Ронилачка служба југословенске Краљевске морнарице
Yugoslav Royal Navy Diving Service

Summary/Abstract: The paper deals with the history of the navy diving service in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with the special attention given to the divers training. The Yugoslav Royal Navy Diving School has been active for over thirteen years (1927–1941). In that period, 42 diving courses were organized and 207 candidates (35 submarine officers, 29 non-commissioned officers and 143 sailors) successfully passed the final exam, diving with Siebe Gorman Deep See Diving Dress. In accordance with the high-quality programs, those courses were executed systematically, lasting two months for officers, 4–7 months for non-commissioned officers and 6–12 months for sailors. Thanks to the competent guidance, first by Mr. A. Polak (the founder and long-lasting chief diving instructor of Austro-Hungarian Navy Diving School), and later by his pupil and collaborator Mr. J. Komadina, many dives were executed during training, without any serious incident. It is very important to point out that those divers, after training and final examination tests, dived in open sea to the depth of 60 meters and sometimes several meters more – it was an exceptional depth for that time. During the dives, the divers were supplied with air by manual diving pumps only without any emergency air storage. The divers executed even more risky dives without any recompression chamber at the diving station, in spite the fact that the Yugoslave Royal Navy had a modern Siebe Gorman two-compartment recompression chamber in the period of 1932–1941. This chamber was never installed because the appropriate compressor had not been purchased.

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