Charles Momsen
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Charles Bowers "Swede" Momsen (21 June 1896 - 25 May 1967) was born in Flushing, New York. He was one of the best-known pioneers in the field of submarine rescue in American history, primarily due to his invention of the Momsen Lung, an underwater escape device. His dedication to the rescue of sunken submariners would eventually earn him a Distinguished Service Medal in 1929.
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Early Navy Years
Momsen's Naval career almost ended prematurely. He entered the United States Naval Academy in 1914. Due to grade problems, he had to leave during the spring of his plebe (freshman) year. However, Momsen doggedly pursued another appointment to the Academy. He succeeded and entered the Academy to repeat his plebe year. He graduated in 1919, a year early, due to the beginning of World War I.
From 1919 to 1921, Momsen served on the battleship Oklahoma (BB-37). In 1921, he transferred to submarines and went to the US Navy Submarine School in New London, Connecticut, for training, graduating in January 1922. A year and a half later, he took command of O-15 (SS-76), an aging submarine. A few years after that, he was given command of S-1 (SS-105), the newest of U.S. Navy-designed boats.
Diving and Rescue
Early Interest
It was while onboard S-1 that Momsen's attention became riveted on the urgent need for a way to rescue downed submariners. On 25 September 1925, a sister ship, S-51 (SS-162), collided with a cargo ship and went down in 130 feet of water. Momsen was ordered to take S-1 out to search for the crippled submarine. This was a crucial point in Momsen's future career. S-1 found the oil slick marking the spot where the submarine sunk, but without sonar, there was no way to locate the desperate crew on the bottom.
Momsen was determined to do something to give submariners a chance to escape from below. Considering that in the ten years prior to 1939, 700 men had been lost in 20 submarines, submarine duty was aptly dubbed the "Coffin Service." There were no provisions for escape, and Momsen began to mull over an idea: escape devices for those trapped in crippled submarines.
He shortly conceived of a rescue diving bell, which could be lowered to a submarine in distress, secured by bolts over an escape hatch and opened to allow trapped submariners to climb in. He diagrammed his idea and sent it up the chain of command. Momsen waited for over a year for a response. Hearing nothing, he finally concluded that there must have been something technically wrong with the concept.
Experimental Diving Unit
Momsen's next tour of duty took him to the Bureau of Construction and Repair in the Submarine Division. Shortly after he reported aboard, he came across his diving bell drawings. They had been disapproved as impractical. He stated his case again, but to no avail.
Shortly after this incident, in December 1927, another submarine, S-4 (SS-109), sank off Cape Cod. Forty men died. Six crewmen survived for three days in the torpedo room, but the sailors had no way to escape the submarine. Charles Momsen was again reminded of the need to help his fellow submariners. Between June 1929 and September 1932, while serving with the Submarine Safety Test Unit, he first tested what was to become the "Momsen Lung." He was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1929 for personally testing the device at a depth of 200 feet.
Momsen Lung
Development of submarine escape devices was spurred on by controversy surrounding the sinking of S-4 . One such device is the Submarine Escape Lung, known as the Momsen Lung, which was developed by then Lieutenant Momsen, Chief Gunner Tibbals and civilian Frank Hobson.
The Momsen Lung was an oblong rubber bag that recycled exhaled air. The lung contained a canister of soda lime, which removed poisonous carbon dioxide from exhaled air and then replenished the air with oxygen. Two tubes led from the bag to a mouthpiece: one to inhale oxygen and the other to exhale carbon dioxide. The lung hung around the neck and strapped around the waist. Besides providing oxygen for the ascent, the lung also allowed a submariner to rise slowly to the surface, thus avoiding decompression sickness ("the bends").
The device proved successful when eight submariners used their Momsen Lungs to reach the surface from Tang (SS-306), which sunk in 180 feet of water in the East China Sea in October 1944. Of the eight, five survived a night at sea, only to be taken prisoner.
Later, other methods, such as the Steinke hood or free ascent, came to be used to get sailors to the surface from a sunken submarine.
Gas Mixtures
From 1937 into 1939, Momsen led an experimental deep-sea diving unit at the Washington Navy Yard. It was here that his team achieved a major breakthrough in the physiology of the lung's gas mixtures under high pressure. At extended depths, oxygen turns increasingly toxic. At 200 feet, nitrogen enters the bloodstream and then the body tissue. The result is called "nitrogen narcosis," which makes an individual feel giddy. Moreover, if a diver starts to ascend from a significant depth too rapidly, the nitrogen can cause decompression sickness, commonly known as "the bends." This happens when nitrogen in the blood forms air bubbles. The bubbles can block blood flow and cause intense pain, even death, unless divers decompress on the way up. Decompression means that the diver ascends slowly, stopping at certain depths to allow the air enough time to diffuse out of the blood and back into the lungs.
Momsen's team replaced the nitrogen with nontoxic helium and developed a methodology to mix the helium with oxygen depending on the depth. The results were critical to the ability of today's divers to operate safely at depths in excess of 300 feet. Momsen's dedication was embodied in his willingness to perform the risky experiments himself.
Rescue Chamber
Momsen, traumatized by the sinking of S-51 and learning that the men had survived the wreck only to be trapped inside the submarine at the ocean's bottom, thought of a way to rescue trapped submariners. He would build a large steel bell-shaped chamber, which could be lowered with cables down to the escape hatch on a sunken submarine. A watertight seal to the submarine could be achieved by placing a rubber gasket around the diving bell's bottom and reducing the air pressure once the bell was over the escape hatch. Then, the hatch could be opened, and the trapped submariners could climb aboard. A hatch on the top of the bell would allow the rescued submariners and diving bell operators an easy way out of the bell.
The diving bell went through a series of tests off the shores of Key West, Florida. Based on these tests, Momsen had several changes in mind for the bell, but was sent to the Bureau of Construction and Repair to teach submariners how to use the Momsen Lung before he could make the changes. Lieutenant Commander Allan McCann was put in charge of the revisions on the diving bell. When the bell was completed in late 1930, it was introduced as the McCann Rescue Chamber.
Directing the Squalus Rescue and Recovery
Although his invention of the Momsen Lung made him famous, Swede Momsen had other noteworthy achievements during his naval career. Probably the most spectacular was the rescue and recovery of Squalus (SS-192). He was put in charge of the entire rescue of the 33 crewmen who survived the sinking of Squalus in May 1939 in 243 feet of water off Muscle Shoals, New Hampshire. Momsen instructed the team of divers as they dove to the submarine and attached cables necessary for the rescue chamber to make its descent. He also instructed the rescue chamber's operators as they made four trips bringing the submariners to the surface and a final trip to check the flooded aft section for survivors.
Momsen then led Squalus salvage operations. The rescue and salvage took 113 days, and Squalus was brought to dry dock at the Portsmouth Navy Yard.
Along with Rear Admiral McCann, Momsen received a commendation from President of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt for his efforts in the rescue of the sailors from Squalus. Momsen commanded the rescue team aboard the salvage ship Falcon (ASR-2).
WWII and Beyond
During World War II, Momsen served as Commander, Submarine Squadron 2 and Commander, Submarine Squadron 4. While Momsen was Commander of Submarine Squadron 2 in the Pacific Fleet, the submarine skippers kept reporting that their torpedoes were not behaving correctly. When fired from the prescribed perpendicular angle, the torpedoes did not always explode. When fired from non-perpendicular angles, the torpedoes exploded. When Momsen's own squadron complained, he decided to find out why. He took torpedoes to the shallow waters and sheer cliffs of the Hawaiian Island of Kahoolawe and fired until he got a dud. Then, risking his own life, he dove into the water to find the unexploded torpedo. With help, he recovered the dangerous live torpedo and brought it on board. A small problem with the pin inside the primer cap was causing the problems.
Momsen earned a Navy Cross as commander of a submarine attack group in the Japanese-controlled waters of the East China Sea. Using an attack pattern he developed, the submarines sank five Japanese ships and damaged eight others. Momsen also received the Legion of Merit for commanding the United States Navy's first wolf pack in enemy waters from February 1943 to June 1944. The US's version of the wolfpack consisted of three submarines travelling together. When they approached an enemy convoy, one sub would attack from starboard, one from port and the last from the rear.
In November 1945, he directed a fleet of nearly 200 surplus Army and Navy ships, manned by Japanese crews, that evacuated the first of nearly six million Japanese from Manchuria, Formosa, and islands in the Pacific.
In addition to the Navy Cross and Legion of Merit with two Gold Stars, he earned a Navy Distinguished Service Medal and a Navy Commendation Medal. Gold Stars are given for each subsequent award of a decoration.
He served as Assistant Chief of Naval Operations for Undersea Warfare from 1948 to 1951, then became Commander of the Submarine Force's Pacific Fleet.
Vice Admiral Charles B. Momsen died of cancer and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
The 42nd Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, USS Momsen (DDG-92) is named in his honor.
References
This article is based on material from the Office of Naval Research's public domain biography, http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/blowballast/momsen/default.htm . The Web site http://www.momsen.org/ is appears to be devoted to Momsen, but uses non-standard HTML extensions that prevent the Mozilla/Netscape family of browsers from navigating it.