ship that sank following a collision with the Navy sub- marine USS Greeneville (SSN-772) off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii, Feb. 9, 2001. In addition, the NEDU assisted in raising portions of
the USS Monitor, specifically the turret and its two can- nons. Famous for its participation in the Battle of Hamp- ton Roads March 9, 1862, the Union ironclad sank in storm-tossed seas off the coast of North Carolina Dec. 31, 1862. Sixteen of its 62 crew members were lost. Working in partnership with NOAA and Mobile Diving
and Salvage Unit Two (MDSU-2), NEDU divers surveyed the wreck site and the ship itself, which rested at a depth of 240 feet. At the height of the two-year recovery effort, two-person NEDU saturation dive teams worked around the clock, reports retired Navy Master Chief Petty Of- ficer Sam Huss, assistant training officer. “We would put them in a bell, send them down, and the first guy would go out and work for about four hours,” Huss says. “Then he would come back inside and trade places with his partner, who would go out and work for another four hours. Then we would bring them back to the surface, put them in the decompression chamber on the barge topside, and put an- other team in the bell so they could continue the recovery.” It was delicate work because artifacts were buried in
and around the wreck site. “The divers used a big hose to suck up the muck, and they had to use their hands to sift through the muck to find the smallest artifacts,” Huss says.
Navy diver Petty Officer 2nd Class Matt Wilson, assigned to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Two, gives the OK signal (above) to safety observers during recompression chamber training aboard the USNS Grasp (T-ARS-51). A diving bell is lowered into the water (top) during manned testing of the NEDU’s Saturation Fly-Away Diving System.
54 MILITARY OFFICER JULY 2012
Ongoing research Deep-sea recovery and salvage remains an important aspect of the NEDU’s mission. So does research, which is ongoing in several areas, according to Gerth. These areas include: Pulmonary oxygen toxicity. “We’re trying to under- stand the limits of oxygen exposure at different levels,” Gerth says. “How long can you breathe safely at different levels without doing permanent damage to your lungs?” Decompression table and procedures development. Assessing thermal exposure limits. “Most of the ocean is cold, but with military ventures in the Persian Gulf, we ended up having to do a lot of diving operations in sometimes very warm water,” Gerth says. “Until recently, it wasn’t well-understood what the limits were for warm- water exposure.” Advances in thermal protection. Divers often work under very cold conditions, Gerth says. This area of research evaluates different approaches to thermal pro-
PHOTOS: ABOVE LEFT, PETTY OFFICER 1ST CLASS JAYME PASTORIC, USN; TOP, USN
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