2CER Combat Divers in Bosnia
24 Fd Sqn Dive Team Op Palladium Roto 8
Well, it has been quite a busy tour so far for 24 Fd Sqn. And it wouldn’t be a normal tour
without the Dive Team being equally as busy. Being that the role of Combat Divers is to extend Combat Engineering operations into
the water, we have to be continually refreshing our skills.
In theatre, our most probable tasks will be search and recovery. So far, we have had two
opportunities to practice our three most basic skills; navigation, searching and lifting with the usual assortment of snafu’s
and lessons learned.
On the 3rd
of June, the four divers not on leave deployed to Busko Jezero, a man made lake that covers approximately 48 grid squares. (Yes,
I counted them!) After waiting out a blustery thunderstorm that delayed our departure from TSG for more than 2 hours, we finally
made our way down to the lake. With the limited manpower available, nav swims were the order of the day. While the supervisor’s
brief and equipment checks were carried out, a few of the troop members that deployed as site security depth sounded the lake. The
visibility was about 25 feet, and the max depth of 30 feet made for easy depth control and max air usage.
The first team in thought they had it easy. Nav to the shot, turn right, nav, turn right,
nav, turn right, and nav back to the shot. Sounds easy right? Not so. Apparently in Drvar, go right really means go left.
After some convincing hand signals, the team navved back to shore.
The next team understood said convincing hand signals, and being that Diver X the next dive,
decided that taking right turns was a better idea than taking left ones. The nav part of the dive went well, however some buoyancy
problems (read: rocks) seemed to keep my face in the mud.
The next opportunity for the team to hone its skills was 23-25 June at DJ Barracks just outside
of Split, Croatia. Being out of the AOR and away from the squadron gave us an uninterrupted chance to dive, dive, dive. The
team’s average bottom time was 4 ½ hours. Not bad for 2 and a half days.
The first divers in the water required a short skills check due to fact that they had not dove
since Storming Bear IV in February. The next task was to nav a short distance to get a feel for it again. Just like on land,
navving in the water takes practice. And it’s so much easier when you go the in right direction.
During the navs, the excellent visibility of about 50 feet led to a large concrete block being
discovered in about 15 feet of water. Russ and I were first to take a crack at lifting it. Two 5000 kg lifting balloons and 2
tanks of air later, the block lifted about 6 inches off the bottom. Because 15 feet is a little too shallow to use lifting bags,
it was decided that towing it to deeper water was best, so the rest of the team could take a shot at it. Everyone had a turn, or
two in some cases, to try and lift the block. I would definitely say it was a lot easier to lift this than the "Masher"
back in Chenaux. But, that is a whole different story.
The last task of the ex was a GNCS swim. 
The objective was a shipping lane marker approximately 800m out from
the shore. The first team made it to the marker’s anchor without a hitch. After a brief rest stop, they navved back to
shore. The second team followed the same route out to the marker. Along the way, we found a very large ship anchor in excellent
condition on the bottom. At the buoy’s anchor, the four of us took some interesting photos (as only 2CER divers would) and had a
breather. The swim out only reinforced the requirement for divers to have an above average PT program.
All in all, our time at DJ Barracks was a good one with the Dutch NSE and Helo Sqn playing
excellent hosts. The excellent weather didn’t hurt either. The GD’s from Engineer Maintenance and kept the tanks full and the
boat moving, freeing up the rest of the team to do our thing.
You know, it’s funny: people say we’re skiving when it’s nice out. Why is it no one says
that when we’re putting eyes on a beach for hours at night, in the rain, shivering and miserable? Maybe it’s just me……..
DIVE ARMY!
2 CER DIVERS @ SPLIT
From 09-14 Aug 01 the 2CER dive team in theater conducted their second dive exercise in Split,
Croatia. Diving ops took place at D.J. Barracks, a Dutch heliport just a few minutes away from Split’s airport and all meals and
accommodations were taken care of by the Dutch forces.
Once the team was set up diving commenced immediately. The first few dives consisted of
underwater navigation. A 100-meter line was laid out on the bottom and divers took turns clocking their pace for the set distance.
This was done in order to calculate distance while navigating underwater. Once this was accomplished drills were carried out to
sharpen all of the divers navigation skills and towards the end of the drills it was clear that everyone’s underwater navigation
was well honed.
On the second day 2CER’s Commanding Officer, and the new Regimental Sergeant Major visited the
dive site to observe the exercise. The CO even managed to get a dive in and was pleased with the proficiency of the team.
The next day the team did a morning surface swim. It was a perfect day to do the swim as the
high winds and large swell of the Adriatic made for a test of the divers mettle. Two of the sappers assisting the exercise on
general duties who showed an interest in becoming future combat divers were "invited" for the swim and came away from
the 2 km surface swim tired, waterlogged, but determined to make a go of it for next years combat diver prelim.
That day’s afternoon was spent doing navigation dives in conditions we as combat divers are
used to. Gone was the nice 15-foot visibility . The dark and murky waters which are common to our working environment were back.
Oh well!!!
On the fourth day the visibility had improved and the team practiced clearing underwater
obstacles. Dummy charges were prepared and each buddy team navigated out to the targets: 2 steel hedgehogs and 1 large concrete
block. The charges were placed and then , after simulation of initiation, the divers navigated out behind the nearby breakwater to
a pick up point. The task was carried out quickly and professionally.
Sunday afternoon the team carried out mine laying drills in shallow water, and once the mines
were laid, beach mine clearance drills were performed.
Monday was spent executing ditching and donning drills and an objective of scaling a 6 ft sea
wall. Each team had to navigate to the wall, ditch their equipment, surface, and scale the 6ft obstacle. Different scaling
techniques were tried and all were successful. Once on top of the wall the team had to silently enter the water, swim down to
their equipment, and carry out donning procedures. This proved challenging as the murky water near the sea wall was very
disorienting. Once back in their kit the team navigated back to the start point. All the divers were pleased with their efforts
and talked about different ways such a task could be completed.
The final day, members of 3 RCR BG Para Coy and their French guests of the infantry type visited
the team. Our dive storeman in theater, and our diving officer in theater gave a lecture about our equipment and role as Canadian
combat divers. The lecture was followed by a demonstration dive.
All in all, the exercise went well. With good visibility and warm, sunny weather, 2CER’s
combat dive team in theater was able to sharpen their skills and come away ready and confident to rise to any task or challenge we
may be faced with.
0630 hrs 12 Dec 00. As I stood at the shoreline in the howling wind looking at the small whitecaps through the darkness I said to myself “Man, what a crappy day! Do I really want to dive the team in this?” The water temp was 2 C (no big deal – still wetsuit temp) but the air temp with the wind chill was –30 C. We would be conducting an open water dive in the Petawawa River just in front of our home away from home, the Jubilee Lodge (otherwise known as the Petawawa Yacht Club). The river hadn’t yet frozen over.
The divers would be OK as long as they got indoors quick but the boat/safety crew was definitely going to pay the price. Holding my now ice cold cup of Tim Hortons coffee, I thought if anyone is going to do it, 2CER divers will be the team. Besides, there was going to be a keg of beer on at the Lodge for us after the dive to warm up!
The team and guest divers (from D Dive S, CPC, and NDHQ) gathered in Dive Stores, got the brief, and began kit preps. The task was a simple one but one worthwhile; navigation swim between two measured distanced markers with divers counting the number of kicks and determining the time it takes to cover that distance. This is fundamental knowledge for every combat diver in order to conduct the covert insertions necessary to execute our reconnaissance or demolition tasks.
There were about 14 x two man teams (a good turn out) and we cycled teams in two at a time with other teams in the Lodge waiting to go. No problems for the divers. Of course, the dry suit wearers were all suitable harassed and mocked. The boat crew, on the other hand, was savaged by the wind and water and needed beautiful young masseuses with hot oils to warm them back up again…but all we had was beer (they survived). For general info I ended up covering a 250m leg in 6
minutes at 50 kicks per minute (I acknowledge in my advancing age I’m a littler slower these days but in my defence I was carrying the float, using the compass, doing the timing and calculations in my head, and hauling around a partner in a dry suit, who while holding on to my yoke from behind (as he should), seemed to want to push me to the bottom of the river (as he shouldn’t) because he had a bit too much weight….yeah, I know, stop whining.
After we ran everyone through, went back to Dive Stores and cleaned and “bombed up” all of our kit again, we made our way back to the Lodge where our host/Lodge Manager Stan Shaw, had a great BBQ steak meal ready for us with all the fixin’s (and of course the keg of beer). Lots of dive stories followed and after about two hours the 23 Fd Sqn Christmas party joined us (it is my Sqn after all!) and even more beer flowed as the Sqn HQ put a few hundred bucks
on the bar! Couple that with the Sqn doing another BBQ and a good time was had by all. Good way to end the year.
Diving Outside the Regiment
There comes a time in everyone's career where you have the opportunity to get posted outside the regiment. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a little difficult however for divers to maintain their qualification. There are a number of things that can be done in order to avoid the red line in the dive log. It is however not just the individual diver's responsibility but everyone who is in the chain of command. As well there are a number of suggestions for positive changes to Combat Diving that can be taken from the civilian diving industry.
The Diver
As mentioned before there are a number of things that the diver must accomplish in order to maintain their qualification.
Divers have to get in touch with the nearest dive team. Whether it is a Combat Engineer Regiment, Navy Ships Dive Team, Search and Rescue Squadron or even a Naval Reserve unit.
They have to maintain their diving medical status. That includes keeping yourself physically fit. An aircrew medical is the same thing.
Ensure that your name is loaded on the ITMIS for requals. It is your responsibility to make it happen and your unit's responsibility to let you go.
Obtain a set of Diving General Memoranda's for review. A copy of the 380 Vol. II and a copy of FDU's PIP are also great reviewing tools. You have to be up to date on what is going on in the CF diving world, and by the way it is a requirement for when you go on your requal.
Don't get caught off guard. The requal is only five training days long and you have to know your dive tables and your dive signals off by heart. They are the first two tests on day one and you have to pass them or you just wasted everyone's time in getting you out there.
A pool dive is still a dive cycle. Make a chess or checker set to help pass the time. You can practice ditching and donning just so many times before you are totally bored with it.
The Dive Teams
You play an important part in helping these divers maintain their qualifications. Remember these people will eventually be coming back to a dive team and you don't want to waste time in retraining them. There are, as you can guess a few things that you can do to help them out.
The dive teams have to keep in touch with these divers who are posted outside the Regiment. Supply them with copies of the dive team's training schedule so that they can go to their Training Officer with a plan. Understand that they will probably not be able to make it every dive due to their unit's tasking and training schedules.
If they are coming out to participate in diving, last minute cancellations could have a negative effect on the member's abilities to be allowed to participate in further dives. Just because it is not coming out of your unit's budget doesn't give you the right to screw them around. A phone call at 1600 hrs the day before the dive doesn't cut it.
As well they are there to dive not to be a standby. You can not maintain diving proficiency by just sitting there waiting. These divers have done quite a lot to get there, some of them three to four hours away. They usually are there for only one day and may be able to just get in one dive, so don't waste their time. I know that it sounds a little presumptuous however they can not practice their combat diving skills on the surface.
There is a reluctance of accepting civilian dives as a diver's method of maintaining their proficiency. This has been seen with both with the Regiments and at FDUs in spite of the DGM that states otherwise. A night dive to 50' is the same whether it is with a bunch of friends on the weekend or with the Dive Team on an exercise. Divers, such as myself, like to keep two logs, one strictly military and the other both military and civilian dives. This
second log requires to be maintained in the same manner as the military log. This here should help out on some people's negativity towards this practice.
Combat Dive Teams should ensue that local police are aware of a resource that could possibly be useful and the route necessary to request such support if required.
For the Diving Officers, don't be in a hurry to pull out the red pen if a member receives their remuster. They may be able to maintain the diving qualifications on an air base or a ship. They might even be posted back to a Regiment to a Construction Troop.
D Dive S
It is necessary for the D Dive S for the Combat Diver's talk to his SAR Tech opposite on the Combat Diver's capabilities so that those members that are on the Wings will be able to participate in dive exercises with the SAR Techs ie, helicopter cast and recovery. This will also benefit Combat Divers who have remustered to other trades to maintain their dive status. It may also help extend a recovery operation by adding current divers to the task. In talking to Police Dive Teams, recovery operations have been suspended due to the
lack of enough divers.
Civilian Courses
For the longest time civilian diving was considered Taboo. All we did was to concentrate on how the military dived. However those of us who are posted outside the Regiments have no choice but to look and consider if the Combat Dive world could do with some change. I am not talking about mixed gas diving (NITROX), however rebreather technology has become more affordable with the equipment easier to maintain, but training wise.
How many times have we sent the new diver to go standby yet they have never been taught how to properly recover a stricken diver? This here should be taught on the basic diver course. The same goes for the administration of oxygen and the application of an oral pharyngeal airway (OPA).
Most of our diving is conducted away from the luxury of a medical facility. This is where the application of more advanced medical intervention can be applied. The Standard First Aid course is fine for a cut however it does not teach you on how to apply a c-collar or how to properly strap a patient to a spine board. I have just completed a four-month home study, Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) course through Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT).
This is a course that we should be looking towards getting our divers on. This one or one similar such as the Basic Trauma Life Support (BTLS). These courses are covered under the new SCAN policy.
The civilian dive side already has these courses in place, Rescue Diver, Diver's Alert Network (DAN) Oxygen Administration and, Diver Medical course. These courses can be claimed under SCAN as well with 50% of the tuition paid back and, since it is towards the performance of your job, tax-free.
Equipment
For equipment once again the civilian diving industry has far surpassed the military where it comes to Research and Development (R&D) of diving equipment. There are more useful buoyancy compensators (BCs) that are used in "Tech diving" than the Stab Jacket that the Navy would like to issue.
The Senior Army Diver, in conjunction with the Combat Diver D Dive S, should pursue increased input and /or "Veto" powers in regards to trails and appropriation of diving equipment intended primarily or entirely for use by Combat Divers. This would help ensure that the equipment procured is the "Most Suitable" rather than "Useable", i.e. the unsuitability of the new buddy line system adopted to suit the Clearance Diver's needs.
A small knife that can be fitted to the BC should be issued to the diver. Many times the diver is not able to reach down the side of their leg to get at the knife due to fishing lines. This is where the smaller knife on the BC can help out.
All regulators should have an octopus with either a yellow hose line or a brightly coloured hose protector and a brightly coloured faceplate. This assists a distressed diver in locating the octopus in water with poor visibility. As well the octopus regulator should be secured to the BC in such a way that the diver or their partner in an emergency could quickly locate and use the regulator. This can be accomplished with either a piece of surgical tubing or a small $10 item that the mouthpiece fits into. I
personally have one of these on my BC and the octopus sits in there nicely and is kept close to my body preventing any snags.
Diving Safety
There is one change that should be brought forward, and that is how we secure divers to lifelines. Having the time be able to become a volunteer fire fighter, I have been busy training in Ice & Water Rescue as well as other forms of rope rescue. Because of the knot's ability to collapse on itself the Bowline has been dropped by everyone who has anything to deal with rescue. The preferred knot is the traced figure eight. It is a simple knot to tie and it is extremely effective. The SAR Tech leader here at 4 Wing, has supported this proposal for this change in policy. Although some people may argue that we have not lost anyone to this knot so why change, I say why wait for it to happen. Safety and continued education of our divers should be on the top of the
list.
Finally the rambling comes to an end
Through communication and co-operation with the dive teams, those of us who are posted away from the regiment can keep our diving qualifications current.
Every Combat Diver should be able to influence the way Combat Diver's do their job. Even if the idea comes from the civilian diving industry let's remember the billions of dollars that they spend on R&D. They just might make what you would like in black.
Don't forget to get your Combat Diver Association membership in. With all the tours that everyone is going on, a $125.00 for a life time membership is a spit in the ocean. Don't forget to keep in touch.
Bubbles Up!
MCpl Goustos & Sgt McCutchen