Chamber Divers
The Untold Story of the D-Day Scientists Who Changed Special Operations Forever
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The previously classified story of the eccentric researchers who invented cutting-edge underwater science to lead the Allies to D-Day victory
In August 1942, more than 7,000 Allied troops rushed the beaches of Normandy, France, in an all but-forgotten landing. Only a small fraction survived unscathed. It was two summers before D-Day, and the Allies realized that they were in dire need of underwater intelligence if they wanted to stand a chance of launching another beach invasion and of winning the war.
Led by the controversial biologists J. B. S. Haldane and Dr. Helen Spurway, an ingenious team of ragtag scientists worked out of homemade labs during the London Blitz. Beneath a rain of bombs, they pioneered thrilling advances in underwater reconnaissance through tests done on themselves in painful and potentially fatal experiments. Their discoveries led to the safe use of miniature submarines and breathing apparatuses, which ultimately let the Allies take the beaches of Normandy.
Blast injury specialist Dr. Rachel Lance unpacks the harrowing narratives of these experiments while bringing to life the men and women whose brilliance and self-sacrifice shaped the outcome of the war, including their personal relationships with one another and the ways they faced skepticism and danger in their quest to enable Allied troops to breathe underwater.
The riveting science leading up to D-Day has been classified for generations, but Chamber Divers finally brings these scientists’ stories—and their heroism—to light.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biomedical engineer Lance (In the Waves) delivers a riveting account of the daredevil Allied researchers who made advances in underwater warfare possible during WWII. Drawing on previously classified documents, Lance profiles academics led by geneticist J.B.S. Haldane at University College London who unraveled the scientific mysteries of diving for the Royal Navy, often using themselves as test subjects inside decompression chambers to simulate the effect of deep underwater pressure on the human body. Researchers frequently paid a heavy toll; one scientist carefully mapped the damage to his own lungs after volunteering to be a subject in an underwater blast test. As research progressed and diving became more tenable, underwater attacks proliferated on both sides of the conflict; Lance narrates numerous clashes, including a 1941 raid against the British fleet in Alexandria, Egypt, by Italian "torpedo riders" (divers literally astride torpedoes that they floated into position). Divers eventually played a crucial role in the 1944 Allied D-Day invasion of Europe, both providing reconnaissance and removing underwater obstacles prior to the amphibious landing. Lance remarks that most of these divers "would never know where their oxygen and guidance came from or at what risk it had been obtained." Propulsively narrated and full of moments of astonishing sacrifice, this brings a remarkable history to light.
