Vintage Diving Helmets: Journey Awaits Simply Under the Floor

Motorbike daredevil Evel Knievel wore a helmet. It was pink, white and blue. Knievel jumped over large issues, like buses and the fountains of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. He crashed lots. The helmet got here in useful.

Darth Vader, Iron Man and Thor all wore helmets. So does the circus performer who will get shot out of a cannon.

The Vikings, close to the tip of the eighth century, raided the British Isles. Their helmets had been actually scary, particularly should you had been English.

Chuck Yeager, the best take a look at pilot in historical past, grew to become the primary particular person to interrupt the sound barrier flying the Bell X-1 experimental jet some 40,000 toes over the Mojave Desert. In a helmet.

The helmet’s goal in life is to guard. Helmets hold us secure. In concept. However the motive we love helmets just isn’t as a result of we’re security acutely aware. Simply the other. We love helmets as a result of likelihood is whenever you put on one you might be on a collision course with hazard.

In our coronary heart of hearts, we all know that the individuals who put on helmets are braver, extra daring and much more rugged than we’re. The Human Cannon Ball man? Fearless. Perhaps a little bit loopy, however nonetheless …

In fact, no helmet is cooler trying than a diving helmet. There may be no argument. You might disagree, however you’ll be incorrect.

The lads – they usually had been principally all males – who wore a diving helmet whereas making a residing or serving our nation had been as courageous as our imaginations permit them to be. And typically extra so. They risked their lives to avoid wasting others. Or found treasures in some long-ago sunken ship. Or fought big squids just like the one in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Below the Sea.

They did all this stuff – and extra – whereas bolted into these wonderful steampunk helmets weighing about 65 kilos, crafted from spun copper with brass fittings and a faceplate and a valve that introduced in compressed air hissing so loudly {that a} diver may barely hear himself assume, not to mention holler into a set speaker within the helmet that, if all labored good, allow them to be heard by the man topside feeding him air.

A diver in full costume – helmet, go well with, weight belt, weighted boots, and many others. – lugged round 200 to 300 kilos whereas on the floor. You need to discuss rugged? Let’s begin there. Until you progress fridges in your again for a residing, you haven’t any thought simply how robust that’s. And sure, toughness is a part of the attract.

Nobody understands this higher than Don Creekmore, who along with his spouse, Jenny, runs Nation’s Attic, in Wichita, Kan., one of many main companies specializing within the shopping for and promoting of vintage diving helmets.

The very first diving helmet Don Creekmore noticed was at an property sale in Kansas. It was a Drager, a German-made helmet, pre-World Battle II. Creekmore was hooked.

“I don’t know should you would name it an epiphany,” Creekmore, 44, says, “however once I noticed it, it was like, oh my gosh, what is that this doing in Kansas? The historical past and thriller that surrounds a helmet actually grabbed me. Undoubtedly it was in harmful conditions. The place had it been? What’s it seen? All I knew was it wasn’t right here in Kansas eternally, that’s for certain.”

Kansas presents lots to brag about however an ocean view isn’t a part of the Chamber of Commerce’s speaking factors. To make it to Kansas, a diving helmet has to essentially strive.

“Sadly, provenance is uncommon,” Creekmore says of virtually all diving helmets. “Loads of it comes right down to your creativeness. However as you discuss to divers and also you hear their tales of going right into a ship and salvaging one thing. Or getting trapped, you begin to assume, wow, they had been trying via this small glass and experiencing all of this.

“For a lot of of our prospects, a diving helmet is a little bit of an impulse purchase,” Creekmore says. “It’s not one thing of their consciousness that they’re trying to find till they see one.”

However whenever you do gaze upon one one thing clicks. Generally deep inside.

Diving helmets have been round in some type or one other because the 1820s. Though manufactured worldwide, the most effective recognized diving helmets on the earth is the US Navy Mark V. The Mark V was utilized by the Navy from 1916 to 1984, when the fiberglass helmet took over. Along with the Navy, a number of business divers used – and nonetheless use – the Mark V.

“The Mark V is by far the commonest helmet by an element of 10,” Creekmore says. “They made them within the tens of 1000’s. But that’s the helmet everyone is aware of and that’s the helmet everyone needs. They’re most likely the best helmet ever made.”

However cool doesn’t come low-cost. The typical worth of an American-made helmet runs between $3,000 and $10,000. An vintage Mark V helmet sells for between $6,000 to $10,000. It’s potential to pay as a lot as $60,000 for a high-end helmet, however these are uncommon.

Whereas rarity is perhaps a consider worth, it’s removed from the figuring out issue.

“With helmets it’s the visible enchantment,” Creekmore says. “The Mark V simply occurs to have the look.”

There have been 4 important gamers manufacturing American-made helmets within the twentieth century: A.J. Morse & Son, Boston; A. Schrader & Son, New York; Miller Dunn, Miami; and DESCO (Diving Gear & Provide Firm), Milwaukee. DESCO, which continues to be round as we speak, was a serious producer of Mark V helmets throughout and after World Battle II. Their craftsmanship stays timeless and coveted.

Maybe no occasion cemented the bravery and lore related to the Mark V greater than the one which unfolded on the morning of Could 23, 1939, when a submarine, the USS Squalus, slipped beneath the storm-tossed floor of the Atlantic. Minutes into the maneuver, it suffered a serious malfunction and started flooding uncontrollably. The Squalus sank to the ocean flooring 9 miles off the New Hampshire coast, trapping 59 males.

The lads onboard had been in a horrible repair. Since 1921, 825 males had died in submarine accidents. No rescue try had ever succeeded in additional than 20 toes of water. The Squalus was down 240 toes.

A unexpectedly assembled Navy group had no alternative however to make use of new, experimental diving strategies that fed divers a combination of helium and oxygen to keep away from decompression illness, or the bends, related to such depths. Till that second, these diving strategies existed solely in concept.

The rescue group encountered issues that compelled them to make selections on the fly — every with life-or-death penalties. They usually did all of it with the world watching intently, captivated by the destiny of the trapped males whose plight had been broadcast all over the world.

Twenty-six crewmen died on the Squalus, however 33 had been rescued throughout a 39-hour ordeal in one of the vital daring and riveting rescues in naval historical past. Ultimately, the officers and males of the Squalus’ rescue and salvage group obtained 4 Medals of Honor, 46 Navy Crosses and one Distinguished Service Medal. Whereas there have been numerous tears shed within the properties of those that didn’t survive the accident, a wonderful new chapter was written within the historical past of underwater rescue.

The Mark V mixed-gas helmet that got here into use on account of the rescue weighed greater than 100 kilos and was much more difficult and harmful to make use of. When considered as we speak they’ve a space-age high quality about them. Visually and traditionally, they’re nothing if not magnificent.

Helmets are simple to like. Perhaps it’s the kid in all of us, however there’s something concerning the promise of peril, the trace of hazard, a suggestion of the unknown that lies simply beneath the floor that stirs the soul.

Sure, helmets are simple to like. However all helmets, like all adventures and all imaginations, should not created equal.