seattle, WA
Subject: RE: USS Indianapolis

I didn't see the documentary, but based on your description, I would guess they are talking about Carley floats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carley_float

They were essentially a type of life raft fitted to ships (warships and merchants) that could be quickly and easily deployed. From what I've read, many were set up to float off a ship so that in cases where a ship sank quickly, where there was no opportunity to launch life boats, there were rafts for the crew.

Dave

Edited by Dave S. 2018-10-19 7:36 AM
Runner485
Posted 2018-10-19 7:40 AM (#90427 - in reply to #90424)


COMSUBBBS

Posts: 2665

Location: New Jersey
Subject: RE: USS Indianapolis

Gil,
While they might have looked like metal frames they were actually made of wood with nylon strapping in the insides of them. One of the horror stories I read when I read about the Indianapolis was that some of the crew that had their legs dangling through the webbing into the water had their legs attacked by sharks...A horror to be sure.

A side note to this, was in '64 I was just out of the navy and in construction and met a guy who was on the Indianapolis and survived it's sinking and subsequent attack by sharks...
Holland Club
Posted 2018-10-19 9:32 AM (#90428 - in reply to #90424)


Master and Commander

Posts: 2490

Location: East Coast of Wisconsin
Subject: RE: USS Indianapolis

Agree about non-metal. I recall we had several life rafts on the AKA. They were all mounted on skids so they could be launched readily, The entire ships company got restricted to the ship until the contents of the first aid supplies(containing narcotic pain killers) were located. Seems some brain swiped the stuff.
See below for part of regulation on rafts.
153.4 Construction of life rafts. During the emergency, life rafts on all vessels operating on ocean or coastwise waters shall comply with the following additional requirements:

(a) Stowage. Life rafts shall be stowed on skids, launching ways or other alternative means to provide quick release of the rafts directly into the water and arranged so that they would have the best chance of floating free of the ship if there is no time to launch them.
From what I understood at the time, they were constructed of balsa and had a rope webbing and slats for a floor. Somewhere about 6 by 8 feet rectangle and about a foot high.

Edited by Holland Club 2018-10-19 2:30 PM
Ric
Posted 2018-10-19 10:20 AM (#90429 - in reply to #90428)


Plankowner

Posts: 9145

Location: Upper lefthand corner of the map.
Subject: RE: USS Indianapolis

I grew up living on a beach on an island in Puget sound. Lots of "summer" rich families. One family brought out one of the balsa rafts and put a plywood deck on it and anchored it out as a swim raft off the beach. Summer over they pulled up and put it on land. watched it fall apart as it rotted over the winter. Painted canvas strips over large balsa chunks. Had to have been WW II surplus or maybe older.
Gil
Posted 2018-10-19 3:27 PM (#90430 - in reply to #90424)
Master and Commander

Posts: 1593

Subject: RE: USS Indianapolis

Thanks, I think you guys solved the mystery for me.  I was thrown off by thinking it was to help the ship rather than to help the crew.  I was trying to figure out how those things could aid the ship.

Interesting in that wood surfaces of the Indianapolis have survived all that time and are still visible.  They attribute that to the coldness and lack of oxygen at that depth in the Philippine Sea.

Three hundred went down with the ship, of the roughly nine hundred that went in to the water only three hundred and sixteen survived.  It seemed it was so hot that night that many were sleeping topside - that may have aided their survivabillity as the ship went down in only twelve minutes

Delivering the components for the atomic bomb Little Boy from Hunters Point she averaged nearly thirty knots, a record of seventy four and a half hours - a record that still stands.  That record is from Hunters Point to Pearl Harbor.  She went on unescorted to Guam - wonder what ship, if any stayed with her to Pearl?  Does anybody know how the other bomb's components got to Guam. 

The late Paul Allen's company was behind finding and photographing the wreckage, they also  had a skipper of the submarine Indianapolis commenting.  From 18,000 feet the Indianapolis went twenty feet into the ocean floor after being hit with two torpedoes.
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