THE CHINA MAIL, NOVEMBER 27, 1937
DIVER WHO WAS “RUN OVER” ON THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA
Christmas eve spent 13 fathoms At home again, he worked with under the River Tay Scrap the Royal Fleet Auxiliary on the ing for his life in the broken rock victims of enemy torpedoes - and send Britain's of the sea bed as a ship's keel mines, helping to pressed down on his back.
crippled ships back into action. Buried head first in a fallen bank! It was while he was engaged in of day at the bottom of the this work that he had one of the Tyne
worst experiences.
These were some of the hair-rais-
“In 1917.” he said, "I was work- ing tales from his 30 years of ing on the cargo boat Peregrine, thrills as a deep ses diver, told me which went ashore on Portland Bill by Dan Godfrey, O.B.E, as we sat graveyard of so many a good ship. in his cabin on the salvage ship Humber, moored in the Medway above Sheerness, writes a corres- pondent.
"While I was under the bows, she suddenly began to descend on me, and before I realised what was happening she was already pressing For the past three seasons Dan on my back. I whipped out my has been diving from the Humber knife, cut away my breast-weights down to the wreck of the wartime and scooped away desperately at the dreadnought Bulwark, where she has broken rock below me. lain for 20 years a twisted mass of rusting steel on the river bed.
"In a few seconds I had slipped out of danger but if that bottom "I learned diving in the Royal had been solid rock: I would have Naval Diving School at Sheerness been flattened out like a pancake. in 1908," began Dan, and it was
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"In 1919, when I was working on Thrills only a year afterwards that I had Lake Eerie, an armed American my first escape
merchantman which went down in “And had it not been for the the Bristol Channel," grinned Dan, casual action of a seaman in picking they said I had nine lives-and up the receiver of my diver's tele lost eight. phone, I shouldn't have been sitting here telling you my story.
I
"One went when my life-line and pipe fouled some wreckage and "One of the gangways of HMS could not get to the surfaces I cut Vanguard collapsed as a crowd of my life-line and traced my pipe men were leaving the ship, and threw them into the water. Ten of them were missed, and I had to go down to make a search
"PULL ME UP”
"I landed waist-deep in mud--and found no air. was coming through In a few seconds my strength began to fail. I hadn't even enough left in me to put out my chin to ring my telephone bell-
back to where it was curled about a gun on the poop.
"This was one of the toughest spots I ever was in.
"I was, fighting the tide. My air pump was worked from the side of the ship where it was party above water at low tide.
WON BY THREE MINUTES "The tide was rising, and unless I could free myself before it reach-
"As I lost consciousness I hearded the pump, I was finished. myself gasping faintly, Pull me up
Pall me up.
"I won by three minutes. When
I got up they were pumping with "The next thing I knew was that the water lapping round their ank I was on the surface. Then I les, within two inches of the bot- "learned what had happened.
tom valves of the pump.
he "Ordinarily, no one in the boat During the seven seasons would touch the telephone unless I worked on the cargo boat Cambank. rang-but one of the men had which was lost with a cargo of cop- casually picked up the receiver, put per in 25 fathoms off Anglesea, Dan than one hairbreadth it to his ear and heard my whis- had more pered S O S coming through
escape.
"When we examined the air pipe, This is the tale he told me we found that there was no washer one of them:
in one of the connections, so that I was working in the hold clamp- the air was escaping before it reach- ing copper ingots on to a chain, ed my helmet.” -
when I began to pant, My air was
In his roaming all over the world, eased off. No signals came from Dan has spent Christmas în some above. My pipe and line were fouled
in wreckage. queer spots, but never one to queer,
as on Christmas Eve, 1912, when "It was the inspiration of one of he was trapped for three hours in the officers above which saved me. pitch darkness and icy cold 13 fa- He gave me the 'Come up on the chain, which he ordered to be slowly thoms below the River Tay.
have up.
"HMS. Vulcan's large steam launch had sunk alongside," he said, “and I was sent down to prepare her for lifting.
"Another narrow squeak on the Cambank was when some ingots which were being hauled up, jammed "While I was busy, the launch in wreckage and my pipe and line suddenly lurched over and my pipe were caught under the chain. and life-line became pinned against
"My air was cut off and I knew
her side under the Vulcan's beavy that my only hope was to climb to
the line above the jam and get mouring chain.
signal to the linesman.
TUP WITH TEË TIDE Fortunately, my.
came Being very heavy, with little air through all right, but I could not in my suit, it was near the impossi- give any signals to the boat above, ble to climb up the air pipe.
"But somehow I managed it, and All I could do was just to wait there till the rise of the tide releas my last conscious act was to give
few weak lower-away signals. hours I was trapped "They got them above and the ame through up with the rush of air wh
line was released from
chain
here. But
When
Dan was awarded his O.B.E for benea ices as a salvage worker down under gunfire in the Dardanelles.
again.
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