European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 30, 1963, Darmstadt, Hesse                              Of o Tiht Boot by Morton p. Gudebrod is Pori bureaus Hen army matter diver sgt Henry Wake vetch discovered wreckage of a Long mining air plane Iso eel below the Lurace of a California Lake in i960, Hli ponderous Boon were actually planted Sev eral thousand feet higher above sea level than his jump Boon Ever reached whence was a parachuting combat Engineer in Korea. This apparent inconsistency is explained of course by the Lake s being 11,900 feet High in the Northern California mountains. The dive he made there stands out in Waskevitch s recollections As the most interesting assignment he has had since he switched from airborne to subaqueous Sta Tus 13 years ago. A Soldier since 1944. Waskevitch whose37th birthday comes up in july now Heads a close knit profession proud 7-Mon unit in France known As the army he diving team Waskevitch has forgotten what the he stands for stationed at Rochefort a port area come sub Post South of la , now a 5p7, and his tour fellow divers at Rochefort constitute exactly 10 per cent of the army s helmet and air Hose diving Force there Are Only so altogether and they Are the Only army divers in  specially is heavy deep water work in the traditional diving Rig although they have Cuba equipment they use for shallow jobs such As Quick inspections. They Wear their special Cap badges with the same Pride that an airborne trooper port his Parachute badge. The badge shows a diver s helmet flanked by diving porpoises and topped with a Neptune s  Mission which they carry out under the direction of u col Michael Iiron Rochefort sub Post co. Involves various types of  make underwater repairs on port Ana. Cored s considerable Fleet of Landing Craft tugs repair ships and barges recover equipment lost overboard and make under water inspection of seacoast areas in and Vance of Node Alp to Thor Landing  also have the Job of regularly inspecting and making repairs on the under water pipeline Oil Donges through which military tankers anchored far offshore pump their cargoes directly into com z s european Petroleum pipeline  and his diving buddies in this kind at work you Don t pay much attention to Grade your life depends on everybody pulling together tend to mini Mize the risks inherent in their work but from a Landsman s Point of View they would seem considerable. The fast running tides of the Bay of Biscay Are notoriously treacherous an there s always the risk of getting air lines snagged on underwater obstacles especially on a coast littered with the lagged debris of a six year War none of the Rochefort divers seen to have any tales of narrow escapes fro death in the Mcvon Depths or maybe it s their Way of understating the binds they atm got into. The tide got me jammed under a pipe line once in Korea was Keltch say matter of factly. Another time working in Japan my lines got fouled up in some heavy wire. Took me about 30 minutes to get  a no submerging Soldier might regard these As harrowing fixes Tobe in but to professionals like the he team divers it s All More or less in the Day s work. And let it not be thought that their work involves wandering through sub Marine gardens or exploring wrecked Gal leons of the Pant. Not in these Waters. You get More than 10 feet Down Inthis water and you might just As Well be blindfolded says Waskevitch. Lights Are no Good they just Blind you More like car headlights in a fog. We have to do jus about everything by  the sergeant a if Pounder. Is about average weight for the group and the poundage is principally muscle. It has to be. Fully rigged on the surface a diver swearing a 64-Pound helmet and breast plate an in Pound rubberized Canvas div ing suit a 96-Pound Lead weighted Belt and Metal Soled boots weighing 31 pounds a total of 189 pounds not counting his heavy underwear. A puny Man could hardly stand up. Let alone walk to the diving ladder in such ponderous gear. A visitor to Rochefort fan hams that the nomenclature used above the elements of a diver s costume is Layman s talk. The professional never Saya diving suits boots or  he Calls them dresses shoes and hats and ii you think that sounds Sissy try telling him so to his  underwater wardrobe is indeed treated As delicate finery when not in use for obvious reasons. The helmets Are stored on a rack with a High wattage Light bulb burning inside them in the room where they keep their Gnu looking ilk. A raw of Mouth less Metal Jack o  purpose is to Cook out All moisture. The dresses Are Hung with care and the shoes neatly aligned in their special Racks. None of the men in the he team come from an area Back Home that is particularly related to seafaring. Waskevitch Halls from wll Llmas on. Sp6 Kenneth v. Davis comes from Button . Up Frank h. Smith or. From Diboll. Tex. Spa Thomas Nugent jr.,. From Hamden. Conn and spa Paul e. Thatcher from Princeton by. The two diver s helpers or lenders on the team.-sp4s Hollis c. Powell and Ulmer o. Crosby come from respectively Turlock Calif and Lake Wales. Fla. Waskevitch himself started diving i Korea in 1950. The engineers needed some divers and i volunteered. It was a korean in fact who taught me diving.1later, the sergeant was stationed at the Presidio of san Francisco at it. Eustis and it. Belvoir va., As a diving instructor. He come to Rochefort last september. It was while stationed in California that Waskovitch made his so to speak High attitude  a piece of wreckage from an air plane was found beside this Lake in the King s Canyon area in i960 somebody figured it might be part of an army air corps b24 that had disappeared in the Region in 1b43, Waskevitch recalls. He was assigned to head a diving team to search the Lake floor. It was quite an operation lust getting our equipment up to that height. A for Estry service chopper got it All up. A Little at a time and we started  so feet under the surface we found part of a propeller some personal belongings and part of a human body that had been perfectly preserved in the cold water All those 17 years. The rest of plane must be lying deeper on the Lake Bottom but we Only had 180 feet of in Hose with us and that was As deep As we could go. We were up then two weeks there s a very strange Story connected with the loss of that plane  As an afterthought. One of the lost crewmen came from the Ana Whert it crashed. His father fam what was known of the plane s last known position figured that his son s body must be somewhere not too far away and for years he want alone into the High mountains looking for it As it turned out. A was never Mon than a couple of Muat from the wreck but he would t have found it anyway because it was under the  til divers Emblem with ill helmet porno him and a Pun s Irldene. 4t /1963 the stars and stripes Page 13