Raising USS S-4: Final Taps From Men Alive in the Dark Sea

Описание: #USSS4 #Shipwreck #MaritimeHistory #ShipSalvage #Submarine
USS S-4 went down off Provincetown on December 17, 1927—yet six men were still alive inside, sending “final taps” through steel from the forward torpedo room. During a Prohibition-era patrol, the Coast Guard destroyer Hiram Paulding struck the submarine, tearing the pressure hull and driving it into the mud at about 102 feet. In the black cold, Lieutenant (j.g.) Graham Fitch kept order with no power, no light, and a shrinking atmosphere—oxygen falling while carbon dioxide climbed toward lethal levels.

On the surface, rescue ships shut down engines to hear the clanging below. The rescue ship Falcon set over the wreck as divers fought brutal conditions to connect an air line. In the torn superstructure, a diver’s tether fouled in jagged metal—an emergency that led to a dramatic save and a Medal of Honor. Then the storm peaked: the air line snapped, the fleet retreated, and the tapping from USS S-4 stopped.

What followed was heavy salvage engineering. Under Captain Ernest J. King and Lt. Henry Hartley, the team refused a risky top-lift and instead tunneled under the keel with water jets, threaded pilot wire, hauled massive lifting chains, and attached six steel salvage pontoons. Flooded, shackled, then blown with compressed air, the pontoons had to be balanced to control gas expansion and keep USS S-4 rising evenly. On March 17, 1928, USS S-4 broke free and was towed to the Boston Navy Yard—helping drive future submarine escape and rescue systems.

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