This week will honor two heroes who share a connection
They are...
Henry Breault and Sheppard Shreaves
Henry Breault was a US Navy sailor from Putnam, Connecticut. By 1923, he was serving on an American submarine called, O-5 as a Torpedo Man 2nd Class. Sheppard Shreaves was a dockworker and diver from Newport News, Virginia. By 1923, he was working at the Panama Canal. Neither of them could have every known that their fates would become intertwined by a terrible accident at the Panama Canal on October 28, 1923. It was an accident would turn both men into heroes.
Part I
Early in the morning the 28th of October, the O-5 (with a crew of 21) was heading south on Limon Bay, on the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. The sub was one of many ships that were on a routine transit between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. At 6:24 AM disaster struck. Due to a series of miscommunications and maneuvering errors, the O-5 collided with a cargo ship called the, SS Abangarez. The collision tore a ten foot long by three feet wide gash in the hull of the O-5. As a result the sub rolled sharply to port then starboard before plunging bow first beneath the water. The sub was rapidly sinking.
The crew of the O-5 immediately rushed topside in order to escape from the stricken ship. Henry Breault was one of the last ones out. However he realized that one of his shipmates (Chief Electrician's Mate Lawrence Brown) was asleep in the sub. Instead of jumping ship with the rest of the crew, Breault decided to go back into the stricken sub to try and rescue Brown. He quickly shut the deck hatch before heading below.
He found Lawrence Brown in his bunk. Brown was awake but unaware of what was happening. Breault and Brown then tried to get to the escape hatch but found it blocked by water that was flooding into the sub. They then made their way to the torpedo room which was airtight. They quickly shut the door to the torpedo room and locked it. Moments later the O-5's battery shorted out plunging the sub into darkness. Although Henry Breault and Lawrence Brown had saved themselves from drowning, they were now trapped within a sunken ship 42 feet beneath the surface. Their only hope was for someone to rescue them from above.
Part II
The O-5 had sunk less than 1 minute after her collision with the Abangarez. Rescue ships quickly arrived and tried to save the crew in the water. The ships rescued 16 crew members from the water. They then realized that five men were missing. At 10 AM almost 4 hours after the O-5 sank, divers descended on the sub and began to hammer on the hull in order to check if there were men trapped inside. When they began to hammer on the torpedo room they got a response from Henry Breault and Lawrence Brown.
Hoping to save the two trapped men a major salvage operation was launched. The only way to rescue Breault and Brown, was to physically raise the massive submarine from the mud and out of the water using cranes and pontoons. Although the rescue team did not have any pontoons, they did have a massive crane barge, Ajax on the Pacific side of the canal. A plan was then made for rescuers to dive to the wreck, attach cables around the sub, and have the Ajax haul it to the surface. The man who would be in charge of this rescue operation was Sheppard Shreaves.
Shreaves ("Shep") quickly put on a diving suit and took a team down to the sub at 11 AM. From there, they began the painstaking process of digging a tunnel (using a fire hose) under the O-5's bow before wrapping a cable around it. He later described the conditions in an interview, "The O-5 lay upright in several feet of soft, oozing mud, and I began water jetting a trench under the bow. Sluicing through the ooze was easy; too easy, for it could cave in and bury me. Swirling black mud engulfed me, I worked solely by feel and instinct. I had to be careful that I didn't dredge too much from under the bow for fear the O-5 would crush down on me. Once in a while, I'd rap the hull with the nozzle to let the boys know someone was working to bring them out. Their raps were returned weaker each time" The Ajax arrived at the Atlantic side of the Panama Canal at about 10:30 PM.
By the time the tunnel was through, it was about 11 PM. Shep then attached a 4-inch-diameter steel cable around the O-5's bow. The cable was then hooked to the Ajax which began to haul the sub out of the mud. Unfortunately the weight of water-logged sub coupled with the suction of the mud caused the cable to snap under the strain. Despite the setback, Shep and his crew immediately began to dig another tunnel and attach a second cable to the bow of the sub. At 2 AM of October 29, the Ajax again attempted to pull the O-5 to the surface. And again, the cable snapped.
For a third time, Shep and his team began to dig a tunnel under the O-5. By 12:30 PM, they had attached a third cable around the bow of the sub. This time however, Shep decided to alleviate some of the strain on the cable by releasing compressed air into the engineroom of the O-5 to unflood the compartment and lighten the boat. Once again, the Ajax attempted to pull the O-5 to the surface. Little by little, the Ajax continued to haul the sub for what seemed like an eternity. Until finally, the bow of the O-5 broke the surface of the water.
Epilogue
Rescuers then quickly opened the hatch to the torpedo room. Henry Breault and Lawrence Brown emerged from the sub and were helped to the dock. The two men had been trapped beneath the sea for nearly 31 hours. They were rushed to a decompression chamber and later a hospital. Both men made full recoveries. The three missing crew members were confirmed to have drowned during the O-5's sinking. The submarine was later stripped and sold for scrap on December 12, 1924.
Henry Breault was hailed as a hero for going back to save Lawrence Brown during the sinking. On March 8, 1924 he received the Congressional Medal of Honor from President Calvin Coolidge. He was the first submariner and to date the only enlisted submariner to receive the medal for heroism onboard a submarine. Breault would serve in the US Navy for another 20 years. He died from a heart condition on December 5th, 1941.
From the time of his first descent to the final haul of the O-5 from the depths, Sheppard Shreaves had spent nearly 24 hours in the water. For his dedication and hard work in saving Henry Breault and Lawrence Brown, Shreaves was awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal. It was personally presented to him at a banquet hosted Henry Breault. He would go on to make more than 1,000 dives in his lifetime. He retired and moved to St. Petersburg, Florida after working at the Panama Canal for more than 32 years. He died in January of 1968.
Throughout history, there have been many incidents that have produced people who have done heroic deeds. But very rarely has there ever been an incident where a hero was saved by another hero. The connection between Henry Breault and Sheppard Shreaves was one of those incidents. Both of these men put their lives on the line to save another. When Breault realized that one of his shipmates had been left behind, he chose to reenter a sinking ship to save him and became trapped in the process. When Sheppard Shreaves arrived on the scene, he worked day and night in hard conditions to save to men from a terrible fate. The way I see it, both of these men are people who should be held in high regard.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/submariner-ever-receive-medal-honor-locked-inside-sinking-submarine.html
http://militaryhonors.sid-hill.us/history/o5-pcr.htm
http://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/2016/10/21/torpedoman-2nd-class-henry-breault/
http://www.onenewengland.com/article.php?id=120
http://www.panamahistorybits.com/htmfiles/2015-08-15P.pdf
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