Army Divers' School ~ 1957 US Army; The Big Picture TV-365

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'THE BIG PICTURE has come up with a neat little documentary in "Army Divers' School," filmed on location at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Director of Photography is SP-3 Gerald Finnerman of the Army Pictorial Center in Long Island City, and experienced and qualified cameraman from Warner Brothers Studio in Hollywood. Through his eyes and the lens of THE BIG PICTURE camera, TV viewers will follow the training and actual underwater operations assigned to enlisted divers of the Army Transportation Corps. The diving student learns and becomes a jack-of-all-trades: welder, carpenter, mechanic all rolled into one. He must also be an explosives expert; at home with such items as blasting machines, plastic explosives gelatin dynamite and TNT. Playing down the dramatics usually seen in underwater work, the skillful photography by Finnerman results in a documentary featuring generous use of all camera angles. It takes 17 weeks in the Divers' School for young soldiers who had never been under the water to become qualified salvage divers and fledgling members of one of the highest paid trades in the world.'

Originally a public domain film from the National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_diving_dress

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Standard diving dress (also known as hard-hat or copper hat equipment, or heavy gear) is a type of diving suit that was formerly used for all underwater work that required more than breath-hold duration, which included marine salvage, civil engineering, pearl shell diving and other commercial diving work, and similar naval diving applications. Standard diving dress has largely been superseded by lighter and more comfortable equipment.

Standard diving dress consists of a diving helmet made from copper and brass or bronze, an air hose from a surface-supplied manually operated pump or low pressure breathing air compressor, a waterproofed canvas suit, a diving knife, and weights to counteract buoyancy, generally on the chest, back and shoes. Later models were equipped with a diver's telephone for voice communications with the surface.

Some variants used rebreather systems to extend the use of gas supplies carried by the diver, and were effectively self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, and others were suitable for use with helium based breathing gases for deeper work. Divers could be deployed directly by lowering or raising them using the lifeline, or could be transported on a diving stage. Most diving work using standard dress was done heavy, with the diver sufficiently negatively buoyant to walk on the bottom. Standard diving dress is also sometimes known in the US as a Diver Dan outfit from the television show of the same name...

US Navy Mk V equipment

The US Navy Mk V diving equipment was a standard military specification manufactured by several suppliers, including DESCO, Morse Diving, Miller–Dunn and A. Schräder's Son, over a fairly long period. The major components were: Spun copper and tobin bronze, 12 bolt, 4 light, 1/8 turn neck connection helmet with breastplate (corselet), clamps (brails) and wingnuts, weight 55 pounds (25 kg). Weight harness of lead weights on leather belt with adjustable shoulder straps and crotch strap, 84 pounds (38 kg). Lead soled boots with brass toe caps, canvas uppers with laces and leather straps weighing 17.5 pounds (7.9 kg) each. Suit weight 18.5 pounds (8.4 kg), for a total weight of approximately 190 pounds (86 kg). The Mk V equipment uses a 1/2" air hose with an external 1 1/16" x 17 submarine thread connection on the non-return valve...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_helmet

...The US Navy Mk V helmet was still in production to order. In 2016 DESCO Corporation purchased the assets of Morse Diving International and began producing Morse helmets under the A. J. Morse and Son brand. The US Navy Mark V Helmet is available in either make with the minor manufacturing differences intact. While the Mark V is a US Navy design and all helmets should have been identical models from Morse, Schrader, DESCO, and Miller Dunn all had differences. Brails from a Miller Dunn are difficult to fit on another maker's helmet. Early Miller Dunn Mark V helmets had gussets on the interior radius of the air and communication elbows. Schrader Mark V helmets used yellow brass castings instead of red brass like other makers. Schrader also canted their spitcock body. The standard Mk V weighs approximately 55 lb (25 kg) complete...