Books Reviews: 1. Descent into Darkness 2. The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security 3. Breaking Out: VMI and the Coming of Women 4. Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond 5. Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond

Pages05

2001] BOOK REVIEWS 241

DESCENT INTO DARKNESS

PEARL HARBOR, 1941

A NAVY DIVER'S MEMOIR1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR JANE-ELLEN BAGWELL2

Viewing the USS Arizona Memorial for the first time, visitors see the rusting wreckage of a once great battleship lying under water only a few feet beneath their feet. In stark contrast to the raging fires, explosions, and panic in Pearl Harbor after the attack on 7 December 1941, the USS Arizona today is somber and peaceful. Visitors are often surprised to notice a coral reef growing on the deck of the ship and many colorful reef fish swimming near the surface. One of the most surprising, yet touching, scenes is that of Japanese tourists throwing flower leis into the water, in memory of the men who died. During the tour, the guide will invariably remind visitors that the USS Arizona is the watery grave for more than eleven hundred sailors and marines who gave up their lives in the service of their country. On the west end of the Memorial a huge wall, listing the name of each man who died aboard the USS Arizona, dwarfs the visitor. While bells ring out Amazing Grace, tears come to the eyes of young and old, men and women, as they are overcome by the magnitude of the profound loss the United States suffered in a few short hours on 7 December 1941. Trying to hide their tears, visitors often stare quietly out to sea, probably trying to imagine the horrific attack that sank the massive battleship so quickly that over one thousand men died while moored in shallow water, just a few feet from shore.3

To most visitors, the water is forbidding and uninviting. Unlike the beautiful blue Hawaiian ocean surrounding Oahu, the water entombing the Arizona is murky and brown. It is coated with the rainbow colors from oil still leaking from the battleship almost sixty years later. Divers, however, are typically fascinated with the thought of diving the USS Arizona and often ask about diving the wreckage. According to Luke Spence, a member of the USS Arizona Memorial Association, because the Arizona is a gravesite, it is off-limits to recreational divers. Dives, however, are made

aboard the Arizona on two occasions. When survivors of the Arizona pass away, they may be interred with their shipmates. Carefully selected divers inter the remains within the ship. Dives are also permitted as a part of an ongoing study to determine how best to preserve the remains of the Arizona against her rapid deterioration in the salt water.

The USS Arizona Memorial contains numerous historical references and a film recounting the tragedy of the Pearl Harbor attack and extolling the miraculous recovery of the Pacific Fleet after the attack. The visitor is merely told the Fleet was resurrected and many ships, bombed in the attack, significantly contributed to the Navy's battles in the Pacific. Unfortunately, the visitor is never told how this miraculous feat was accomplished. Descent Into Darkness tells that story.

Descent Into Darkness is an account of the Navy salvage dive team's efforts to raise the crippled Pacific Fleet following the attack on Pearl Harbor. It relates the spellbinding story of the unimaginable difficulties and horrors encountered by the salvage divers as they made life-threatening dives on the stricken battleships. Descent Into Darkness is the first book to tell this story, filling a critical gap in the history of World War II.

Descent Into Darkness is a compelling book that explores the resurrection of the Pacific Fleet and recounts a personal story of courage and camaraderie. Despite raging fires, explosions, and other life-threatening dangers, the Navy salvage divers had to enter the murky black water thickened by oil, debris from the attack, and corpses of the victims. Despite the divers' overwhelming fears, dives had to be made immediately following the attack. Divers not only assessed the damage of sinking ships and kept many of them afloat, they worked desperately against the clock to free trapped survivors from their underwater tombs. Early in the book, the reader is taken by the heart wrenching vision of Navy divers anxiously tapping on the underwater wreckage, hoping to locate and rescue survivors trapped inside before they suffocated or drowned.

Retired United States Navy Commander Edward C. Raymer wrote Descent Into Darkness. He was the senior petty officer and chief diver of the Pearl Harbor salvage operations team from 8 December 1941 until his transfer to Guadalcanal in August 1942. Descent Into Darkness is his personal account of the salvage divers' important contributions in resurrecting the Navy's Pacific Fleet. In addition to educating the reader about the professional lives of the salvage divers, Raymer provides much needed levity by entertaining the reader with tales of the off-duty lives of enlisted sailors

in wartime Honolulu. Descent Into Darkness will entertain a wide range of audiences. Military history enthusiasts will be interested in the little-known details of the recovery of the Pacific Fleet. Divers, particularly technical divers, will be fascinated by the accounts of the ingenuity of the Navy divers in overcoming underwater obstacles and developing diving techniques, many of which are still in use today. This book will also appeal to a wider audience with a general interest in human adventure stories.

Descent Into Darkness will captivate all audiences with Raymer's riveting personal stories. The book gets off to a strong start with Raymer's startling account of his first dive and subsequent near death experience aboard the Arizona in January 1942. The prologue is a gripping story of his experiences when he entered the black, oil-covered water, into the twisted wreckage of the battleship. The Arizona was severely damaged by massive explosions that ripped through her hull and intense fires burned atop the water around her for days following the attack. Divers entered the damaged ships through pitch-black water, without a light to guide them through some of the most dangerous diving conditions imaginable. Visibility underwater was barely two inches as the divers entered these sunken ships and wound their way hundreds of feet inside the ship's wreckage. Underwater, divers placed their lives in the hands of their teammates who tended lifelines, air hoses, and telephone lines from above. The dive team members, topside, used the ship's plans as a map to guide the underwater diver to his worksite and finally though his assigned task. Divers picked their way through dangerous wreckage that held unstable heavy machinery, sharp jagged metal, pockets of toxic and explosive gases, unexploded bombs, and countless other deadly hazards.

Dives aboard the Arizona were particularly frightening and gruesome, because the one thousand bodies of the men who died during the attack were still inside the Arizona. Raymer succeeds in making the reader feel as though he were experiencing the actual dive when he tells of his first encounter with a floating corpse.

Suddenly, I felt that something was wrong. I tried to suppress the strange feeling that I was not alone. I reached out to feel my way and touched what seemed to be a large inflated bag floating overhead. As I pushed it away, my bare hand plunged through what felt like a mass of rotted sponge. I realized with horror that the "bag" was a body without a head.4

Unfortunately, after capturing the reader's attention with such suspense-filled drama, what follows in the subsequent chapters will leave readers feeling disappointed. Throughout the remainder of the book, Raymer distances himself from the majority of his audience when he begins to use unfamiliar technical terms. When Raymer explains aspects of technical diving, his writing style reads like that of a military training manual. Contrast the above quote with the following quote describing the review of a method used in the salvage operations aboard the USS California.

The driver unit weighed ten pounds and had a firing barrel twelve inches long. The projectile was a half-inch in diameter; the pointed end was hardened, while the other end was threaded. The shell casing contained the powder charge of a .45-caliber shell. The projectile was fired by placing its point against the surface to be joined and pressing the driver sharply forward. It could penetrate half-inch thick steel plate.5

These mundane excursions into the not-so-fascinating world of technical diving and construction will lead many readers to skim over Raymer's overly technical accounts of salvaging each ship.

The chapters in Descent Into Darkness are divided according to the ships on which Raymer's dive team worked. The salvage team played a vital role in returning the USS Nevada, West Virginia, and California into the service of the United States Navy. They also salvaged valuable materials and equipment from the USS Arizona, Utah, and Oklahoma. Each chapter contains information about the salvage dives performed aboard each ship, including numerous stories about the ingenuity of the dive team as they devised innovative ways to combat many of the problems encountered. Technical divers will find that many of these techniques are still used today and many more laid the groundwork for modern dive operations. The majority of the audience, however, will dread the upcoming technical aspects of each chapter and will fail to fully appreciate the importance of the team's work.

Raymer should have followed examples from authors of popular books in the adventure genre. These books frequently take their audiences on an adventure based on a topic unknown to the reader. Many authors of these books adopt a style that both educates and entertains readers. This

combination of entertainment and education is necessary. The reader generally must understand some of the technical aspects behind the events in the book to understand and remain interested in the story. Recent examples that successfully employed this style include Jon...

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