Submarine Rescue: The Race to Save Squalus | Trapped | 2
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Electrician's mate, Lloyd Maness, peers through an open bulkhead door inside the sinking USS Squalus submarine. Beyond the door, the sub is rapidly filling with seawater. Maness has to pull the door shut to seal off the back half of the sub and contain the flooding. But first, he has to make sure he isn't trapping anyone and dooming them to drown.

He yells over the noise of the churning water and blaring alarms. Anyone else in there? Anyone? Manis has already helped a few sailors escape through the door, but this time there's no answer and he can't wait a second longer. The water is already starting to splash through the doorway and into the control room where he's standing.

He wraps both hands around the door's grab handle and starts pulling it shut. But the 300-pound steel door won't budge. The submarine has pitched backwards and is plummeting stern first to the ocean floor. Manis must pull the huge weight of the door almost straight upward. The other sailors in the control room can't help him. There's not enough room. Manis is on his own.

He plants his feet and strains. His legs shake with effort. Finally, the door starts to move. An arm reaches through the door, followed by a face. The sub's cook, William Isaacs. He yanks the cook through the door and calls out one last time. I'm sealing the door! There's no answer, so Maness braces himself and heaves again, his back straining. For a long moment, the door doesn't budge.

The other sailors in the control room shout encouragement. Finally, the door inches upward.

Manus' shoulders feel like they're slipping out of their sockets, but he keeps pulling just a little more. Manus hears the metal-on-metal click of the door latching shut and heaves a sigh of relief. He cranks the hand wheel that seals the door and makes it watertight. The flooded back half of the sub is now sealed off. Manus slumps sideways, feeling broken.

His legs and arms burn like they've been lit on fire. He's protected his crewmates on this side of the door from drowning, but he wonders how many there are on the other side. How many might already be dead? He feels the whole sub shudder, and then the floor tilts forward beneath him. He realizes they must have touched down on a relatively flat part of the ocean floor.

He sits up and looks around at his crewmates. The sub's power is out, and just a handful of flashlights and lanterns illuminate the control room. But even in the dim light, he can see the fear on their faces. They're safe from drowning, for now, but they're trapped on the bottom of the ocean with no idea how they're going to get back to the surface.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. From Wondery, I'm Cassie DePeckel, and this is Against the Odds. In May 1939, a new state-of-the-art submarine called the USS Squalus sank during a routine test dive off the coast of New Hampshire. Its 33 surviving crewmen were left stranded on the ocean floor, 240 feet down.

To save them, the Navy mounted an all-out effort, the first attempted rescue of a submarine that deep and by far the most dangerous. It was led by a Maverick Navy officer named Charles Swede Momsen, who'd spent his career devising ways to save sailors trapped aboard sunken subs. But with the bad weather rolling in and the subs' air supply dwindling, time was not on his side. This is Episode 2.

Trapped. Captain Oliver Naquin calls out for someone to give him a lantern in the dark control room of the USS Squalus. He clicks it on and swings it around, assessing the situation. Papers and broken mugs litter the floor, which is covered in an inch of water. He looks at the wall clock and is stunned to see that it's only 8:45 a.m. He ordered the test dive just five minutes ago. Now here they are at the bottom of the ocean.

He studies the faces of the 22 other men in the control room. All look terrified. Naquin squares his shoulders and addresses them. First, let me say how proud I am. Every man here did his job. If you hadn't, we'd all be dead. Naquin points to his communications specialist, Charles Cooney. Call every room on board. Find out who's alive.

Cooney dons a headset and uses the sub's phone to ring different rooms. He reports back that the two rooms forward of the control room each have crew members in them, 10 total. But in the back of the sub, no one is answering. That leaves 26 men unaccounted for. Naquin grimaces. 26 men gone? He can't accept that everyone back there drowned. Maybe the telephone is malfunctioning.

He reaches into a nearby locker and removes a wrench. Then he reaches up to bang a pipe overhead. If there's anyone alive back there, they'll bang back at him. He holds his breath and strains his ears, praying for any response, however faint. He keeps banging for several minutes, but there's no answer. The whole back half of the sub is lost. This news crushes Naquin.

He knows how terrible those deaths must have been. The panic as the men thrashed around in freezing salt water. Then, those last desperate breaths with water filling their lungs. It's the worst way to die. And it happened on his watch.

But Naquin can't wallow. There are still 33 men who can survive this sinking. He calls out new orders. "Fire a distress rocket and then send up the marker buoy." "Aye aye, sir." The distress rocket is a small torpedo that will rise to the surface, shoot 80 feet into the air, and explode in a cloud of red smoke. Naquin hears the sudden rush as the rocket launches from the sub.

He's confident a nearby ship will see the flare and track it down. And when she arrives, the ship will see the yellow marker buoy, which contains a phone. Soon, Naquin hopes he'll be able to talk to someone on the surface and hash out a rescue plan. A minute later, his crew sends the buoy on its way. Now, Naquin turns to his biggest worry. It's not food or water. It's air.

Based on the number of men alive, Naquin estimates that they have roughly 48 hours of breathable air. They do have oxygen tanks to extend that, plus powder to spread around and absorb the carbon dioxide they'll exhale. But there's a limited supply of each. Naquin shudders. If a rescue mission doesn't start soon, in mere hours, they could all die. Not from drowning, but from suffocation.

Electrician Gerald McLeese sits slumped against the wall in the forward battery. He's grateful for the darkness. His crewmates can't see him shaking. Every few seconds, he hears Chief Electrician Lawrence Gaynor groan in pain. Gaynor nearly electrocuted himself, disconnecting the sub's massive batteries. McLeese can't imagine how he's feeling after that ordeal.

McLeese smells foul odors, too. Diesel fuel, sweat, sewage. And one mysterious smell. It reminds him of swimming pools back home in Kansas. He shakes his head, wondering if he's going crazy. Then suddenly, he realizes what it is. He leans forward into the darkness. Hey, Gaynor, you smell that? Smell what? That pool smell. Is it chlorine? McLeese hears Gaynor sit up and sniff.

Gainer explains that the batteries run on acids that contain chlorine. If the batteries are damaged and leaking, the saltwater that flooded into the hold is probably reacting with the acids and releasing chlorine gas. McCleese swears to himself, just when he thought things couldn't get any worse. Chlorine gas is poisonous.

If there's a chlorine leak in here, then they have even less time than he imagined. Captain Oliver Naquin listens on the control room phone as Chief Electrician Lawrence Gaynor explains the threat of a possible chlorine gas leak.

His face creases with frustration. Yet another obstacle they didn't need. All right, Gaynor, grab some blankets and supplies from the officer's quarters and move into the forward torpedo room. As long as we keep the bulkhead doors sealed, you should be safe from the gas. Aye, aye, sir. Naquin hangs up and looks around the control room. There are 23 men in here, but in the front of the submarine, there are only 10 men.

Given their limited air supply, they need to even out the numbers. He selects five men, including the bruised cook William Isaacs, and orders them to join the others in the forward torpedo room. After they're settled, they'll seal off the chlorine-tainted battery room completely. As the group leaves, Naquin ponders his next move. They're already firing distress rockets at regular intervals, and the yellow marker buoy has been deployed.

He wonders if there's anything else they can be doing to signal the surface. Then, he has an idea. He turns to an engineer. "Our toilets flush directly into the ocean, correct?" "That's correct, sir." "Good. I want you to pour several quarts of oil into the control room toilet and flush it." Naquin explains that when the oil reaches the surface, it will form a large oil slick. One more possible marker for a passing ship to spot.

As the engineer hauls a one-gallon oil can into the latrine, Naquin can't help but smile. You know, on my last sub, we went to the bathroom in buckets. Good thing those days are over. This draws chuckles from the crew and relieves some tension. Then, Naquin turns serious. I want every man here to lie down and rest, even sleep if you can. We can't afford to waste air or energy.

Naquin watches them get settled on the floor and grabs a blanket to join them. All he can do now is wait and pray like hell that a rescue operation gets going soon. The clock is ticking. Lieutenant Commander Charles Swede Momsen digs into his lunch bag at his desk at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. He fishes out a ham sandwich with mustard and takes a giant bite. As he eats, he looks out at an indoor pool and a pressure chamber.

Momsen is the world's top expert on underwater dive rescues, and this is his lab. Momsen licks the mustard off his fingers and picks up the phone. "Momsen here." "This is Charles Lockwood." Momsen nearly drops his sandwich in surprise. Commander Lockwood oversees the entire submarine fleet for the Chief of Naval Operations. He's a bigwig, and usually when bigwigs call Momsen, it's because he's in trouble.

Now, Momsen does drop his sandwich. He's been imagining getting this call for so long that it feels surreal to actually hear it. Like deja vu. Early in his 20-year Navy career, Momsen lost several close friends in sunken submarines. In some cases, he had to identify their bodies after a month underwater.

They were bloated and battered, and their fingers were clawed to the bone from trying to scratch their way out of the metal subs. The images still haunt him. That's why, for the past 13 years, Momsen has been fighting to develop the first submarine rescue equipment. He's designed a metal diving bell that can be lowered onto sunken subs to retrieve sailors through an escape hatch.

But getting the bell built has been a terrible struggle. Momsen knows his brash personality hasn't helped. He's been labeled a troublemaker who doesn't respect the chain of command. But he refuses to abide by the infuriatingly slow pace of Navy bureaucracy and the resistance to his ideas. It took several high-profile sub-accidents and loads of public pressure for the Navy to finally start building Momsen's diving bells.

They performed well in tests, but Momsen has yet to use one in an actual emergency. This might finally be his chance. At his desk, Momsen scribbles down notes about the Squalus. She's now three hours overdue. Her sister sub, the Sculpin, is currently searching for her.

Momsen finally interrupts. "Have you alerted the Falcon?" The Falcon is an old Navy minesweeping ship that now carries a rescue diving bell. She's stationed in Connecticut. "Yes, but there's bad news. The Falcon's yearly maintenance check started early this morning. The boiler has been completely dismantled and the crew's on shore leave." Momsen closes his eyes in frustration.

But there's no time to waste. Well, get the boiler put back together and send policemen to round up the crew. Careful, Lieutenant Commander. You're not in charge yet. But yes, I'll pass that along. We also want you up in Portsmouth to direct things. We're getting a plane ready for you now. I'm on my way. When Momsen hangs up, he feels an odd mix of exhilaration and terror.

He's appalled by the news about the Squalus, but he also knows this could be the first time in history that sailors are rescued from inside a submarine that deep. Momsen takes a moment to compose himself. Then he grabs his phone. It's time to get his team together. Captain Oliver Naquin lies on the floor of the control room trying to sleep.

He's ordered his men to conserve air by moving as little as possible. He's trying to lead by example, but he's having trouble keeping his eyes closed. His mind keeps racing, wondering why no rescue ships have arrived in the four hours since the squalus sank. He hopes the weather hasn't turned bad. If there's fog or large swells on the surface, it could prevent other ships from seeing the distress rockets.

Then, Naquin hears something that makes his eyes fly open. To his trained ear, it sounds like the propeller of a submarine traveling on the surface. He flicks on his lantern and orders communications specialist Charles Cooney to man the buoy telephone. Minutes pass, except for the distant thrum of the propeller. The silence is excruciating.

Naquin worries that the sub won't find the yellow buoy. Or maybe there is no other sub at all. Maybe his ears are playing tricks on him. Suddenly, Cooney yells out, "Captain, it's the sculpin! They're on the line!" "Did he say the sculpin?" "I can't believe it." The men in the control room buzz. It's their first glimmer of hope since the disaster struck. Naquin gets up and grabs the telephone connected to the yellow marker buoy above.

On the other end, he hears the Sculpin's captain, Warren Wilkin. How are things? Naquin feels a surge of relief. Even though the two captains are rivals, he's never been happier to hear another voice. Cold, but satisfactory. What's the situation up there with? But suddenly, the line goes silent. Hello? Hello? Warren? Are you there? There's no response. The line is dead.

Naquin slams down the phone in frustration. Right before the line cut out, he heard a roaring sound, like a big swell on the surface. The choppy weather above must have stretched the telephone line and snapped it, and there's no second buoy they can float, which means they're now cut off again from the outside world.

And there's worse news. If the telephone line snapped, the yellow buoy marking their position is probably loose too, which is a disaster. For any rescue equipment to reach them in the dark water down here, the ships above need to know their exact position. Being off by 50 yards might as well be 50 miles. Naquin is close to despairing.

Without the buoy, they're lost again. And this time, it might be for good. When you're hiring, time is of the essence. That's why more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide use Indeed to find exceptional talent fast. Indeed's powerful matching engine works quickly. So quickly that, according to Indeed data worldwide, every minute, 23 hires are made on Indeed.

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Head over to Symbiotica.com and use code ODDS for 20% off and free shipping on your subscription order. Frances Naquin drives along a leafy residential street near the Portsmouth Naval Yard in Kittery, Maine. It's around 1 in the afternoon, and on the seat next to her are two casserole dishes wrapped in dish towels. One chicken, one jello salad. They're the leftovers from her attempt to surprise her husband Oliver at the base last night.

He was too busy preparing for his test dive today, and the guard at the gate refused to let her pass. So she's bringing the casseroles to a luncheon for the wives of the Sculpin sailors. Even though their husbands are rivals, the wives get along well. The Sculpin is leaving for the Pacific Fleet today, so the wives won't see their husbands for six months. The luncheon is meant to lift their spirits.

Frances turns into an apartment complex to pick up her friend, Betty Patterson. Betty's husband, Joseph, serves on the squalus, and he's quite the athlete. He barely missed meddling in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1936 Olympics. But when Frances pulls up, something's wrong. Betty is standing outside crying, covering her face with her hands. Betty's brother is there, too, an arm around her shoulder.

As Francis gets out, the brother flashes a weak smile. Hi, Francis. The luncheon is canceled. Dad's asked us to come to his house. Francis frowns. Betty's father is a captain on base. If he's involved, it must be something serious. What's the matter? Is Joe in some kind of trouble? Betty's brother looks uneasy. Dad said, you need to come along as well. All the squalest wives do.

Frances' jaw drops open. She doesn't understand. Then, the truth hits her like a slap in the face. It's not just Joseph Patterson who's in trouble. It's the whole crew of the Squalus, including her husband. Radioman Art Booth and a crewmate dig their fingers into the sheets of cork lining the walls of the Squalus' conning tower just above the control room.

Booth pulls hard, tearing the cork off in chunks and tossing it aside. In normal circumstances, the cork serves to muffle any sounds on board the Squalus, preventing enemy subs from hearing them. But right now, Booth wants sound to carry. An hour ago, Booth was startled to hear the Squalus' communication console start pinging with a message in Morse code.

The message said that a ship had arrived on the scene with a radio transmitter powerful enough to reach them. It added that two tugboats are now searching for the Squalus by dragging grappling hooks across the ocean floor. Sooner or later, those hooks are bound to latch onto the missing sub. Getting a message from the surface was a huge morale boost for the whole crew. But the Squalus has no way of responding. Its functioning equipment isn't powerful enough.

Then, Captain Oliver Naquin got an idea. That's why he sent Booth and his partner up the conning tower to strip the cork off the walls. Soon, Booth exposes the bare steel of the hall. Then, he grabs a small sledgehammer. He looks at his partner. Ready? I suppose. Booth turns to the wall, raises the sledgehammer, and takes a swing. ♪

The noise is deafening, but he shakes it off, winds up, and swings again. The sledgehammer seems to grow heavier with every swing, but they're hoping the hammer blows are loud enough to reach the surface. And Booth isn't banging randomly. He's sending a Morse code message. One hammer smash for a dot, two for a dash.

The first message is, "We hear you. Can you hear us?" It takes Booth nearly 100 swings to complete the message. By the time he's done, he's dizzy with exhaustion. His partner takes over, hammering out the message again. Booth clutches his ears. His head is ringing. The noise and vibrations are so intense, he's starting to feel like he might vomit. The hatch opens to the control room below.

Communication specialist Charles Cooney peeks in. Bad news. They heard you, but the message came through garbled. Booth sighs. All that effort for nothing. What should we do? We gotta keep trying. Let's try a new message. Tell them that 33 of us are alive. Then explain which parts of the ship are flooded. Aye aye. Aye aye.

Booth grabs his sledgehammer and resumes banging, hoping against hope that their messages finally reach the surface. Frances Naquin emerges from the kitchen inside a stately home near the naval base. She's holding a platter of sandwiches. There are two dozen women in the living room on sofas and wooden folding chairs, the wives of the trapped Squalus crew.

Francis doles out the sandwiches and urges the women to eat something. They'll feel better. But after a few half-hearted nibbles, most of the wives put them down. Francis sighs. Despite her pleas, her own stomach is in knots too. And she at least knows her husband is alive. He spoke briefly to the sculpting captain. The other women don't even have that assurance.

Betty Patterson opens the front door and lets in a Navy public relations officer. As he strides into the parlor, Francis sees every wife in the room tense up, eager for news, but also dreading it. Good evening, ladies. There's little to report, I'm afraid. They're hammering out messages in Morse code, but we can't make everything out. One wife asks the question on everyone's mind. Have there been any casualties?

All we know is what Captain Naquin said before the buoy phone line snapped. That things are cold but satisfactory. We're interpreting satisfactory as no casualties. A happy buzz goes around the room. Several wives exhale with relief. But the answer leaves Francis uneasy.

That's all Oliver said? That doesn't really address the casualties. Well, we're thinking if there had been any deaths, he would have said so first thing. That's Navy protocol. Maybe he was trying to but didn't have time. It's the best information we have right now. Around the room, Frances can see that many of the women are fighting back tears, while others look hopeful. Her heart aches. She doesn't want to give them false hope, but she doesn't want to hurt them either.

So she nods at the officer. For now, she'll keep her doubts to herself. Our plan is to continue to communicate as best we can. The officer resumes talking, but Frances can't listen anymore. She grabs the Play-Doh sandwiches and retreats to the kitchen. She's joined a minute later by Betty Patterson. I'm so relieved that Joseph is okay. She means her husband, Joseph Patterson.

Frances feels the knot in her stomach tighten. Betty, I think we need to be prepared just in case anyone is hurt. You hurt the officer. They're fine. But I don't think... Easy for you to say, Frances. You know your husband's alive. Frances is startled by her anger. But a second later, Betty smooths her dress and shifts back to sweet and calm. Besides, Joseph wouldn't get hurt. He wouldn't do that to me. Can you get some coffee ready?

Francis is stunned into silence. Betty's in denial, a fake smile plastered on her face. Francis shakes her head and grabs the coffee urn. If reassurance is what the other wives need, she'll try and provide it, but she's got a bad feeling that things are worse than the Navy is letting on.

Charles Swede Momsen hurries down the conning tower ladder of the USS Sculpin as it floats on the surface of the Atlantic, some 240 feet above its sunken sister vessel, the Squalus. It's 11:00 PM, about 14 hours since the Squalus went down, and Momsen doesn't want to lose any more time. He follows the murmur of voices through the Sculpin's control room into the forward battery, which has been converted into a crisis center.

Several men rise to shake his hand, including the head of the Portsmouth Naval Yard, Admiral Cyrus Cole. Glad to see you, Lieutenant Commander. Momsen nods confidently, but deep down, he's nervous. His rescue diving bell has never been deployed in a real emergency before. Thank you, Admiral. I'm honored.

Cole asks about the rest of Momsen's team, the diver and two Navy doctors he arrived with, plus other divers and engineers coming in a separate plane. Unfortunately, Momsen's hydroplane landed just before a heavy fog bank rolled in. The second plane wasn't so lucky. The fog diverted it 150 miles away. Police cars with blaring sirens will soon be escorting them all north, but it will take hours.

Cole's news is better. It took us a hell of a long time, but the search tugboats finally snagged the Squalus with a grappling hook and line. So we have a fix on its position. That's good to hear. My divers can follow that line down to the Squalus when the time comes. And the Falcon is back in action with the diving bell aboard. But she's slow moving and that heavy fog isn't helping. It'll be a few hours at least.

As Cole continues to debrief Momsen, he mentions the messages the Squalus crew has been hammering out, including the latest news that there are 33 survivors and 26 feared dead. At that news, Momsen exhales sharply, but his focus now needs to be on saving lives, not mourning those lost. He interrupts the Admiral. Tell them to stop hammering. Stop hammering? Why?

They're wasting air and giving us information. At this point, air is more precious than information. I don't want any more dead sailors on my hands. And I don't think you do either. Admiral Cole looks taken aback, then stares hard at Momsen, his face creased in anger. Momsen knows the Admiral is used to giving orders, not taking them. He braces for a torrent of abuse, but instead,

Cole just shakes his head, then tells an aide to relay the order to stop hammering. Momsen breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn't want a power struggle. That will only hurt the men trapped below. If they can all work together, Momsen thinks they have a real chance of rescuing the sailors. Assuming, of course, that his diving bell actually works.

Frances Naquin's eyes pop open. A series of screaming police sirens have awakened her in her bed at home. She glances at the alarm clock. 4:00 a.m. She doesn't know what the sirens are for, but she's sure it's related to the Squalus disaster. And once the Squalus enters her mind, any chance of getting back to sleep is gone. Her imagination starts racing with worry. She finally grabs her robe and climbs out of bed.

In the hallway, she checks on her children, who are both sleeping soundly. A neighbor watched them today. When Frances arrived home at midnight, she found a pack of reporters in her yard, barking questions like jackals. She had to fight through them to get to her own front door. With her children safe, she descends the stairs into the kitchen and puts a pan of milk on the stove to warm. Then she turns the radio on low.

She wants some music for distraction, but there's no escaping the Squalus. We're now getting a special bulletin with an update on the harrowing story of the USS Squalus. The bulletin says the men aboard the Squalus have been hammering out messages in Morse code. And according to one of those messages, there have been 26 casualties. Frances clutches her head in horror. 26 men drowned?

Even worse, they don't know which 26. Every wife, every mother, every child with someone aboard is going to be tortured with worry. Frances immediately thinks of calling Betty Patterson, but she decides no, better to let her sleep. As the special bulletin wraps up, all the emotions of this awful day suddenly rise up inside her.

She's been striving to be tough for Betty, for her children, for everyone. But once the first tear tumbles down her cheek, she breaks down completely. She stands over her stove, sobbing, watching as the pan of milk starts to boil. She doesn't know how things could get any worse, but she's very much afraid they will.

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It's 4 a.m., and Momsen is still awake, studying the Sculpin's layout, which is identical to the Squalus. During the upcoming rescue attempt, things could easily go wrong, and he might need to shift plans in seconds. There won't be time to check such details later. Momsen hears voices approaching. He turns and is delighted to see that his team of divers have finally arrived after their police escort to Portsmouth.

They exchange hugs and handshakes. They're a tight-knit group. Momsen huddles everyone together. Look, guys, we're all excited to show our stuff. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, these will be the most difficult conditions you've ever dived in.

Momsen looks around and sees their faces harden. He goes on. "They're 240 feet down, and the water is barely above freezing. The pressure will be crushing, too. 120 pounds per square inch. To balance that pressure, you'll have to gulp down lots of air. That will significantly boost your chances of both gas narcosis and the beds." Momsen pauses to let this sink in. Every man there has experienced both those ailments during training.

Gas narcosis happens when you breathe air under high pressure. The excess gas interferes with brain and nerve signals. People get loopy, like they're drunk. Some pass out completely.

Now that he's reminded his team of the dangers, Momsen goes over the basic plan for the rescue.

First, a lone diver in a weighted suit will follow the grappling hook line all the way down to the squalus. There, he'll walk along the surface of the sub and attach another line from the diving bell to the sub's escape hatch. Next, two divers will pilot the metal diving bell down to the squalus, following the cable attached by the first diver.

A second steel cable will run between the diving bell and the Falcon and will be unfurled during their descent. This second cable will then guide the bell back to the surface after it's retrieved members of the Squalus crew. Momsen turns to one of the divers, John Michalowski. John, I want you to pilot the diving bell. I'd be proud to, sir.

Momsen nods, then tells the divers to follow him. It's time to go over every inch of the Sculpin and prepare for their mission. Electrician Gerald McLeese shivers beneath a blanket in the forward torpedo room of the Squalus. He's trying to sleep, but it's simply too cold. The water temperature outside the hull is in the 30s, and there's no electricity to run the heaters on board.

Whenever his crewmates turn on a flashlight, MacLeese can see his breath. Icicles have formed on the bulkheads above him. Besides freezing, MacLeese also feels nauseous and has a splitting headache. It's been nearly 20 hours since the squalus sank, and they only have enough breathable air left for another 24.

To stretch their supply, Captain Naquin has ordered the crew to ration the release of oxygen from the extra tanks on board. They're also not spreading out much powder to absorb carbon dioxide. As a result, the air on board is slowly growing more toxic. Despite orders to save energy by not talking, MacLeese can hear his crewmates whispering. He leans over to the cook, William Isaacs.

By John, he means the electrician who insisted on staying in the after battery. Patterson is Joseph Patterson, the Olympic hurdler, his favorite officer on board. He last saw them both in the crew's mess, in the rear of the sub, the part Isaacs narrowly escaped before it flooded.

In the darkness, MacLeese hears Isaac's sigh. No, Gerald. I didn't see them. Maybe they're alive, but just trapped. There's no one alive back there. We banged the pipes. But you made it out, so maybe they could have. I didn't see them. MacLeese is left with troubled thoughts. If John hadn't insisted on staying back there, MacLeese would be the one dead right now. It's just stupid luck that he's alive. Then, someone says something chilling.

MacLeese can't tell who. It's just a voice in the dark. "Maybe the ones who died are lucky. At least they're not suffering anymore." Then he hears another voice, one of the officers. "Everyone zip it. That's an order. Talk like that does no good. Quiet down and save your strength." The room falls silent again, but huddled beneath his blanket, MacLeese can't help but wonder if maybe that person is right. Maybe the dead are the lucky ones.

especially if this rescue mission doesn't work. He's heard about these diving bells. He even saw one in submarine training school. But he's well aware they've never been deployed in a real emergency, and not in water so deep. The phone from the control room rings. An officer answers, and McLeese strains to listen. He's sure it's more bad news.

But no. The officer announces that a message came through from the surface. The rescue dive team has arrived, as has the Falcon, the ship with the diving bell. Someone starts clapping. Soon, they all are. The officer who just snapped starts to laugh. "Alright, alright, I'm happy too, but we need to keep quiet."

Despite the cold and dark and the persistent nausea, McLeese can feel the morale in the room skyrocket. And underneath that, he feels ashamed of his despair a moment ago. Suddenly, they have a chance. Diver John Michalowski stands on the deck of the USS Falcon and studies the rescue diving bell. It looks like a massive beer can, a gray steel cylinder that towers over him.

It's 7 feet wide, 10 feet tall, and weighs 9 tons. And soon, he's going to have to pilot it deeper than anyone's ever taken it before. Michalowski and his co-pilot check every inch, making sure every external connection is secure, especially to the compressed air tanks bolted to the side. Then, they climb ladders and examine the four cables on top.

One cable supplies the bell with electricity. Another is a telephone line. The last two supply air from the surface, their lifeline beneath the water. Michalowski opens a hatch and the two men lower themselves inside. They're wearing their blue sailor's uniforms, plus overcoats to guard against the cold. Michalowski picks up the phone. It's connected to the deck of the Falcon.

He hears Swede Momsen's voice. "Ready?" "Yep, let's splash down." A hoist lifts the bell into the air. Michalowski peers out through a tiny window in the wall of the diving bell. After they slip into the water, Michalowski begins the bell's descent. He controls the speed by turning a wheel valve that lets water into a sealed-off lower chamber. The more water he lets in, the heavier the bell gets.

He gives the wheel a quarter crank and feels them sink, following the cable that the lead diver attached to the squalus. After 30 minutes, they pass 150 feet. Michalowski shivers. The frigid water is turning the bell into an icebox. But it's more than just the cold. Although they've done countless drills with the bell, they've never gone this deep before. Everything after this is uncharted territory.

To calm his nerves, Michalowski starts to whistle a little. Some of the melodies he learned growing up. It helps him stay steady. After 20 more minutes and more than 200 feet down, Michalowski can just make out the squalus looming through the tiny window. A hulking black shape like a dead whale. As they get closer, he spots the rescue hatch. That's their target.

Gently, the diving bell settles over the hatch. Michalowski silently cheers. 27 hours after the squalus first went down, the rescuers have finally made contact with the sunken submarine. Michalowski grabs a telephone to give Momsen an update. We just touched down, right on target. Atta boy, John. Great work so far. Just be careful with this next step.

Roger that. Michalowski starts the process of getting the bell ready for the sailors. First, he flushes most of the water out of the lower chamber. Next, he opens a hatch leading down into it. There's a few inches of water still in the chamber, but that's to be expected. He begins fishing around in it with his hands, searching. He's looking for four bolt holes he can use to lock the bell to the surface of the sub.

Finally, he finds a hole. He removes a bolt and a wrench from his pocket and begins twisting the bolt into place. A minute later, he starts on another one. With each bolt, the bell is more secure, and he can feel the tension draining from his body. Now, for the moment of truth, time to open the escape hatch on the Squalus. Michalowski leans down and grips the hatch's handle in the water.

It's slippery, and it takes him several attempts to turn it. When he cracks the hatch, the remaining water in the lower chamber goes pouring into the squalus. It can't be helped. Then, he opens the hatch fully and peers down. But something doesn't seem right. It's completely black down there. There's no movement. He calls out several times. Hello? Hello? Hey, hello? Hello?

He gets the worst possible answer in return. Total and complete silence.

This is episode two of our three-part series, Submarine Rescue, The Race to Save Squalus. A quick note about our scenes. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on historical research. If you'd like to learn more about this event, we highly recommend the books The Terrible Hours by Peter Moss and Back from the Deep by Carl Laveau. I'm your host, Cassie DePeckel. Sam Keen wrote this episode. Our editor is Steve Finnessy.

Our audio engineer is Sergio Enriquez. Sound design is by Rob Shielaga. Produced by Matt Almos and Emily Frost. Our managing producer is Tanja Thigpen. Our coordinating producer is Matt Gant. Our senior producer is Andy Herman. Our executive producers are Jenny Lauer-Beckman, Stephanie Jens, and Marshall Louis. For Wondery.

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