Liberty Ship Dive Demo

NEDEG WAS INVITED to give MkV dressing demos aboard the Liberty Ship John W. Brown during its cruise on Chesapeake Bay out of Baltimore on September 30, 2000. NEDEG members John Whitlock and Bill Eubanks are volunteer engineroom crew members on this historic ship and arranged for the invitation. Mark Butler brought his MkV rig down from Wilmiington, Del., on Friday eveninig and was joined there by Jim Boyd and Randy Suchcicki who drove down from New Jersey. That evening we got a full tour of the ship from John and Bill and then bunked aboard the ship overnight in the troop racks in the #2 cargo hold (right).

SATURDAY MORNING at the Dundalk Terminal where the ship had been tied up for the night, Randy points toward the propeller hub ahead of the rudder where we had been on the previous night, ten feet under the water and 150 feet down the "shaft alley" where the propeller is connected to the reciprocating steam engine in the engineroom amidships.

IN SPITE OF AN "ATTACK" by a German Me208 (which was chased away by a P51 Mustang), Bill Eubanks made the first MkV demo in Mark Butler's rig, complete with the diver's stage, which was suspended on deck from the overhead cargo winch lines. The crew here (left to right) consisted of Jim Boyd, diver Bill Eubanks, John Whitlock and Mark Butler.