Since 07-02-05
Submarine Tragedy Sets Stage For Heroes on O-5
Since 07-02-05
Submarine Tragedy Sets Stage For Heroes – courtesy of
The Panama Canal Review - May 1969
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18 October 1923
The men of the U.S. Submarine O-5 were roused out of their racks before dawn for
a Sunday transit through the Panama Canal. The O-5 had orders to escort three
other submarines through the Canal from Cristobal to deep water on the Pacific
side.
This was routine duty, usually… The O-5, commanded by Lt. Harrison Avery, was
attached to Commander Submarine Base, Coco Solo, and received such orders rather
routinely.
Panama was great duty in the Old Navy where the pastime was women and whisky and
maybe some pinochle or acey-ducey...
Like most sailors during the rather quiet 1920's in Panama, the men moved around
the 173-foot vessel performing their duties in an unhurried but exacting matter.
The 21 officers and men quietly chatted about the usual things -- women, whisky,
the heat and rain, and plans for their next liberty.
Early risers that Sunday October 28, 1923, may have been leafing through the
morning edition of the Star & Herald. On page 5, Hollywood was advertising
"Thrills! Pathos! Smiles!" in Mack Sennett's movie, Oh Suzanna. As they read,
another Hollywood-like melodrama with all of Mack Sennett's thrills, pathos plus
tragedy and heroics was taking place in Limon Bay at Cristobal.
At 6:25 a.m. the O-5 was a dead ship in 6 fathoms of water on the bottom of the
bay. She had a 10-foot-long gash in her bow ... three men were dead, one of the
bodies was never found ... two of the survivors were trapped inside ... and
another chapter to submarine history was launched. During the next 31 hours the
O-5, which never saw duty again, became the stage for heroes.
The event became one of the most pictorially documented stories of submarine
salvage ever made. It created an underwater record when a Canal Zone diver in
his rescue attempts made the longest dive up to that time. Also, it became the
first attempt at physically lifting any vessel the size of the 520-ton O-5 off
the ocean bottom.
At a time when modern rescue and safety devices did not exist, and while
submarines were still in their infancy, it was a remarkable feat that the two
men trapped in the O-5 were not only saved, but that their submarine was raised
at all. Rescue of personnel from disabled submarines was not duplicated until 16
years later when 33 men were saved from the U.S.S. Squalus using a special
submarine chamber.
Receives Orders
That historic day for the O-5 began before dawn with the arrival from Havana of
the SS Abangarez, 380-foot, 5,000-ton freighter owned by the United Fruit Co.
shortly after 6 a.m. Capt. W. A. Card, master of the Abangarez, received orders
to proceed to Dock No. 6, Cristobal.
It was a collision course. The O-5 was leading submarines O-3, O-6, and O-8 to
Gatun Locks. At 6:22 a.m. Captain Card, seeing that collision was imminent,
sounded a danger signal -- the first warning given by either vessel. The
Abangarez then backed emergency full speed and let go her starboard anchor.
Without acknowledgment of the danger signal, the O-5 held her rudder amidships
and continued on a southerly heading.
Sinks By Bow
At 6:24 the Abangarez struck the starboard side of the submarine penetrating the
engineroom and the No. 1 main ballast tank. The O-5 rolled to port about 15
degrees, righted, and in less than a minute sank bow first. The freighter was
undamaged.
At a board of inquiry which placed the blame on the collision on the O-5,
Captain Card said: "Just before we struck, I heard someone call from the
submarine's conning tower for everyone to come from below. When we struck,
someone ordered the O-5 crew to jump."
Sixteen men were quickly rescued but five were missing. They were: Henry Breault,
torpedoman second class; Lawrence T. Brown, chief electrician's mate; Clyde E.
Hughes, motor machinist's mate first class; Thomas T. Metzler, fireman first
class; and Fred C. Smith, mess attendant, first class.
Two days later the bodies of Metzler and Smith were found floating in the sea
off the Colon breakwater. Hughes was never seen again.
Rescue work started almost immediately. Navy divers on a salvage tug stationed
at Coco Solo had arrived to survey the sunken submarine. Their raps on the O-5's
hull brought immediate response from inside -- Breault and Brown were alive in
the forward torpedo room.
But the divers were helpless to rescue the trapped men. Artificial lungs and
rescue chambers to enable men trapped in a submarine to escape had not been
invented and there were no salvage pontoons within 2,000 miles of the Canal
Zone. Therefore, a means to lift the submarine's bow off the bottom was
necessary. In the Panama Canal there were two 250-ton capacity floating cranes,
the Ajax and Hercules. These leviathans had the mightiest lift in the world for
floating equipment. They were specially built in Germany to handle the enormous
lock gates of the Canal.
Request Crane
Capt. Amon Bronson, Jr., USN, Commander Submarine Base, Coco Solo, was in charge
of the O-5 salvage operation and requested the Panama Canal to furnish one of
the floating cranes to haul up the sunken vessel.
But it was not going to be just that easy. A slide had just occurred in Gaillard
Cut, the narrowest part of the Canal, and both cranes were on the opposite side,
miles away from the O-5. Ironically, this was the first slide to block the Cut
since 1916.
Working to remove the slide were two huge dipper dredges, the Cascadas and
Paraiso, which by 2 p.m. had cleared a narrow passage for the Ajax. The crane
squeezed through and was over the O-5 about 10:30 p.m.
Before the arrival of the Ajax, Panama Canal salvage forces had assembled over
the submarine. Among them was Sheppard . Shreaves of Newport, Va. "Shep," 38,
was dockmaster and foreman shipwright for the Panama Canal Mechanical Division
(Now the Industrial Division of the Marine Bureau.)
Volunteers
Barrel-chested and tough, Shep was a qualified diver and supervisor of the
Canal's salvage and diving crew. Rather than risk the lives of his men on the
treacherous underwater assignment, he decided to make the dive himself, tunnel
under the O-5, pass through the lifting cable and secure it to the hook of the
Ajax.
Here is his account of the rescue efforts on the O-5. "I could spot the O-5 on
the bottom by the air bubbles exhausted from the compartment where Breault and
Brown were trapped. To survive, they were bleeding air from 3,000-pound
compressed air reserves in the forward torpedo room.
"Since the Navy divers had given me a good briefing on the position of the O-5
and the location of the two trapped men, I went right in through her side. The
light of my lamp was feeble against the pitch black. The inside was in an awful
mess, and it was tight and slippery going. I was constantly pushing away
floating debris. When I reached the forward bulkhead of the engineroom I hit it
with my diving hammer. Faint raps were returned. Breault and Brown were alive. I
acknowledged their taps, but almost with a feeling of hopelessness because I
couldn't do anything for them at the time."
Shreaves then made his way out of the submarine and signaled for a firehose to
be lowered. "The O-5 lay upright in several feet of soft, oozing mud, and I
began water jetting a trench under the bow. Sluicing through the ooze was easy;
too easy, for it could cave in and bury me. Swirling black mud engulfed me, I
worked solely by feel and instinct. I had to be careful that I didn't dredge too
much from under the bow for fear the O-5 would crush down on me. Once in a
while, I'd rap the hull with the nozzle to let the boys know someone was working
to bring them out. Their raps were returned weaker each time." Finally, the
tunnel was through. A 4-inch-diameter steel cable was dragged under the keel and
shackled to the hook of the Ajax.
Aside from its flooded weight, there was tremendous mud suction hugging the O-5.
Twice the cable broke and each time new cable was wrestled under the bow. By
early morning of the 29th, round-the-clock efforts to raise the submarine had
failed. Shreaves surfaced occasionally to report to Captain Bronson and to allow
doctors to examine him. They were concerned that his extreme exertion while
working under pressure at 36 feet down might strain his heart. He had been
underwater for nearly 24 hours.
Boiling Cauldron
"I came up from what I hoped would be my last dive. I was near exhaustion. The
job below was done and we were ready for a third lift. At 12:30 p.m. on the
29th, from topside, I released compressed air into the engineroom of the O-5 to
unflood that compartment and lighten the boat. Water and mud bubbled to the
surface as in a boiling cauldron ... I signaled the Ajax to slowly lift the O-5.
God, how we prayed the cable would take it this time. The intense silence of the
rescue force and spectators was electrifying -- almost unbearable."
After what must have seemed a lifetime, the bow finally broke surface. When the
hatch was clear the two trapped men crawled out, more dead than alive. They were
taken to Coco Solo and placed in a decompression chamber and later transferred
to Colon Hospital for examinations.
"I was a big hero for a while," said Shreaves. "The boys carried me around on
their shoulders. Everybody rushed down to the Stranger's Club in Colon for a big
celebration. But me, I went to sleep at the party."
The O-5 incident established a world record. Shreaves had made dives of the
longest duration to that time. He was presented a Congressional Lifesaving Medal
on recommendation of the Acting Canal Zone Governor, Harry Burgess, and was
given a 14-carat gold watch donated by 800 grateful members of the Coco Solo
Submarine Base.
There emerged, however, another hero of the O-5 sinking.
Breault, 23, of Putnam, Conn., was in the forward torpedo room at the time of
the collision. He escaped to the main deck, but then realized that his friend,
Brown, was asleep in the forward battery room. Breault went back into the
sinking submarine, closing the hatch cover as he slid below. Brown had not heard
the order to abandon ship With water charging in on them, they attempted to
escape through the conning tower, but the deluge blocked that route. They
struggled back into the torpedo room and forced shut its water-tight door as the
O-5 hit bottom.
It was for Breault's act of selflessness and valor by going to the assistance of
his shipmate, even though realizing the O-5 was doomed, that he was awarded the
Congressional Medal of Honor by President Calvin A. Coolidge on March 8, 1924.
History closed in tight around Torpedoman Breault and the only known record
available is with the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, which said in
January 1969 that he has been dead for many years.
Captain Card of the Abangarez retired in 1953 after 51 years in the merchant
marine. He now lives in Millbrae, California.
Chief Electrician's Mate Brown has also died, and there is no information
available on the whereabouts of Lieutenant Avery.
With more than 1,000 dives behind him, Shep retired to St. Petersburg, Florida
on December 31, 1945, after 32 years of Panama Canal service. He died in January
1968.
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The following was copied from the Diesel/Gasoline Submarine section of SUBNET
USS O-5 (SS-66)
dp. 520 tons (surf.), 629 tons (subm.); l. 172'; b. 18'; s. 14k (surf.), 11k (subm.);
td. 200'; a. 1-3"/50, 4-18" tt. fwd.; cpl. 2 officers - 27 enlisted men; cl. "O"
Keel laid down by Fore River Shipbuilding Co., Quincy, MA, 8 DEC 16
Launched: 11 NOV 17; Sponsored by Mrs. Frank T. Cable
Commissioned: 8 JUN 18 with Lt George A. Trevor in command
Decommissioned: 29 JAN 21
Recommissioned: 3 JUN 21
Sunk 18 OCT 23
Struck from the Navy List 28 APR 24
Raised and sold for scrapping 12 DEC 24
During the final months of WWI, USS O-5 (SS-66) operated along the Atllantic
coast and patrolled from Cape Cod, MA, to Key West, FL. She departed Newport,
RI, 3 November with a 20-sub contingent bound for European waters; however
hostilities had ceased before the vessels reached the Azores.
After the Armistice, O-5 operated out of the Submarine School at New London, CT,
until 1923. O-5 then sailed to Coco Solo, Canal Zone, for a brief tour. On 18
October 1923, as O-5 entered Limon Bay, preparatory to transiting the Canal, she
was rammed by United Fruit steamer Abagarez and sank in less than a minute, with
the loss of 2 men.
Struck from the Navy List 28 April 1924, she was sold as a hulk to R.K. Morris,
Balboa, Canal Zone 12 December 1924.