Plongee

1934 · 23475 — 1934. Pearl Harbor salvage operations and Navy deep sea diving work extensive archive documenting the military career of Navy diver John Krohta from the late 1930s through the Cold War era. A Department of the Interior letter addressed to Krohta states "I understand that you were on the Medusa on December 7th 1941 and that you worked as a diver during the post-attack salvage operations at Pearl Harbor" before requesting an interview intended to add "a more human dimension to the existing historical record." The archive preserves the operational record behind that statement through wartime diving requests submarine-base training certificates issued at Pearl Harbor salvage commendations discharge records insignia official Navy photographs and later newspaper coverage identifying Krohta as a retired "master diver" who continued training civilian rescue teams decades after the war.<br /> Archive of over 80 items including 17 silver gelatin Navy photographs dating from 1934 into the 1980s. Including ten certificates connected to submarine and diving instruction at Pearl Harbor and other naval facilities military insignia patches naval discharge and reenlistment paperwork commendations newspapers and clippings school records including a Diploma and grade cards and correspondences. The photograph group includes official U.S. Navy salvage-operation images showing damaged vessels under repair wreckage removal compressed-air diving chambers divers operating in confined underwater environments and severe structural damage to ships undergoing recovery operations. Several retain "Official U.S. Navy Photograph" stamps on the versos. The archive also includes Krohta's 1938 Navy oath of allegiance; multiple Bureau of Navigation and Bureau of Naval Personnel training certificates; a Deep Sea Divers course certificate completed in Washington D.C. with helium-oxygen notation; submarine-base records from Pearl Harbor; a 1963 "SECRET" clearance certificate issued during Cold War submarine service; and discharge records documenting assignments aboard USS Pathfinder USS Anchor USS Relief USS Bluebird USS Coucal and other Pacific naval stations. Three surviving insignia patches include a Chief Petty Officer style eagle-and-chevron rating insignia a pair of star collar devices and an embroidered specialty badge connected to Krohta's naval advancement and diving service. Newspaper coverage from Arkansas publications during the 1980s identifies Krohta as a retired Navy diver advising the Benton County Diving Team and assisting civilian rescue-diving instruction after twenty-six years of naval diving work.<br /> A typed 1945 request for assignment to Naval Training School Deep Sea Diving Washington D.C. records Krohta's earlier salvage work at Pearl Harbor in 1942 together with blasting operations in the Aleutian Islands while a June 1945 commendation aboard USS Anchor credits Krohta and his salvage squad with raising a four-thousand-ton wreck in Naha Harbor in half the projected operational time after the Okinawa campaign. The surviving material traces the technical labor carried out by enlisted Navy divers during Pacific fleet recovery operations harbor clearance submarine support work underwater demolition and decompression treatment during and after the Second World War. The archive follows the expansion of Navy diving from emergency wartime salvage into the submarine and hyperbaric systems that defined Cold War undersea operations. Overall in very good condition; letters and printed documents remain legible and photos clean without curling. unknown