Don Walsh, record-breaking deep-sea explorer, dies at 92
Don Walsh, a pioneering U.S. Navy explorer who, along with scientist Jacques Piccard, broke the record for human deep submersion by descending nearly seven miles to the ocean’s deepest spot, died Nov. 12 at his home in Myrtle Point, Ore. was 92.
His son Kelly said he died sitting in his favorite chair.
The two men’s historic dive on January 23, 1960 was shrouded in secrecy in case it failed – which seemed entirely possible, given that towering waves in the western Pacific had damaged or carried away vital equipment. While still on the surface, the 60-foot Navy submarine Trieste, a bathyscaphe designed by Mr. Piccard’s father, lost its surface telephone. A current meter dangled from some wires. Damaged and unusable was the tachometer, which would have recorded the ship’s rate of descent.
It was to rain. Lt. Walsh, who was 28, and Mr. Piccard climbed, soaking wet, into the submarine’s six-foot crew compartment.
“We decided to put on dry clothes,” Lt. Walsh remembered shortly after. “It was quite an operation: two grown men changing in a room 38 centimeters square and only 1.80 meters high.”
As described in the 1961 book “Seven miles away”, by Mr. Piccard and Robert S. Dietz, an explosion shook the vessel as it neared the bottom, shaking the staff atmosphere like a small earthquake. Unable to find the problem, the men continued their descent. What beckoned was the Challenger Deep – 7 miles away, the lowest point of the Mariana Trench, itself the deepest of the world’s many seafloor recesses.
After nearly five hours, the vessel landed on the bottom, kicking up silt and mud and clouding the small porthole. Nevertheless, the men saw a flatfish, which immediately answered an old question: did the deepest depths of the sea harbor life or a barren desert? “We were surprised to find higher life forms in the sea there at all,” Mr. Piccard recalls.
When the aft searchlight came on, Lieutenant Walsh saw what had rocked the craft: the explosive cracking of a plastic window. It posed no immediate threat, but it could block the men’s exit from the surface and keep them confined to their personnel for several days while the submarine was towed some 200 miles back to Guam, the base of operations.
The men quickly ended their scientific observations, aborted plans to take photos and, after 20 minutes at the bottom, began their ascent.
For the day’s dive, Lieutenant Walsh had packed only fifteen chocolate bars, which the men began to ration, given the new uncertainties.
After spending a total of nine hours beneath the waves, two men, teeth chattering, emerged from their icy vessel into bright sunshine, blue skies and tropical heat. Out of nowhere, two Navy fighter jets shouted overhead and lowered their wings in salute.
“Navy bathyscaphe plunges 7 miles into Pacific Ocean,” read a headline on the front page of The New York Times. The article quoted the Navy as saying the men had no problems. Shortly afterwards, at the White House, President Dwight D. Eisenhower promised Lieutenant Walsh, the Legion of Merit.
In January 1961, President John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration Day paraded down Pennsylvania Avenue recommended the now famous submarine. “Navy conquers inner space,” read the banner on the support truck.
Don Walsh was born on November 2, 1931 in Berkeley, California, the son of Don and Marta Walsh. His father was a salesman; his mother worked in administration at Mills College in Oakland.
He grew up in the Bay Area, where he became fascinated with the Navy. “All the battleships and cruisers would be anchored in the middle of the bay,” he told an interviewer at the Naval Historical Center (now the Naval History and Heritage Command) in 1995. ‘They had their searchlights on at night. It was quite a show.”
He graduated from Alameda High School in 1949 and from the Naval Academy in 1954 with a degree in engineering. He became a submariner when poor eyesight prevented him from becoming a pilot.
He served on a number of submarines, including as commander. He obtained a Ph.D. in oceanography from Texas A&M University in 1968 and, after retiring from the Navy in 1975 with the rank of captain, he founded the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies at the University of Southern California.
He has served on many state and federal panels, as well as on the boards of directors of private companies, and in 2001 he was a member of was elected at the National Academy of Engineering. In 2003 he has became an honorary director of the Explorers Club of New York City.
Later in life, Dr. Walsh to revisit his pioneering dive site. In 2012, at the age of 80, he advised filmmaker James Cameron when he became the first person since Dr. Walsh and Mr. Piccard dived into the Challenger Deep. “I feel so happy,” said Dr. Walsh at the time. “Guys my age usually sit in rockers and pass around snapshots of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”
He also advised the undersea explorer Victor L. Vescovo when he dived in the Challenger Deep in 2019. The following year, Mr. Vescovo made the dive again; this time, him taken The son of Dr. Walsh, Kelly, as passenger. The two men spent four hours exploring the planet’s deepest site.
In a recent interview, Mr. Vescovo recalled Dr. Walsh not only as a pioneering explorer, but also as a person who stood out for his kindness and integrity.
“Everyone who worked with him always commented on what a great person he was,” he said. “He had a great sense of humor, an incredible amount of expertise and a great care for people and the world. He was what you hoped all great explorers would be.”
Dr. Walsh married Joan Betzmer in 1962. In addition to his son, she survives him, as does a daughter, Liz Walsh; a brother, Michael; a sister, Nan Merritt; and a grandson.
When Kelly Walsh learned of his father’s death, he gave a lecture on the history of the Challenger Deep explorations, including his own, on a cruise ship in the Pacific Ocean.
“It was the perfect time and place for such a tribute to my father’s legacy,” he wrote in an email. “People were in tears.”