“Chamber Divers”, a new book by Rachel Lance, uses recently declassified documents to recount the story of a somewhat ragtag group of scientist who forever changed special operations. Lance is a biological engineer and blast injury specialist who works as a researcher on military diving projects. She spent several years working with the US Navy building specialized diving equipment for our Special Forces.

The need for better methods of scouting enemy beaches was apparent during the disastrous Dieppe Raid in 1942. The mission was intended as a test of the feasibility of large scale amphibious landings in France. However, due much to the inability to conduct accurate scouting of the beach conditions, 3,623 of the 6,086 men who landed were killed, wounded or taken prisoner.

A group of researchers led by JBS Haldane conducted 611 experiments upon themselves, often risking their own lives, to find a solution. One of their greatest nemeses was nitrogen, which Rachel describes as “the boring neighbor in the cul-de-sac who turns out to be a serial killer.” Haldane and his team spent the equivalent of 284 days inside a pressurized dive chamber.  They even went so far as “getting stoned” in an effort to find a way to clear pressure in their ears.

Some of the equipment developed to address the challenge left something to be desired. The “diving skirt” used by the British frogmen was the adult equivalent of a child’s “onesie” pajama soaked in grease.  While X-Craft mini submarines initially had limited success, all of the D-Day beaches scouted by the early frogmen deployed from X-Craft were hit exactly on target. This saved many lives as the troops landed in between the guns rather than in front of them.

The “rebreather” closed system used by Special Forces, equipment used by scuba divers and escape trunks used on modern day submarines all evolved from the work of these World War II researchers.

TAKEAWAY: In many ways, Rachel is continuing the work of those “Chamber Divers” scientists by developing underwater solutions for our modern day forces.