Very Vintage and a Question!

[JohnA]

Ok all you Vintage Gods out there, tell me about this company or companies. They are Decompression/Recompression calculators copyrighted in 1943 by Thompson Engineering Co., Grand Rapids Mich., but sold through(?) Hawaiian Sales Factors, LTD., 1074 Ala Moana Boulevard...Honolulu Hawaii.

The calculator gives a range of time and depth (to 250’) and the other windows show bottom pressure, total ascent time and then the deco stop times. Side one is single dive, side to is repetitive diving. What is really interesting is the dive times, here is an example:

60’-66’, Bottom time ½ hr to 1 hr, requires a 3 min stop at 20’ and 10 min. stop at 10’
or
168’-180’, Bottom time 9 to 14 min, requires stops at 50’-2min, 40’-3min, 30’-5min, 20’-7min, 10’-10min (check out those deep stops!)

Clearly not the standard Navy Tables we all grew up with, no one got bent on these tables!

At the bottom of Table I is the following:

Flexibility, Vision and Safety “On the Bottom” with a THOMPSON Shallow Water Diving Mask and Automatic Air Supply Regulator

One other note, on one of the calculators someone hand wrote the name in blue ink, Lt Comdr Walker (http://usspatterson.tk-jk.net/Walker.htm)?

So, anyone ever heard of or seen a THOMPSON Shallow Water Diving Mask and Automatic Air Supply Regulator? Enjoy

John

[YankDownUnder]

U.S. Navy ships once had Shallow Water Diving Masks as basic issue equipment for underwater inspections, small repairs and dropped item recovery (in WWII, which might account for the 1943 copyright). There have been several of these masks on ebay in the past months. "Mike Nelson" is putting one on in the opening credits to Sea Hunt. Cary Grant uses one in the WWII movie Operation Petticoat. They were made by various vendors in WWII. Most were made by Desco. I have never seen one made by THOMPSON, so it may be something completely different. Most of the masks I have seen were free flow, although they had a control valve on the surface, to meter air from a compressor's storage tank. That's the limit of my knowledge on air masks. I wish I could help more.

[admin]

During World War II, the Navy saw the need for a lightweight diving mask for short, shallow water dives when the cumbersome Mark V rig wasn't needed. At first, inventive divers took the standard Navy gas mask and modified it for surface supplied diving by replacing the exhaust valve in front with a block off plate. Later, a company called Thompson Engineering Company (TECO) built their own mask from the gas mask design. Notice that they replaced the curved lenses with flat glass. Many believe that curved glass in diving masks can cause dizziness. The automatic regulator was mounted on a canvas belt and the supply air was either surface supplied or a small oxygen tank also mounted on the belt. These rigs were used extensively in the Pacific Theater during the war. There is a lot of information on the TECO in a Cornell Press book entitled "Diving, Cutting and Welding in Underwater Salvage Operations" (1944).
The Jack Browne mask made by Desco that Steve mentioned didn't come out until after the war- around 1946.
Here is a photo of both masks from my collection.

[Broxton Carol]

Great for wearing to a halloween party. Those are terriffic!

[DavidRitchieWilson]

At

www.oceans.com.au/oe-histofdive.html

there are several history of diving books, one of which, Ray Mathieson's "The American Dive Catalog Collection", priced $US100, apparently contains a catalogue by

"Thompson Eng. Co. (maker of the T.E.Co. full face mask)"

[heavybreather]

One of our members in Northeast Diving Equipment Group has a
TECO mask. Dove it in Richland quarry couples of years back.

Check our website - WWW.HARDHATDIVERS.ORG

May have picture of it - cant' remember offhand if it is there.