Get your own Free Home PageCOO Rally - April 28, 2001
April 28 was another of our relaxed, fun-filled days at the College of Oceaneering in Wilmington. Even though the day was overcast and cool, we had 13 heavy gear divers and four using classic scuba gear. Several other members dropped by, but didn
=t dive. Harold Nething spent the day working as a tender, Ben Briggs arrived early to help unload gear and tended during the early morning hours. Jim Pride, who was injured in a car accident a couple of months ago, was Dive Organizer, sharing the job with Charlie Orr. Capt. Ed White stopped to visit, as well as Leslie Jacobs.One of the new Chinese hats and Rick Eriksen
=s Yokomo were the helmets used during the day. COO student Dwight Anton won the raffle to dive the Mark V and Shaun Cusano dove the Chinese.July 28
- We have another rally scheduled at the COO (272 S. Fries Ave., Wilmington) on July 28 from 9:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Everyone is welcome to participate. Bring along any new gear you might want to try out and plan on having a good time. If you plan to dive on September 1 at the L.A. Maritime Museum, and have never dove the heavy gear, you must first tend and dive at the COO.Help is needed to load and unload the gear. Meet at the COO at 8:00 a.m. if you can lend a hand. The COO will be providing a lunch of BBQ burgers for everyone.
If you want to dive, have new gear to try out or need more information call Charlie at (310) 834-7051.
Banning=s Landing Opening Day Dive Demonstration and Display
Hallelujah! TREASURE! Our dive at the Banning
=s Landing netted us something beside the usual sunburns, aching backs and sore leg muscles. Finding Atreasure@ in the form of an assortment of old bottles and junk that has been thrown into the harbor for the past 60 years or more, added to a great day of diving at the Opening Day Celebration for the new Cultural Center in Wilmington. Among the old pop bottles was a 1947 Coca Cola. A nice Four Roses Whiskey bottle and several old wine bottles were also brought up for every one to oooh and ahhh. (However, no one is planning to quit his day job).The new dock and ramp made an excellent dive platform into about 35 feet of water with fairly good visibility. Helmets used were Charlie Orr
=s TOA and Rick Eriksen=s Yokohoma. Several members brought along their old scuba gear and joined the heavy gear divers in the water. Seventeen members took part in the day long event. Jim Pride was Dive Organizer, while Larry Howe manned the compressor most of the day. Ed Clark helped out as a tender and advisor. Capt. Ed White spent time checking everything out. Photos of the divers were taken by Leslie Jacobs and Eva Trusty.A display of helmets, dive knives and flash lights, along with pictures of some of the early divers in the Los Angeles Harbor taken from Torrance Parker
=s book, A20,000 Jobs Under the Sea,@ drew a large crowd of guest who had stopped by to check out the new facility and enjoy the entertainment.The L.A. Fireboat docked about 3:30 offering tours of the boat and putting on a marvelous demonstration of their water pumping capabilities as they sprayed water from all their hoses simultaneously.
After loading up the gear, several of the group took hamburgers and fries to Charlie
=s house and had an AAfter the Rally@ BS session that lasted until well after sundown.We would like to give a big
AThank You@ to the Friends of Banning=s Landing, the L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs and the Port of Los Angeles for giving us the opportunity to take part in the celebration.CCED Meeting
April 20, 2001 - Five members and Dr. Lee were present. We discussed and agreed on the following: Practice dive at Banning
=s Landing on May 28 - Jocko, Rick, and Mark as divers. The practice dive and the June 3 dive has been cleared with Capt. Tracy of L.A. Port Police. We are to supply the Port Police with a copy of the divers log and releases. The releases will be changed for this event by adding that the Port of Los Angeles cannot be held responsible for any liability. The L.A. Fireboat is to dock from 3:00 to 3:20 p.m. Also discussed was the COO Rally on July 28; the work Dorothy has done to invite the Pearl Harbor Survivors to the L.A. Maritime Museum Dive Demonstration on September 1; the Lane Victory cruise on August 18; Bob Kirby=s workshop on July 13; and problems with individuals not receiving the post card reminders.After the meeting, Dr. Lee gave us a tour of the new diving display in progress at the Museum.The next meeting will be held at the Maritime Museum on July 20. This will be an important meeting to discuss the final plans for the L.A. Maritime Museum Dive Demonstration and Display on September 1.
What's Happening?
Al Pilkington
- ABig@ Al returned to the U.S. during April and spent the month visiting in the L.A. area as well as diving at the COO Rally on April 28. On the 29th he returned to New Zealand to complete the filming for the trilogy ALord of the Rings@ which is expected to take approximately another 6 months. Al plans to return to the U.S. as soon as the job is completed.Heavy Gear Diving Workshop - Several CCED members have signed up to attend the Heavy Gear Workshop at the Santa Barbara City College on July 13-15. The class is limited to 16 people with a cost of $375. Anyone interested in attending should contact Don Barthelmess (805) 965-0581 ext. 2427 to check if there is space still available.
L.A. Maritime Museum Diving Exhibit - If you have items or $
=s, you wish to donate to the Museum for the diving Exhibit, contact Dr. Lee at (310) 548-7618AThanks@
A note of
Athanks@ to Capt. Ed White. Recently Capt. Ed offered a generous donation of $200 to be used only for the maintenance of the air compressor or for filling the air tanks. But, because we do not have a non-profit status with IRS, the donation was turned over to the L.A. Maritime Museum in his name to be used for the Diving Exhibit currently under construction.Pearl Harbor - The Movie
By now, I am sure many of you have seen the movie
APearl Harbor.@ Possibly it meant more to me than most since I was invited by the Pearl Harbor Survivors Cactus Flower Chapter (Yuma, AZ) to attended the opening on May 25.The movie was good and the men seemed to think it was quite authentic overall in what it depicted. Since each man was on a different ship or in a different area, their view of the catastrophic events that day were limited to what took place within their own line of vision.
Virgil Hengl was on the battleship, USS Tennessee, docked just in front of the USS Arizona. (Talk about a front row seat!) The Tennessee was hit with two bombs and scorched by the fires burning on the Arizona, but was one of only two of the eight battleships tied up on Battleship Row that remained seaworthy.
Charlie Walters was on the light cruiser, USS Phoenix. When the Japanese planes were spotted he manned his gun and opened fire. His grandchildren think he saved the ship and perhaps he did. His ship earned nine battle stars during WWII.
Bob Smith was in the Coast Guard and had been sent to Pearl Harbor aboard the Navy ship, USS Castor. He was at the Naval Receiving Station waiting to be transported to the Coast Guard Base at Honolulu when the attack occurred. Located directly across the harbor from the battleships, he too had a front row seat. People in the open where he was standing watching the attack soon started to be hit from the strafing and with shrapnel. He was sent to the battleship, U.S.S. Pennsylvania where he hand hoisted five inch anti-aircraft shells by battle lamp.
Les Ritchie was a civilian employee housed just outside the fence at Hickam Field as the Japanese bombed and strafed the aircraft on the field. With no transportation available, he ran about a mile and a half to the Navy Yard and was sent to fight the fires on the USS Cassin and USS Downes. Both ships were completely destroyed by torpedoes, explosions and the resulting fires. The Cassin and Downes were berthed just in front of the battleship, USS Pennsylvania. As the fires were fought, the Japanese planes continued strafing all three ships.
I truly considered it an honor to sit with these four men and their wives as we watched a movie that can only simulate with fireworks and digital sound what actually took place. ~Dorothy Barstad
SS Lane Victory - August 18
We will be doing a dry dress-in demonstration aboard the SS Lane Victory in route to Catalina on August 18. Capt. Ed White will be the
Adiver@ with Charlie Orr and Rick Eriksen as tenders.A merchant ship, the SS Lane Victory was launched in 1945 and served during the last days of WWII, and through the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. She is manned by a crew of volunteers, many of whom are retired WWII Merchant Seaman. The cruise includes tours of the ship, catered buffet lunch, possible enemy aircraft attack with vintage planes (weather permitting), and a live band performing on deck.
We are looking forward to having a really good time on this cruise. If you have not already purchased a ticket for the cruise you should contact the Lane Victory ticket office ASAP. These cruises are very popular and fill rapidly. Tickets are $100 for adults and can be obtained by calling (310) 519-9545. Hurry! Space is limited. Call Charlie for more details. (310) 834-7051.
Divers Profile -
Eva Trusty
Born in Montebello, California - not THAT long ago, she attended Montebello High and has taken numerous college courses at three different colleges in the Los Angeles area. Her interest in diving came about in 1974 after reading a notice about classes being offered at the YMCA. Being underage at the time, it was necessary to have her parents consent to take the classes. Raised as an only child by a father who wanted a boy, Eva had been taught to handle firearms and often went hunting with her dad, but when it came to diving, his answer had been,
ANo kid of mine is learning to dive!@ It took a lot of persuading and a bit of schmoozing to finally persuade him to sign the consent form. She completed the course and was scuba certified in 1975.In 1978, she attempted to take classes at the Commercial Dive Center (now College of Oceaneering), but was told the work was too rough for a woman. Her first chance to dive at the COO was as a member of our group.
She became a fishery diver and worked for two years diving for starfish and sea urchins. She was paid 5
4 each for the starfish - on her best day, she earned $250 (that=s 5,000 starfish!).Eva has also been a member of the HDS for about three years and is the only female member of our group qualified to dive the heavy gear, including the Mark V. After taking the Heavy Gear Workshop offered at the Santa Barbara City College last June, Eva made contact with us and seldom misses a meeting or a dive.
Eva works for Grafico in Santa Fe Springs and lives in Fullerton
. ~Charlie OrrNever Tell a Woman She Can=t
Donna Tobias
= recent induction into the Women Divers Hall of Fame certainly proves the point. In 1975, Donna became the first female US Navy deep-sea diver. When she was handed a long list of reasons why she couldn=t be a diver, she simply went down the list, overcoming each item one at a time, until she was finally accepted for training at the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Norfolk, VA.A small woman, barely 5'5" and weighing 135 pounds, the 200 pounds of Mark V gear was her biggest obstacle. Since the shoes are a one-size-fits-all, her small feet barely filled half the shoe. She stated she even had bad dreams about those shoes. Climbing a ladder out of the water and trying to place her lead-weighted boots on each rung was an arduous task. In the water, though, the cumbersome gear gave her a sense of safety.
AI can smell being in that suit - smell the air, the metal, taste it, you know? I got to be fond of it, in the water.@Completing the 10-week course was not only a physical challenge, but also a mental challenge compounded by the men
=s resistance to having a woman in their midst. ASome were so threatened - what would it say about them if a girl could do this?@After graduating with a class of 14, she was assigned to the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut where she taught sailors how to escape from a submarine in the 125-foot training tank. Steven Lechner, a retired Navy master diver, worked with Donna at Groton in 1977.
AShe had to prove herself to be twice as good at everything, and she was. She=s remarkable; she has a tremendous amount of courage.@ Not only was she the first woman diver, but also the first woman to teach in the escape tank.As a Navy diver, Donna worked on naval vessels, took part in search and salvage operations in the Long Island Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, and participated in the sinking of a WWII ship in the Chesapeake Bay.
Now 48, Donna lives in Connecticut and teaches at New London High School. It has only been in the last few years that she has begun to talk about the experience, and the challenges she had to overcome.
AI didn=t want people making fanfare over me, because we (women) were all going through it. It was an accomplishment for women. It was a door opening.@Source: Los Angeles Times news article - April 11, 2001
From Downunder
In the last few months we have had several e-mails from Des Williams in Australia. Many of you may remember an article about their WEG group in the HDS UK Historical Diving Times (Spring 1998), when nine men and one woman did a line dance in a swimming pool in heavy gear!
Des took up scuba diving in Melbourne in 1966 when he was 17 and has thought of little else since. He took up the heavy gear about 12 years go.
Gail Chadwick, daughter
of Harry Chadwick, who was one of the great salvage divers of Australia, gave this picture of her father to Des. He is wearing what Des believes to be an Orco Diving Mask, while working on a salvage job in New Guinea during WWII. Can anyone confirm that this is an Orco? Des can be contacted by e-mail at: deswill@dingley.net or give Charlie a call and he will pass the information on to Des.Compressor
On test running the compressor a crack was found in the discharge tubing. I called Sue Stearns at Compressed Air Specialties in Anaheim. They not only had the compressor up and running in a very short time, but Robert stopped by the house and made the repairs in my driveway! Our sincere thanks to a top notch team. ~Charlie Orr
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