This short U.S. Navy film (MN-10992) from the early 1970s shows the latest developments of the Navy for deep-sea exploration and operations. (Note: the “scenes showing medical treatment in a hyperbaric chamber were simulated.) The film opens with footage of divers moving under the sea and the lowering of underwater mining equipment. A submarine moves underwater (01:40). Divers work on salvage and repair operations. Divers conduct research along the floor of the ocean, studying acoustics and recording observations. Basic animation is used to show how nitrogen can lead to brain embolisms (03:26). The film shows the Navy’s lab where new helium-oxygen mixtures are developed (03:40). Navy Captain George F. Bond talks to the camera in front of the Ocean Simulation Facility in Panama City Beach, Florida (04:13). At Washington D.C. the Navy’s Experimental Diving Unit in Washington D.C. (06:04), medical researchers watch as a Navy diver simulates a deep dive in a pressure chamber. Footage shows other diving tests where test subjects reach new simulated depths. Two researchers unveil the Mk X breathing device (07:26); a diver puts on the apparatus and climbs into a simulated dive in 29-degree water and at a depth of 1,100 feet. Medical personnel keep watch on the divers during the simulations. Footage shows a diver swimming through the water with the Mk X. The film then shows the device’s structural layout. A diver works on an underwater pipeline wearing the Navy’s new Mk XI (09:57). There is a shot of the Navy’s deep-diving system Mk I being lowered into the water (10:59). The Mk I is moved on a ship’s deck. Two men monitor and control the Mk I. The system is lowered into the water. Two divers inside the capsule check that the system is functioning as it is lowered even deeper. A diver prepares to leave the capsule, connected by hose to the system. After completing his mission, the diver returns to the capsule and the system ascends back to the surface (14:42). The divers transfer from the capsule to the deck decompression chamber (15:16), where they eat meals and rest on bunks while other members of the crew monitor the two. After decompression, the divers return to the deck and rejoin the crew. The film then shows the new Mk II deep-diving system (16:25). Captain Eugene Mitchell, Director of Salvage, Diving and Ocean Engineering, speaks to the camera in front of a Mk I on the deck of a ship. There is several short clips of old footage from the Navy’s 1939 salvage mission of the submarine USS Squalus (17:59). Then the film features shots of Navy divers swimming underwater using the latest breathing devices, as well as footage of the deep-diving systems being lowered into the water. Men in a control room work on unscrambling the high-pitched speech of deep-sea divers (18:59), whose voices are impacted by the helium. A diver surveys the arctic waters beneath the floating ice island T3 near the North Pole (19:55). Divers use special tools to repair what appears to be a ship underwater. A diver salvages materials at the floor of the sea. There is a good shot of a cove and beach at Guam (21:25); here, under the water, divers study underwater currents and map the movement of pollutants. A medical team treats a civilian patient using the technology of the hyperbaric chamber (22:24). A diver moves cables near the floor of the ocean (23:58). The film concludes with footage of deep-sea life on the ocean floor.

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