During World War II, when battles, aerial attacks and saboteurs sank ships by the hundreds and choked and destroyed key ports worldwide, necessary to supply the vast Allied armies, small groups of men were sent in to clear them for shipping. These deep sea salvage divers did so in record time, but they did so in the face of injury and death from crippling diving accidents, from treacherous twisted wrecks cutting their slender link to the surface, and from booby traps rigged to explode if brushed upon in the dark.



And they did it alone, in the inky darkness, in the silence under the waves. This is their story . . . an oral history of America's salvage divers, the Naval Training School (Salvage) where they learned their skills, deep in the flooded bowels of the luxury liner Normandie, and a few of the adventures and dangers they faced above and below the sea during World War II, as told (mostly) by the divers themselves.



Whether interested in diving history or in one of the most unreported aspects of World War II, this book will delight.



With 336 pages and 661 photographs, many taken by the divers themselves, this will become one of the most valued additions to your diving and historical library.