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card. Shop in-store or online at

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shoprite.com. ShopRite, check out Happy. What

0:15

kind of fun is waiting for you at Kings Island?

0:18

The holy cow are way too high and here comes

0:21

the drop kind of fun. The

0:24

make a splash all summer kind

0:26

of fun. I

0:29

can't believe I ate that whole funnel cake. Let's

0:31

get another kind of fun. But

0:33

most importantly at Kings Island, you'll find for

0:35

the fun of it kind of fun. Don't

0:38

wait to start your fun this season.

0:40

Kings Island opens its gates April 20th.

0:46

This country is at war

0:48

with Germany. We shall go on to the

0:50

end. I

0:54

remember the sheets of flame that came up and almost

0:56

blinded us with my guns. Operation

1:07

Jubilee, the Dieppe raid on the coast of

1:09

France, was a disaster in 1942. However,

1:13

it did highlight the need for

1:15

more reconnaissance before any other amphibious

1:17

operations were mounted. In

1:19

London, a small group of eccentric

1:21

researchers experimenting on themselves from inside

1:23

pressure tanks in the middle of

1:25

the blitz explored the

1:28

deadly science needed to enable

1:30

the critical reconnaissance vehicles and

1:32

underwater breathing apparatus that would

1:34

enable the Allies future amphibious

1:36

landings, specifically D-Day. I'm

1:39

Angus Wallace and welcome to

1:41

another episode of the World

1:43

War II podcast. Joining me

1:45

today is Rachel Lance. Rachel

1:47

is an assistant consulting professor

1:49

at Duke University, where she

1:51

conducts research out of their

1:53

hyperbaric medicine facility. She's also

1:56

the author of Chamber Divers, the

1:58

untold story of the D-Day. scientists

2:01

who changed special operations

2:03

forever. Thanks for

2:05

joining me. So I think it is

2:07

easy to think of Scuba gear as

2:09

we know it today as having

2:11

been around for ages but what was it like

2:13

in 1939? Were there problems that needed

2:17

to be overcome? We can breathe

2:19

underwater but it's very clunky.

2:22

So Jacques Cousteau was actually

2:24

working on Scuba. He invented

2:26

the first free diving regulators

2:29

during World War II. So at the

2:31

same time as the story Jacques Cousteau

2:33

is over there in Nazi occupied brands

2:36

tinkering in his garage or wherever. I

2:38

like to think of it as a

2:40

garage but building the first devices that

2:42

we now use for modern Scuba. So

2:45

at the time of the chamber

2:47

divers and when they were starting

2:50

their work you really needed surface

2:52

supplied equipment. This is

2:54

exactly like the movie Men of Honor

2:57

with Cuba Gooding Jr. You have a

2:59

giant hard hat, you have this huge

3:01

get up with tons of lead, it

3:04

weighs hundreds of pounds, hundreds of kilos

3:06

even and it's

3:08

also tethered. So you have an

3:10

umbilical that connects you to a surface

3:12

ship and on that surface

3:14

ship your friends are constantly pumping air

3:16

down to you. Alright

3:18

so now we have this huge

3:21

visual of what this takes. It's

3:23

physically possible but it's not exactly

3:25

stealthy. You can't take this equipment

3:27

and go scout a harbor that

3:30

you're about to attack with it. Be

3:32

like don't shoot it asleep or just

3:34

hear a scouting mission we need some

3:36

beach information. What the Allies needed

3:38

was something that was more free swimming

3:40

and more undercover. Some of the

3:43

problems that they know they have

3:45

to overcome such as I

3:47

was going to start with decompression sickness

3:49

because I thought it was absolutely fascinating

3:51

which is I guess people know the

3:53

bends. That

3:55

was known not through diving because of bridge building.

3:57

Have I got that right? completely

4:00

bizarre. So the caissons were

4:02

the bridge supports. And they would sink

4:04

them down from the top. So they'd

4:06

be working inside these upturned bowls, where

4:08

there's basically air trapped in there, digging

4:10

out the dirt from the bottom. And

4:12

then they would just sink the bowl

4:14

down as they went. And

4:16

the caisson workers would have a

4:18

set of stairs inside or rudimentary

4:20

elevator for their means to come

4:22

up. But in order to

4:25

keep the water out of that bowl, you've got to

4:27

have it pressurized. And that

4:29

means that they're essentially scuba diving

4:31

put in a giant ridge

4:34

part. What was happening was these

4:36

caisson workers were coming up. And they were

4:38

getting sick. And they were getting hurt. When

4:40

it started out mild, they were like, oh,

4:42

he's walking funny today. That's where the name

4:44

The Bends comes from. People would bend their

4:46

back a little bit funny. And

4:48

it was similar to a posture that ladies

4:51

would use to accentuate these big, buffled gowns

4:53

they were wearing at the time. They

4:56

would come up from the deep. And then it

4:58

started getting worse. So as they

5:00

got deeper in these caissons, the

5:03

symptoms got worse and worse until eventually

5:05

they were getting paralysis. And then

5:07

people started dying. So that's the

5:09

first time that people start really realizing what decompression

5:11

sickness is and what it could do to the

5:13

body, which, meanwhile, people still

5:15

want to dive. People want to salvage

5:18

dive. And it's stopping that kind

5:20

of activity and that kind of progress, too. So

5:23

the Haldane family was the first

5:25

one to really figure out how

5:27

to prevent it. So what

5:29

causes compression sickness? Take compression

5:31

sickness. It's whatever gas you're

5:34

breathing at the time. Most commonly,

5:36

that's nitrogen because we're usually breathing

5:38

air. And what happens is

5:40

your body absorbs these gases like a

5:43

sponge. So even right now, Angus, right

5:45

now we're at the surface. If we

5:47

decompress from the surface, we would still

5:49

get decompression sickness because right now, we're

5:51

soggy with nitrogen. This is

5:53

actually a problem with fighter pilots and

5:55

with astronauts because when they want to

5:57

go to lower pressures, like, super high,

6:00

high altitude or outside the space station,

6:02

they actually need to decompress more slowly

6:04

using oxygen on the surface first, or

6:06

they'll get the same thing. They can

6:08

die in their fighter planes. So

6:12

the nitrogen comes out of your tissues

6:15

when the pressure is reduced and

6:17

it essentially forms bubbles. It's the

6:19

most common metaphor is opening a

6:21

soda can. You see no

6:23

bubbles, you open it, all of a sudden

6:25

the pressure has an escape, the bubbles form

6:27

and they come out. Bubbles in

6:30

the body are not good. They block the flow

6:32

of blood and we like blood. So

6:34

you mentioned the Haldan family, they tackle

6:36

this problem. I

6:39

guess we first meet young John, who's

6:41

Jack Haldan who will be working during the war.

6:44

Who are the Haldan families? How do their

6:46

family, how do they become to work

6:48

on this problem? They sort of work on this

6:50

because, and I'm gonna use this term very

6:52

lovingly, this is the biggest compliment I can

6:54

give. They're a pack of science

6:56

weirdos. These people just

6:59

love respiratory physiology. The

7:01

guy, the father, John Scott Haldan, which

7:03

their names are too close. He

7:05

regretted it later in life. He was like, this is

7:08

mistake. But he just

7:10

loved breathing and breathing physiology. Anytime there

7:12

was a mining accident in the UK,

7:15

he would like travel their right away

7:17

to work with the miners and try

7:19

and improve mining safety. During

7:21

World War I when there was

7:24

mustard gas, he actually had

7:26

his son Jack Haldan pulled from the

7:28

trenches. Okay, so first of all, he

7:30

had the power in British aristocracy to pull

7:32

his son from the trenches. And it

7:34

wasn't to keep him safe. It was because

7:37

they had a gas chamber in their living

7:39

room where they would expose themselves to us

7:41

or deaths on purpose. He

7:43

was like, son, you're in a place where you

7:45

might get this stuff. Come on home, we're gonna

7:47

test it on ourselves on purpose. So

7:50

these people are just very involved in breathing

7:52

and breathing physiology at a time period where

7:54

that field is developing as a science, which

7:56

is the late 1800s, early 1900s. So

8:00

when World War II kind of

8:03

rolls around, the son, J.B.A. Haldane,

8:05

is just, he lived

8:07

with this stuff. He saturated like

8:09

nitrogen, but with breathing physiology, he's

8:11

been living it his whole life. What

8:14

it means is his father sending him down with

8:16

age 12 to test him in the water with

8:18

it on or allowing him to. And I'm like,

8:20

whoa! Yeah, yeah. The

8:22

diving experiments where they're like, let's

8:24

see if our very first methods

8:27

for decompressing from D.C.

8:29

work safely. And

8:32

the adults go first, but then after the adults go

8:34

first, they're like, hey, kid, come

8:36

on over here. And 12-year-old J.B.A. Haldane

8:40

gets to do one

8:43

of the first early dives with

8:45

this new protocol. So... Let's

8:48

see if our theory works on children as well

8:50

as adults, even though their physiology must be slightly

8:52

different. My favorite part is this 12-year-old

8:54

is so sturdy and invested in

8:57

the science that his suit didn't

8:59

fit. So he's got

9:01

a water leak in the seas

9:03

off of Scotland, which

9:05

is just frigid. It's so cold. He's got

9:07

a water leak. The whole thing is leaking.

9:11

And he used this to come up because

9:13

he's having fun. So by the time they

9:15

pull him up, he's hypothermic. And this is

9:17

a 12-year-old kid who just really wanted to

9:19

go diving. So I kind of relate to

9:22

that. Is Haldane's first job

9:24

for the Admiralty, the role of

9:26

Navy, looking at the sinking of

9:28

the fetus? Is that how we

9:30

pronounce it? Only

9:32

four crew members survive. Is that where he

9:34

first becomes involved directly with the Admiralty, work

9:36

for the Admiralty? Yeah, but I

9:38

might take slight issue with your

9:40

phrasing. So you're right. We're going

9:43

to be a little pickier because

9:45

basically what happened is in the summer

9:48

of 1939, so Hitler's

9:50

already starting to rumble. People

9:53

know that something is coming, especially over in the

9:55

UK. In

9:57

short order, we have three submarines going. down

10:00

and nobody really talks about them.

10:03

So the French lost the

10:05

submarine Phoenix, which is the Phoenix

10:07

off the coast of Vietnam in

10:09

a training exercise. The Americans lost

10:12

the USS Squalas off the coast

10:14

of the East Coast, Atlantic coast

10:17

in a training exercise. And the

10:19

British lose the ASMS in a

10:21

training exercise off the coast of

10:23

England. So all three of these

10:25

submarines go down within a couple of weeks

10:28

of each other. They're all made in

10:30

June 1939 as the world is

10:33

preparing for war. So the allies, I

10:35

can't even imagine the stress in the

10:37

submarine community, they kept this quiet on

10:39

purpose so as not to induce a

10:41

lot of panic. But of course, there

10:43

are crews aboard the submarine. The

10:45

fetus alone had 103 people

10:47

on board. It was really overloaded because it

10:49

was the first time the submarine had been

10:51

used. So clearly these

10:54

countries have this moment where they're

10:56

hit with the realization that they

10:58

have built these things. And

11:00

they have no idea how to use them, how

11:03

to survive in them, or how to escape

11:05

from them. So the office beat

11:07

is true. Of the 103, only

11:09

four managers escaped successfully. The allies all thought

11:11

they had this problem handled. They have these

11:13

like rudimentary breathing apparatuses that are basically a

11:15

little leather bag with a bottle of oxygen

11:18

attached to it. And they were like, Oh,

11:20

it's fine. You just put this on, you

11:22

go out, you swim up, bam, we're good.

11:24

We'll pick you up on the surface. Have

11:26

a fun time. So they

11:28

realized all of a sudden that before they pick

11:30

up are basically on the verge of death anyway.

11:33

So something is awry with this plan. They have

11:35

no idea what they're doing. So JBS

11:38

Haldane, this guy who's grown up

11:40

diving, grown up in the gas

11:42

chamber in his family lab. I

11:44

said living room. It was they

11:46

had a, let's not understate, they

11:49

had an actual science lab in

11:51

their house. So this is kind

11:53

of their living room, but he

11:55

kind of steps up. And so

11:57

he would, it wasn't even necessary. his

12:01

job for the Admiralty, I think

12:03

they were floundering. And he saw

12:05

them floundering and he saw their

12:07

inaccurate explanations. And he saw people

12:09

saying things that he knew were

12:11

wrong. And he got together a

12:14

group of his buddies and they were like, no, no,

12:16

no, we're gonna prove what

12:19

happened and we're gonna prove it

12:21

on ourselves. So J.B.S. Helton

12:23

does this test with four other veterans from

12:25

the Spanish Civil War where he had volunteered

12:27

to fight and the five of

12:30

them put themselves in a chamber and they

12:32

simulate the conditions in this down submarine.

12:34

And so that is his first real work

12:36

for the Admiralty and he kind of inserts

12:38

himself into the proceedings and he's like, listen

12:41

up, here's what happened, here's

12:43

what you need to do. But

12:45

thankfully, thankfully they did. Thankfully they listened

12:47

to him. Well, so what did happen?

12:49

What was his conclusions? His conclusion was

12:52

that it had nothing to do with the

12:54

oxygen. The reason that so many people failed

12:56

to escape was because of the carbon dioxide.

12:58

This is a thing that a lot of people

13:00

forget inside and in closed space. We're all aware

13:03

of oxygen. We need it to live. We like

13:05

it. We want

13:07

it to keep coming. But we forget

13:09

that we're actually a means of production

13:11

here too. We take that

13:13

oxygen and we attach carbon to it

13:15

and then we exhale it back out.

13:18

And we usually forget about that

13:20

because we don't do anything else

13:22

with the carbon dioxide. But

13:25

in an enclosed space, that's actually what's

13:27

going to control how long you can

13:29

survive. So Haldane and

13:31

his compatriots were in this chamber. They were

13:33

breathing up CO2 and they recorded

13:36

what happened to them as they did it.

13:38

And then not only that, but they

13:41

tried to switch to their breathing apparatuses,

13:43

which were now pure oxygen, and

13:45

they all start just uncontrollably

13:48

vomiting. Well, I think one or

13:50

two escaped from the vomiting, but he still

13:52

felt pretty sick. So they

13:54

proved that not only do you have this

13:56

problem where carbon dioxide is becoming

13:59

incapacitated, Fascinating to these submariners. It's

14:02

affecting their cognition. It's affecting their

14:04

physical ability to save themselves And

14:07

you have to take that into account when you're planning

14:09

the escape But also when they

14:11

try and switch to these breathing apparatuses, they've

14:13

got they all of a sudden have

14:15

withdrawal Your body goes

14:17

into withdrawal and you start vomiting

14:20

because essentially because of the carbon

14:22

dioxide your bloodstream seem to fill

14:24

with acid When your blood

14:26

stream gets really acidic your body tries to

14:28

offload the acid in your stomach to

14:30

try and survive So if

14:32

you're projectile vomiting into your breathing apparatus,

14:35

it's not gonna work that well One

14:38

of the men who had tried to escape

14:40

the fetus Had pulled

14:42

his apparatus out of his mouth While

14:45

he was locked in the escape hatch and

14:48

the hatch had later filled with water So they

14:50

weren't really sure if he'd been vomiting or not

14:52

But these things had a strap to hold it

14:54

on your mouth And so they know that he

14:56

had voluntarily yanked it out of his mouth And

14:59

so that's what rendered that actually useless

15:01

and trapped the remaining 99 inside So

15:04

how Dane really elegantly showed using himself

15:07

and then testified in the court of

15:09

inquiry while he still had a headache

15:11

from the CO2 the night before that it was

15:13

actually the carbon dioxide that the admiral teeny

15:15

did to be paying attention to It's

15:18

from this place that's to work on Is

15:21

it can I actually the Sun committee and they're

15:23

looking at problems of breathing underwater? I

15:25

wonder how could he help because he

15:27

seems to have a laboratory full of

15:30

geneticists rather than necessarily People

15:33

who are experts in breathing and physiology

15:35

perhaps right so that they're at University

15:37

College London and all they

15:40

specialize in is genetics Which at

15:42

this point this is before? for Franklin

15:45

and Crick had figured out the structure of

15:47

DNA and so we don't know of the

15:49

gene the same way we think of it

15:51

today So geneticists at

15:53

that time essentially meant mathematician.

15:56

So these people were literally the

15:58

inventors of modern Most

16:01

of modern statistics comes from the

16:03

1930s from the study of genetics

16:06

and eugenics. So the geneticists

16:08

and the eugenicists are at war with

16:10

each other even within the halls of

16:12

the universities. And they have these

16:14

conflicting ideas and it's this very quiet, nerdy war

16:17

at that time. But it sort of sets the

16:19

stage for the brewing battle of World War II

16:21

that's going to come because, of

16:23

course, Hitler is on the eugenic side where

16:26

he thinks we should essentially be breeding people.

16:29

So the geneticists are saying, no, no, no,

16:31

we just need to use math. We're just

16:33

going to look at how genetics trace naturally

16:36

through the generation. They're using mostly

16:38

fruit flies. They're using mice. They're

16:40

trying to figure out how different

16:42

traits are inherited. They're working

16:44

with Haldane already in genetics because

16:47

he's been doing this as a kid, since he was

16:49

a kid too. And

16:51

Haldane kind of has this

16:53

realization like, my group can do

16:55

this. We have the mascots. Underwater

16:58

breathing physiology, as

17:00

someone who does this for a living, is

17:02

mostly math too. We still have

17:04

to do all these statistics. So

17:06

this group, all they needed to do was

17:09

convert from studying fruit flies to studying

17:11

their own bodies. They start putting themselves in

17:13

the chambers and then running the math on

17:15

themselves. And it's a really peculiar mix of

17:17

paper because he sponsors a number

17:20

of German Jews fleeing Germany

17:22

as well, doesn't he? He does. He

17:24

thought that was really important. One

17:26

of the things that's amazing about Haldane

17:29

is that he was extremely socially

17:31

awkward in a way that I

17:33

think is both

17:36

a downfall of his personality

17:38

and incredibly endearing. So

17:40

he's had these moments of incredible

17:43

difficulty where if people did

17:46

what he didn't like, things

17:48

like that, he would maybe explode at

17:51

them. It's possible today he

17:53

may have been considered for like an autism

17:55

spectrum diagnosis. I'm not qualified to make that

17:57

judgment, but I think it would be interesting.

18:00

to talk to a professional who was.

18:02

And he would also have these moments

18:05

where he just didn't understand

18:07

some of the meaner aspects

18:12

of human nature in the

18:14

sense that he didn't understand racism.

18:16

He wrote papers about how the

18:19

races were just genetic variation of

18:21

skin pigming patients. So why does

18:23

this matter? And the

18:26

same thing with sex. He was like,

18:28

you're not using these organs for science.

18:31

Like, so why does this matter? And

18:34

the same thing with religion as well. And

18:36

so he just, he seemed

18:38

like he mentally could not process

18:40

why these people were treated differently.

18:43

That made him really want to

18:45

help anyone who was

18:47

in this position of discrimination.

18:50

And so he actively worked to

18:52

bring over as many German Jews

18:54

as he could. And because

18:56

he was in a science lab, his

18:59

position was such that he could mostly

19:01

help scientists. So he would have this

19:03

excuse and he'd be like, oh yes,

19:05

Hans Grütteberg, I know him, he's great.

19:08

Come on over. Or like Hans Kelleman,

19:10

come on over. Ursula Phillips, come on

19:12

over. And so he was bringing over

19:14

these people who were actively

19:17

fleeing Hitler on the mainland.

19:19

He saved them. And their

19:22

children to this day, so yes, he

19:24

absolutely saved their lives. They came over and

19:26

then they were not only given a safe

19:28

place, well, relatively safe. The London was still

19:30

being bombed. But they were also being given

19:32

a lab where they could keep their children

19:35

in their work. And to a

19:37

scientist like, this is the

19:39

greatest gift, to be able to do

19:41

something where you're not only safe, but you're allowed

19:43

to do what you love. Like all these people

19:45

were fighting to be able to do what they

19:47

love, their science, their investigation. And so most

19:50

of them end up putting themselves in

19:52

the chambers where they are still very

19:54

much at risk of death in

19:57

order to help the Allied effort. Ursula

19:59

Phillips. She was a German

20:01

Jewish refugee who came over. She

20:04

was never allowed to know what they were working on. So

20:07

she puts herself in these chambers, lets

20:09

them do these experiments on her, is

20:11

consenting to it, is at very real

20:13

risk of death, has seen her colleagues

20:15

be seriously injured, has seen them break

20:17

their necks, has seen them dislocate their jaws. She

20:20

never knows, she never asks

20:23

what it's for. She just knows it's for

20:25

the Allied war effort. This place is

20:27

giving me a home. Perhaps we could

20:29

tease out some of the things that

20:31

we're putting themselves through, because it is

20:33

remarkable. Is it next to

20:36

them, they start looking at nitrogen narcosis? So

20:38

what's that and how does he go

20:40

about it? Because we have collapsed lungs

20:43

of things with nitrogen narcosis, don't we?

20:45

It's part of his testing. So

20:48

the nitrogen narcosis is one of my favorite things

20:50

in the world because it is the best excuse

20:52

in the universe to be drunk off your

20:54

rocker at work. Nitrogen narcosis

20:56

is essentially the idea that nitrogen

20:59

has a narcotic effect, meaning

21:01

the nitrogen gas that we breathe, it's 79% of

21:03

air, so we're breathing

21:05

in all the time. It actually has a

21:08

slight narcotic effect. And studies have shown we

21:10

have a little bit of narcosis every day

21:12

on the surface, so we're all just

21:14

a tad bit drunk on nitrogen right now. But

21:17

when you go on with the pressure

21:19

and you have a higher pressure of

21:21

nitrogen, that effect increases. And

21:24

the general rule of thumb that

21:26

divers talk about is something called

21:28

Martini's Law. This is not precise

21:30

science, but they're saying for every atmosphere

21:32

you go down, so every 10 meters you

21:35

go underwater, or 33 feet if

21:37

they're Americans listening, that's equal to one

21:39

martini. That is how drunk you

21:41

should expect to feel. So

21:44

by the time you're getting to 30 meters, 40

21:46

meters, you're pretty, you're pretty

21:48

affected. The

21:52

first thing these people studied was trying

21:54

to figure out what is causing this

21:56

effect and if there's a way to

21:58

avoid it. still don't know

22:01

what causes nitrogen that

22:34

causes tests. How did it get to the stage? Is that

22:36

how I was on the wrong thing they

22:58

were testing for? It's

23:00

remarkable the injuries and

23:03

the injuries that they do to

23:06

themselves whilst they're doing these testing. Okay,

23:08

so Jim Raddell did work on nitrogen narcosis

23:11

tests but at the time of his accident

23:13

he was looking at the effects of CO2

23:15

on our high pressure. That's another thing. Oxygen

23:18

poisoning. I didn't know

23:20

there was such a thing as oxygen poisoning. That's

23:23

something else they're asked to deal with. Is that

23:25

a big deal still? Do they crack that? Oh

23:27

no, it's not been cracked. It's

23:29

not been cracked. We just avoid

23:31

it. Oxygen

23:33

poisoning is still very much a

23:35

problem but now we just

23:38

take the policy of avoiding it and

23:41

actually as a result of the research

23:43

that I did for this book, I'm

23:45

going to be able to put out

23:47

a new paper in the

23:49

field with the database of the tests

23:51

from this experimental

23:54

series because they were previously classified.

23:56

They've never been published before and

23:59

this is a huge amount of new

24:01

data. This is more data than we've

24:03

collectively ever had in the world of

24:05

dye physiology before. So what they did

24:07

in these five years, they achieved more than

24:09

we've been able to achieve in the

24:11

80 years since. And a lot

24:13

of that was because they were able to

24:15

go into these extreme realms of danger.

24:17

Like we can't ethically do that when

24:20

there's no war. We know more about

24:22

oxygen toxicity now because of this group.

24:24

Yeah, James Riddell, when he was testing, he

24:26

was one of the first ones to get really

24:28

seriously entered. And that specific

24:30

test was not for nitrogen or co-cocetylate,

24:33

it was for the effects of carbon

24:35

dioxide under pressure. But it's the same

24:37

kind of physical idea, right? They're going

24:39

down to pressure, they're coming back up.

24:42

And what ends up happening is

24:45

while we normally just breathe

24:47

in and out, and so the

24:49

gas that's pressurized because we're breathing it

24:51

in at depth escapes normally through the

24:54

course of our breathing. James

24:56

Riddell had a small pocket in

24:58

his lung, whether that's from

25:00

some previous disease or some previous

25:03

just genetics. We really can't

25:06

know, but this is the thing that

25:08

can just, it can happen sometimes, unfortunately. That

25:10

small pocket in his lung retains

25:12

the pressurized gas that he breathed

25:14

in at depth. And while he

25:16

was ascending, it ruptured. His

25:19

whole lung didn't collapse right away. But

25:21

over the next few days, with every

25:24

breath he took, a little bit more

25:26

crept into his chest cavity instead of

25:28

being exhaled normally. So over time, he

25:31

had this huge gas pocket in his

25:33

chest that kept growing. And

25:35

it was not only collapsing his lung,

25:37

it was pushing his heart to the side.

25:40

So of course, like, this is a

25:42

fatal condition. If it's not treated, this

25:44

is 100% fatal if

25:47

it's not treated. Thankfully, he ends

25:49

up getting badgered into going to

25:51

the doctor. He thought he

25:54

just had like food poisoning. It

25:56

was an upset meat pie, but

25:58

it's significant other bad. him

26:00

to go to the doctor as a good significant

26:03

other always should and turned

26:05

out he had a club slug and of course since

26:07

it's the 1940s the doctor figured

26:09

this out by having him smoke a cigarette

26:11

while in the pulmonary health clinic.

26:13

But of course this revealed that

26:15

there was smoke going

26:17

into his chest cavity, the doctor is able

26:19

to help him. He did deal

26:21

with that club slug and the ruptured lung for

26:24

the rest of his life like it was always

26:26

a problem for him but he

26:28

survived. So he was kind

26:30

of the first one in the group to

26:32

suffer one of these

26:34

major injuries that could be life threatening and

26:37

after him they started falling one after

26:39

the other as they started getting into

26:41

more and more extreme experience but they

26:44

never stopped. We're gonna take a short

26:46

break we'll be back in a

26:48

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27:17

Nothing else comes close. Is

27:23

it summer of 42 which must be

27:25

after the D.F. parade perhaps? The

27:28

Royal Navy sent down Lieutenant Kenneth

27:30

Donald with his team of divers.

27:33

Does that help jumpstart everything forward

27:35

having backing like that from the

27:38

Royal Navy? Yes and no. It

27:42

helped in that they sent a bunch of people. So Kenneth

27:45

Donald and actually I like to give

27:47

credit to William O. Schilford because I

27:49

think he was the one really in

27:51

charge. Kenneth Donald in the

27:53

90s after everyone else had died

27:55

claimed that Kenneth Donald was in

27:58

charge the actual time period. records

28:00

indicate that it was Shelford running the

28:02

show and they

28:04

brought a lot of people. So that

28:07

was really valuable because the UCL

28:09

lab who've been doing all of

28:11

this on themselves, I still

28:13

feel they're physically exhausted. They've

28:15

been doing this on themselves multiple

28:17

times per week and they're spacing

28:19

it out based on how little

28:21

time they can give themselves that

28:23

their bodies can handle it. So

28:25

they basically are taking a minimum

28:27

amount of time that they can

28:29

to recover before they get back

28:31

in. So this group at that

28:33

point has experienced Randal's collapsed lung,

28:36

how Dane has broken his back.

28:38

He's literally fractured his spine. They've

28:40

been having seizures. There

28:43

have been multiple seizures and they don't

28:45

know what's coming around the corner for

28:47

them next. So when the

28:49

Royal Navy shows up, they finally did

28:51

this problem, the attention it can deserve.

28:53

It's no longer just this maverick group

28:56

of scientists testing on themselves. Although

28:58

they kept testing on themselves too,

29:00

the Royal Navy can contribute bodies.

29:03

They send a whole bunch of these divers

29:05

who have signed up for things

29:07

they weren't accurately told about and they get put

29:09

in the wet pot too. In

29:12

science, having more people is always better

29:14

science because the human body varies. Your body

29:16

is different from my body, it's different from

29:18

the next person who walked down the street

29:20

behind me. And so

29:22

when we are able to take into

29:24

account that variation, at least to

29:26

a degree we can, the science ends up being

29:28

stronger and more applicable to more people. But

29:30

on the other hand, Ken Donald seems to have been,

29:32

in my opinion, a very difficult person.

29:34

So he does end up stealing

29:37

credit for everything. One

29:39

of the UCL group, Dr. Helen Spurway, was

29:41

the one who did all of the math,

29:43

all of the analysis, all of the everything

29:46

for all of the data. And

29:48

Ken Donald simply took it and

29:50

plagiarized it and called it his

29:52

own. So I'm

29:54

sorry, that's upsetting, but

29:56

yes, the contribution of the bodies and the other

29:58

people who got it. in the team

30:01

were also, that's an amazing contribution

30:03

as well. They knew some of the risks.

30:05

They knew that their friends were being dragged

30:07

out unconscious and they still got in anyway.

30:10

He tries to remove Haldane from the team

30:12

at one point as well, which I find

30:14

incredible considering he must be Britain's preeminent expert

30:17

on the topic. He does. He tries

30:19

to remove Haldane from the team and unfortunately

30:21

he was successful. Thankfully,

30:23

this was toward the end where they're

30:25

doing the exploration that they needed. And

30:28

Donald decides that Haldane is just too

30:30

difficult to work with. So he holds

30:32

a secret meeting with the admiral team

30:35

and Donald is a military member.

30:37

So he has access. He has the ability

30:39

to do this. So since Donald

30:41

has greater access, he has the ability

30:43

to hold, call this secret meeting and

30:45

say, I can't work with this guy

30:47

around. And again, there is historical

30:49

acknowledgement that Haldane was a difficult personality,

30:52

but he, and like he said, he's

30:54

brilliant. He knows this stuff. He is

30:56

the expert. He's not only the British expert,

30:58

but he's the global expert in my opinion

31:01

at this time. And they

31:03

decide that Haldane has given

31:05

them enough. So

31:07

Haldane has given them enough information

31:10

that they can kind of wrap

31:12

up the experimental series. Donald will

31:14

just do a few more tests,

31:16

but Haldane has already taught him

31:18

how to run them. So Donald

31:21

does a few more tests and

31:23

then the admiralty in secret sends

31:25

Donald's remaining information to Haldane to

31:27

double check. So even

31:29

though they've listened to Donald, they'll be like, okay,

31:32

we'll take Haldane off the team. When

31:34

Donald's not looking, they're like, please, please

31:36

check him for, they still

31:38

asking Haldane to please review everything. And

31:40

because this guy is just really patriotic,

31:42

he knows this is a, this is

31:45

a terrible war. He was very anti-fascist

31:47

at the beginning, but he wants

31:49

the war to be over through fascist defeat.

31:52

So I'll put it that way. He's not anti-war and saying

31:54

like, don't fight them, but

31:56

he wants the war to be over. So he's willing to

31:58

do whatever he can to help. So of course he just

32:00

does it. Even though he's

32:03

known for being difficult interpersonally, he

32:05

was this huge team player from

32:07

start to finish. So I wonder when

32:09

we start to see the fruits of

32:11

some of their experiments being used within

32:13

the war effort. Almost immediately. So

32:16

one of the first things, and hopefully, I mean this is the

32:19

World War II podcast so we could be a little bit more

32:21

niche, but one of the first things

32:23

that came as a result, one of the reasons that came

32:25

as a result of their experiments was the ability to use these

32:28

X-craft. So these miniature submarines that

32:30

were built, they were very novel, they were

32:32

built in an almost emergency rush hurry like

32:34

five different shipyards, they were developing

32:36

them as they were using them. But

32:39

a lot of the times when you are dealing

32:41

with a smaller gas volume, your

32:43

problems of breeding physiology increase.

32:46

Because if you have a normal traditional submarine, they

32:48

can just be under water for an hour

32:50

or so and on a

32:52

dive and that's okay. They're just going

32:55

to breathe within that enclosed space. Like

32:57

if you're in an enclosed room, you're

32:59

probably fine. But if you

33:01

go from being in an enclosed room to holding

33:03

a plastic bag over your head, now all of

33:06

a sudden you need to be way more worried

33:08

about your gas supply. And

33:10

that's the same effect as creating a mini-sum.

33:12

So you go from a huge gas volume

33:15

to a small gas volume, now you

33:17

need to be really paying attention

33:19

to how you're managing your breathing

33:21

tasks. So the first experiments

33:23

that this group were doing were actually

33:26

looking at these gas volumes for these

33:28

tiny mini-subs. And they

33:30

were simulating the volumes of the

33:32

X-graphs using the hyperbaric chambers. So

33:35

they weren't necessarily going to pressure

33:37

for all of these, but they

33:39

were using these handy metal contractions

33:42

as a closed environment in which they could

33:44

breathe. There was actually

33:46

one really dramatic test

33:49

where they wanted to make sure

33:51

that everything worked when the submarines

33:53

were in water. They wanted to

33:55

make sure the thermal changes didn't

33:57

really affect it. Can't

34:00

be one hundred percent sure until you pass

34:02

the any apartments. So. They get

34:04

a crane operator to drops or

34:06

hyperbaric chamber into the harbor and

34:09

Suzanne Johnson Cbs have been and

34:11

Martin Case are sitting in there

34:13

for hours and they're trying out

34:16

the the sewer up the it's

34:18

if we call it sort of

34:20

as though Rp but is it

34:23

a zoo or like absorbent that

34:25

carbon dioxide. And so they're testing

34:27

out their calculations for how much does the

34:29

word these mini sub. Need to have

34:31

on board in order to last a certain amount of time.

34:34

To course Adidas homeless out there

34:36

and it's tiny metal tube said.their

34:38

bosses the source the crane operator

34:40

has low or they did as

34:42

a result bombing raids bash. The

34:45

crane operator partially raises now but

34:47

then run for south or so.

34:49

they're less. D easily for the

34:52

craves. Traps is a metal tube above

34:54

the harbor well bombs are falling a

34:56

rip off the how fast they because

34:58

it's no way of getting out. Successful.

35:01

Business or okay for yes, that

35:03

work was immediately applied to provide

35:06

a safe breathing apparatus inside the

35:08

Axe class which were that news

35:10

for all kinds of Mrs and

35:12

especially against the German vessel. That

35:14

her bed. And. You know

35:16

they met with varied levels of success at

35:18

first, but the the leader. Played a really

35:20

crucial role in marking the beaches at the day.

35:23

Isn't idiots way of explaining what

35:25

the So? Because by what what

35:27

what is it and if is

35:29

Suki got the carbon dioxide. Is.

35:32

It putting something else into the i would

35:34

suggest to the camp and dioxide. Houses.

35:37

The else jones's fussiness about what

35:39

it is and how it works

35:41

closes it's a silver. Okay. Civil.

35:44

Suits we still use a C

35:46

stuff today. Athletes: So. We silesia since

35:48

the other the vereen at it in

35:50

hospitals sushi overlaid on a ventilator. Whatever.

35:53

Still, Used to see such neck and the

35:55

first thing you have to understand is that

35:57

it looks like kitty litter. What

36:01

are your had? like twenty granules,

36:03

a dusty stuff and a lot

36:05

of friends with diverse it's divers

36:07

are using. Reading. Apparatuses that

36:09

we circulator air If they want to

36:12

get this stuff on airplanes we put

36:14

it in kitty litter boxes says that

36:16

security ask see requests said. And

36:19

it it is harmless. like to. Do

36:21

you think our famous a sister? They

36:23

don't have to explain our it begs

36:25

so anyway. It's it's it's. a gradual.

36:28

And thirty hockey granules. And it's

36:30

essentially to some material that likes

36:33

to publicly line with carbon dioxide.

36:36

So. There are two different kinds

36:38

of Lithium hydroxide. On the sodium

36:40

hydroxide stand, it's is a passive

36:42

chemical reaction. If you make sodium

36:44

chloride together or cook sodium including together

36:46

they're going to combine other old and

36:48

a salt. So. This stuff to come

36:51

by the on it's own with carbon dioxide

36:53

and so when you pass a C O

36:55

two rich air over it it's just like.

36:58

Whole. That suited right now. it's it's.

37:00

pretty awesome. Who. Really need to do

37:02

is make see that the current volume of it for

37:05

the elite that find that you want and then it

37:07

can be helpful to have like a little fan or

37:09

something to help sexually the air and pass. It drill

37:11

can be reactivated. Read: Once it's done, it's

37:13

done and spent. We throw it away. Once

37:15

it's done, we throw it away. On

37:17

its spent So is this is earth is

37:20

that? actually if you if you leave the

37:22

container l been Ill just like absorb C

37:24

O Two in the air of your lab

37:26

as he had to throw it away anyway

37:29

because you like that it's that it's full.

37:31

But the astronauts have a variant of it

37:33

called metallic oxides. That's. Sort.

37:35

Of like are a platinum coded metal

37:37

be that does the same thing and

37:40

that one you can regenerate so they

37:42

can use eat it up. You can

37:44

literally like put it in your oven

37:46

at all and that the car that's

37:48

our side will come back off of

37:50

that. says. they recycled are the same

37:52

as the x absurd got me when i start

37:54

thinking about all this was it kind of dates

37:57

know how long the have to be and was

37:59

because it's point, they have to

38:01

plan their day and they don't want to be on

38:03

some secret mission and find themselves at lunchtime having to

38:05

bob up to get a bit of

38:07

oxygen on board. They really have must have had

38:09

to be careful of exactly what they were doing

38:11

and when they could go up for take on

38:13

extra fresh air. That's exactly right. Your math

38:15

has to be spot on for these things because

38:18

carbon dioxide does not negotiate. You

38:20

are either going to die a

38:22

horrible death from CO2 or

38:24

you are going to perhaps

38:27

be a POW. Perhaps

38:29

the OPOW is

38:31

like I think what

38:33

everyone, I've experienced carbon dioxide, high

38:36

carbon dioxide and it's extremely uncomfortable.

38:38

It's very painful and it keeps getting worse.

38:41

So like low levels, you're okay. You're like, oh,

38:43

I'm just breathing a little heavy. It keeps getting

38:45

worse until everyone is panicking

38:48

because it has a psychiatric effect

38:50

too. There was a near

38:52

certainty that if they ran out of SOARV

38:54

and they had CO2 build up that

38:56

it was going to end poorly for

38:58

them and at a minimum, the X-graph were

39:00

going to be discovered as a tool. So

39:03

these CO2 calculations were incredibly key and on

39:05

top of it as well, you want your

39:07

crew to be functional. If

39:10

people are living at high CO2

39:12

levels, you get cognitive deficits. They're

39:15

not thinking so well after a while. In

39:17

COVID-19, a lot of this work seems

39:19

to be, I mean, it's all

39:22

on the show on day day. We

39:25

could always do a box ticking exercise. So the X-graph you

39:27

use on big day days, isn't there? Yes.

39:30

When we talk about day day and we talk about

39:32

war in general, we often focus on

39:34

what went awry. Here are the

39:36

biggest tragedies. And I think this is human

39:38

nature. We remember

39:40

the car that cut us off in traffic, but we

39:42

don't remember the 400s that were

39:44

polite driver. So

39:48

we have this evolutionary bias to think about the things

39:51

that went wrong, so we don't repeat it. In

39:53

day day, there are so many things that

39:55

went right. And so

39:57

I was trying to not only acknowledge the sacrifice.

40:01

and the horrible things that we do think

40:03

about when we think about that story, but

40:06

also to give some credit to

40:08

the way that proper planning and

40:10

proper science and self-sacrifice in advance

40:12

made some things go perfectly. So

40:14

the aircraft were used to mark

40:16

the British beaches and that navigation

40:18

went amazingly well. They had been

40:20

hanging out there for a couple

40:22

days below the surface of the

40:24

water, which even as a military

40:26

history nerd I'd never known about because

40:28

they had their carbon dioxide. And then the

40:30

morning of they were able to come

40:33

to the surface, use their beacons, use their

40:35

flags, guide everyone exactly on point. It's

40:38

in sharp contrast to the Americans, which

40:40

we had like infamously missed the landing

40:42

site at Omaha Beach. It said landed

40:44

right in front of the worst German

40:46

gun emplacement. So we have

40:49

this incredibly sharp contrast

40:51

here between proper

40:54

planning and navigation using science and

40:56

something that went horribly awry and

40:58

unfortunately led to lots

41:00

of death. And then on

41:02

top of it, the British were

41:04

using breathing apparatuses. So they were

41:07

diving underwater and they were, this

41:09

means the obstacles underwater and they

41:11

were doing that in the days

41:13

afterwards to clear the channels as

41:16

well. And the reason we never hear about

41:18

those divers is because not a

41:20

single diving accident happened. Everything

41:23

in terms of the diving on

41:25

D-Day went flawlessly. And it was

41:27

because they did this science in

41:29

advance. This group did it on

41:31

themselves. They tested it. Those divers

41:33

went in with scientifically based guidelines

41:35

for their own safety. And then

41:37

they were able to operate with

41:39

them and not a single one

41:41

got hurt. And we never

41:43

hear about it because it was a lot of fun.

41:46

Now, I think actually the Americans went

41:48

in with combat divers who were just

41:50

holding their breath and with satchels of

41:53

explosives and they didn't necessarily do so

41:55

well, which my grandfather was not

41:57

at D-Day, but this was his

41:59

job. The he peered yeah,

42:01

I never thought about divers, wear

42:03

bras, hold swimmers, Bullfight The

42:06

we're still doing. This is underwater

42:08

operation in general. Now. I'm

42:11

D day. They didn't opt

42:13

for underwater operation. So. The

42:15

records are pretty clear there are

42:17

properly trained a sliver there are

42:19

properly seen for underwater exclusive ordinance

42:22

handling but on a d as

42:24

he did. Such as the

42:26

tides were different were for such.

42:29

A lovely as if the American be

42:31

to that omaha here to the response

42:33

to the went in with the play

42:35

on for Dd to not do underwater

42:37

operations Scissor player from the start and

42:39

the than likely recorded their like now.

42:41

Take the army's it's still the army's birds because we're

42:43

to be on. Say I were not to be diving

42:46

for this one guy. So. The

42:48

me that so a thirty day because

42:50

as the way that the differences in

42:52

the water levels at that the dead.

42:54

And. That actually ended up working out

42:56

pretty well because the British did send

42:59

in divers with breathing apparatus has suffered.

43:02

Black. It pretty quickly became clear that

43:04

during the heat of the landing itself

43:06

there were so much ship traffic, the

43:08

underwater operations were really not safe to

43:10

see cause of the colors. And.

43:12

So those average become really created all

43:15

in the days afterwards and you see

43:17

people doing underwater operations on all the

43:19

beaches with the day as they were

43:21

mostly doing things when the tide's would

43:23

allow and then do to save in

43:26

the underwater operations for once the boat

43:28

traffic had cleared of it. Yeah that's

43:30

really it just because you look at

43:32

a D Day American Combat underwater combat

43:35

personal and is usually during the has

43:37

since with them but they didn't. Bring

43:39

the Penn State, They are. They did they, but

43:41

they left them in about. So. They brought their

43:43

underwater kit. that's the case they had it in

43:45

about what they were planning to. just be honest

43:47

thing. And you got these of scientists who

43:49

are extremely specialist in what they do. The

43:51

spent fifty. Five. years working

43:54

on on these problems of on

43:56

the water breathing and pressure and

43:58

presumably the old out of after

44:01

the war and highly paired employees

44:03

in industry doing this for a

44:06

living or employed by universities heading

44:08

up faculties who are specializing in

44:10

this field? No, yes, I wish.

44:13

Because half of them are women,

44:15

their contributions were never acknowledged. And

44:18

in general, their contributions went

44:20

largely unacknowledged. Some of them received a

44:22

letter of thanks from the Admiralty. But

44:25

basically, they were ignored. And a lot of

44:27

that, in my opinion, comes from Ken Donald

44:29

because he wanted to steal their work. Like

44:32

I said, he was an employee of the government. And so

44:34

he was able to claim it as his own and make

44:36

it classified. And so they were never able to see what

44:38

he'd done in protest. So Ken

44:40

Donald was given a very prestigious job

44:42

at a British Navy laboratory

44:44

as a high ranking scientist, in

44:46

respect of his supposed major accomplishments during

44:49

the war, where he quickly developed a

44:51

reputation for never getting anything done and

44:53

showing up to work quite drunk.

44:56

So the rest of them struggled, and especially

44:58

the women, especially the women who

45:00

did a lot of this work, like

45:02

Helen Sperwe and Elizabeth Sherman, who were

45:05

extreme contributors to this work. They

45:08

never got credit for their work. And

45:10

they never, they struggled with employment because they

45:12

were women. And that's not my

45:15

speculation. The records openly say, no, we don't want to

45:17

hire a woman. To me, this is a prime example

45:19

of what happens when we

45:23

don't address discrimination. The

45:25

Navy ends up with an

45:28

incompetent scientist rather than the one

45:30

who actually achieved the thing. And

45:33

that hurts the military personnel. How much of

45:35

the work was classified? Is that another issue?

45:37

All of the work was classified

45:40

until about two, some

45:42

of it got declassified in 1973. And then the

45:44

rest of it is declassified in 2001. I wonder

45:46

why it's kept so

45:48

under wraps for so long. I don't

45:50

know. I think because combat

45:53

divers were immediately known to

45:55

be a thing. Personally,

45:57

I think it was Ken Donald doing it

45:59

because he was involved in

46:01

those meetings to determine the classification level

46:03

because then in 1991 he published a

46:06

book where he again plagiarized everything and

46:08

took credit for all of it. So

46:10

I think he was waiting for the rest of the group

46:12

to die out because he was on

46:14

the younger side. I mean we must have

46:16

known about the enigma ship machine before we knew

46:18

the results of all these experiments. Right but

46:21

then the thing is like GBS Hall-Dane and

46:23

Hans Fairway both died in the 1960s so

46:27

the World War II documents that

46:29

were declassified in the UK kind

46:31

of on mass was in 1973

46:34

and so they died before that. At that point

46:37

it was a challenge of linking it together. So

46:39

part of this story happened

46:42

because I'm also a di-scientist.

46:44

Previous people have looked at

46:46

Hall-Dane's lab records and

46:48

previous biographers have looked at them and

46:50

not been able to piece together what he

46:53

was working on. So one

46:55

of the reasons that I was able

46:57

to do that was because I'm also

46:59

a di-scientist and so I was able

47:01

to look at these and

47:03

be like okay I know what's happening in

47:05

this experiment. I've run similar

47:08

less dangerous experiments and

47:11

that let me cross-reference it with

47:13

the relevant military reports. So

47:16

a lot of these military

47:18

reports would

47:20

not have otherwise been connected

47:22

with the story of

47:25

this particular lab. The reports just kind

47:27

of said like oh and then this

47:29

is your guideline. So it

47:31

was connecting all those pieces from

47:33

the multiple archives that was that

47:36

was kind of the key to telling

47:38

this. Yeah I think

47:40

you've done a great job of shining

47:42

a light in a completely overlooked corner

47:44

of the wall. We'll leave it there.

47:47

Thank you Rachel. I really enjoyed that.

47:49

Loyalistner, if you would like to know

47:51

more about these scientists the book is

47:53

Chamber Divers The Untold Story of the

47:56

D-Day Scientists Who Change Special Operations Forever.

47:58

For patrons of the world. the

48:00

podcast I'm a bit extra looking

48:02

at Horace Wright who spent his

48:04

time blowing himself up underwater during

48:07

the war so look out for

48:09

that. If you're not a patron

48:11

you can sign up at patreon.com/www.podcast

48:13

and is a big thank you

48:16

to patrons of the show I

48:18

could not do this without you

48:20

so that is patreon.com/www.podcast. Well

48:22

that is all for this episode I'm

48:25

Angus Wallace and

48:27

thanks for

48:31

listening So

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