On the evening of September 25, 1925 the US Navy submarine S51 was rammed by the steamship City of Rome in open seas off Block Island, RI. She sank in 132 feet of water with the loss of 33 sailors. This disaster evoked such a storm of popular indignation that it was felt that at all costs a determined attempt must be made to raise the S51. No vessel had ever been raised from such a depth, a feat the experts pronounced impossible.
The task of salvaging the sub fell to Lieutenant Commander Edward Ellsberg and a group of divers scavenged from all over the fleet. The impossible was accomplished painstakingly over a nine month period conquering obstacle after obstacle. Working in hade hats and lead boots, in minimal light, while dragging air lines behind them, each diver had about an hour of exhausting and terrifying work before beginning a lengthy decompression process.
Originally published in 1929, this magnificent account of the struggle on the ocean floor to salvage the S51 has become a modern classic of the sea. This Special Edition includes updated information on the accident and the aftermath and additional historical photographs.
About the Author
Edward Ellsberg was born the son of Jewish immigrants in 1891 in New Haven, Connecticut, but his family moved to Colorado when he was a boy. He entered the US Naval Academy in 1910 and graduated first in his class of 1914. After varied service on the USS Texas, he was ordered to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for postgraduate work in Naval Architecture and graduated in 1920.
In 1925 he led the salvage efforts to raise the sunken submarine USS S51, for which he became the first sailor to earn the Navy's Distinguished Service Medal in peacetime and was promoted to c Commander by a special act of Congress.
Shortly after the raising for the S51, Ellsberg entered civilian service but remained in the Naval Reserve. He returned to active duty briefly in December 1927, to assist with the rescue of men from the sunken submarine USS S4.
In the late 1920s Ellsberg began his long and prolific career as a writer of naval history and fiction. On The Bottom, first published in 1929, is his account of raising S51. During this time Ellsberg wrote a novel about World War I submarines called Pigboats, which was later made into the movie Hell Below, and the important Hell on Ice, about the ill-fated U.S. Navy Jeanneatte Expedition to the North Pole.
Ellsberg reentered the active Navy on December 8, 1941, and his World War II accomplishments in Ethiopia, North Africa, and the Invasion of Normandy are considered his most valuable work. He chronicled his war years in the books Under the Red Sea Sun; No Banners, No Bugles; and The Far Shore.
Edward Ellsberg retired from the Navy in 1951 with the rank of Rear Admiral.