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Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit

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The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU, for short) is an early model of closed circuit oxygen rebreather, used by military frogmen. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the USA in 1940 (patent filing date: 16 Dec 1940) and in 1944 (issue date: 2 May 1944).

Contents

Etymology

The LARU is what the initials SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) originally meant; Lambertsen changed his invention's name to SCUBA in 1952; but later "SCUBA", gradually changing to "scuba", came to mean (first in the USA) any self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. (Modern diving regulator technology was invented by Émile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943 and was not related to rebreathers; nowadays the word SCUBA is largely used to mean Gagnan's and Cousteau's invention and its derivatives.)

History

Lambertsen designed the LARU while a medical student and demonstrated the LARU to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) (after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy) in a pool at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in 1942 The OSS "Operational Swimmer Group" was formed and Lambertsen's responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the LARU.

Design

  • Two apparent large lengthways backpack cylinders under a hard metal cover: the right cylinder is oxygen and the left apparent cylinder is the absorbent canister.
  • Fullface mask with small eye holes like an old-type gasmask
  • Two breathing bags, one on each shoulder.
  • 4 lengths of wide corrugated breathing tubes in a loop: from the mask to one of the breathing bags to the canister to the other breathing bag to the mask.
  • Its harness is a strong cloth jacket that enclosed the diver's chest.
  • Mid front, a long zipped pocket: the diagrams do not show whether it was for kit or for diving weights.

    • Many diving rebreathers are descended from it. However, there were earlier underwater uses of rebreathers:

  • Davis Escape Set for use in emergency by submariners from 1927 onwards
  • Siebe Gorman Salvus invented in the 1900s and first used in mines and by firemen
  • The rebreathers used by the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS frogmen in World War II
  • Rebreathers used by British frogmen and divers in World War II and led to the 1950s Siebe Gorman CDBA used by the British

    • References

    Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA