Deep Sea Pioneer Carl Brashear
Carl Brashear was a man who didn't know when to give up. Breaking boundaries he became the first African American diver in the Navy to achieve Master Diver rank. Additionally he was the first Navy diver to have been amputated.
At around 20 he was watching a Navy diver at work when Brashear decided he wanted to be a deep sea diver. However he sent applications to diving school for three years before finally getting accepted. In his predominantly white class he faced racial injustice and received anonymous notes telling him to quit, but he pushed through it all and in 1954 completed the program, becoming the first African American diver in the navy. After diving for seven years he had a clear goal in mind, to become a Master Diver. To take the next step for his dream Brashear took another class to become a first class diver, unfortunately unprepared for the strenuous course, he failed and was demoted to a non-diver. Swallowing his pride, he started his career all over and in 1963 passed the first class diving course.
Post-dive school, Brashear was serving on the salvage ship USS Hoist to receive additional qualifications for a master diver. In 1966, USS Hoist and her crew were sent to retrieve a hydrogen bomb lost in the Mediterranean. On March 23 Brashear was directing the transfer of the crate to house the bomb when tragedy struck. A mooring line broke loose causing a steel pipe to fall. Brashear saw the danger and shoved a sailor to safety resulting in the pipe critically injuring his left leg. Although he survived Brashear chose to have the leg amputated in order to dive again as soon as possible. The retraining process was brutal on Brashear, sometimes he would come back from a run and there would be a puddle of blood in his artificial leg, but like when he was demoted, Brashear wouldn't give up, he had a dream to fulfill. So just about a year and half from when he was amputated Carl Brashear became the first amputee diver in the Navy.
Carl Brashear eagerly resumed diving in March 1968. His first assignment post-recovery was to Naval Air Station Norfolk as the senior enlisted diver and division officer. In 1970 Brashear qualified to be a saturation diver at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit (NEDU). While at NEDU finally gained the opportunity to take the Master Diver Evaluation Course, an opportunity he’d waited 22 years for. The evaluation lasted 5 weeks and afterwards, the evaluation board called Brashear to congratulate him on a faultless evaluation and becoming a master diver. Becoming the first African American diver, he spent nine more years diving with submarines and salvage missions, before retiring at 31 years working in the Navy.
Jordan, Vessel Ops Sophmore
Sources: