Trapped Beneath the Waves!

A Tale from the Transformers Fact Files... »
Trapped Beneath the Waves!
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Published in	The Transformers issue 15
First published	6th April, 1985
Writer	Mister Kit
Artist	Mister Kit
Letters	uncredited
Translation	uncredited

A routine submarine test goes wrong, stranding its crew on the sea bed for 27 hours.

Synopsis

It's the 23rd of May, 1939, and the U.S. Navy submarine Squalus is being tested off the coast of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. A routine dive goes awry as water floods the engine room, causing the ship to drop to the bed, 242 feet below sea level. To make matters worse, a short circuit in the batteries causes an electrical fire, which is rapidly dealt with.

The commander of the ship orders his main to remain calm and hunker down. The Navy will soon be searching for Squalus when it fails to report in, so the buoys are released to provide a thick red smoke signal.

From a staff meeting in Portsmouth, Vice-Admiral Cole organises the rescue effort. Squalus's sister ship, Sculpin, is already searching the submarine's last known location. Commander McCann and his revolutionary diving bell are dispatched on the Falcon. When Sculpin locates Squalus' buoy, Cole himself decides to launch on Penacook. Falcon is a late arrival, however, being buffeted about by a storm, and finally joining the two larger ships around 4:15 a.m..

After six hours of preparation, Quarter Master Sibitsky volunteers to be the one to don the diving suit and descend to the sea bed. His journey slowly and steadily takes him down to Squalus, where his knocks on the side of the sub reinvigorate the crewmen's morale, as they have been trapped now for nearly 26 hours.

Hearing the crew's knocked response, Sibitsky attaches the diving bell's descending cable. As soon as he is pulled back up, Commander McCann and a colleague descend in the capsule, with their arrival on the sea bed eliciting cheers from the Squalus crew. All 33 men are saved.

Following the incident, the Squalus is refloated and salvaged. After an overhaul, it is re-launched as the Sailfish, serving in the Second World War and sinking an impressive number of enemy ships. In December 1943, Sailfish successfully destroys a Japanese cargo boat... though in a cruel twist of fate, the boat was carrying twenty American prisoners who had previously served on Sculpin when it rescued Squalus.

Featured characters

Squalus	Falcon	Others
Squalus crew Squalus commander Sailfish crew	Falcon crew Commander McCann Quarter Master Sibitsky	Vice-Admiral Cole Two officers in Portsmouth Sculpin crew

Quotes

""

—

Notes

Original printing

• "27 h prisonniers sous la mer", Le Journal de Tintin, 22nd January 1985
  • French issue number: NT489
  • Belgian issue number: TB04/85

As with other From the Fact Files stories, this comic was produced for the long-running Franco-Belgian magazine Le Journal de Tintin. No personnel are credited by Marvel UK, though the first and final pages retain the signature of Mister Kit, a pen name of Belgian artist and model maker Gill Van Dessel. The original title can be translated to "27-hour prisoners under the sea".

"Trapped Beneath the Waves!" appeared in The Transformers issue 15, translated and re-lettered by unknown parties – though the work resembles that of Richard Starkings, who also lettered "The Enemy Within!"  in this issue. The contents page refers to this reprint as "From the Transformers Fact Files", while the actual opening page has "A Tale from the Transformers Fact Files".

Real-life references

It really happened! The USS Squalus was a real submarine that sank, and the resulting rescue operation saw the first in-the-field use of the McCann Rescue Chamber. The Sculpin, Falcon, and Penacook were all also real ships.

Thanks to historical records, we can also nail down the identities of some of the people depicted:

• The "commander" of the Squalus is Lieutenant Oliver F. Naquin.
• Cole is Rear Admiral Cyrus W. Cole.
• McCann is Lieutenant Commander Allan Rockwell McCann.
• Sibitsky is Boatswain's Mate Martin C. Sibitsky.
• If that's the skipper giving orders on Sailfish, then he may be intended to be Lieutenant Commander Robert E. McC. Ward.

Artwork and technical errors

• The translated script notes multiple buoys being released from Squalus, though only one is depicted by the artwork.
• The lettering calls Sculpin Squalus's "sistership" (i.e. sisterhood) rather than "sister ship".
• "Look, Commander McCann! The lights of Sculpin Penacook." There should probably be an "and" between the two ships' names.

Historical inaccuracies

• The skipper of Squalus was a Lieutenant, not a Commander.
• Much is made of Squalus having a crew of 33, and all being saved – in reality, the 33 were merely the remainder of the crew that were left, with 26 men being drowned instantly by the malfunction.
• Cole was a Rear Admiral rather than a Vice-Admiral.
• Sculpin was designated SS-191 in real life, rather than 189 as depicted here. Similarly, Falcon's classification was "ASR-2", rather than 56.
• Sibitsky was a Boatswain's mate, not a Quarter Master.
• McCann – who was a Lieutenant Commander, not a Commander – did not operate the bell personally. We can't blame this one on Marvel UK, as that is straight up just a drawing of McCann in panel 5 of page 5. The bell is also depicted as a lot more spacious than it was in real life.
• Wikipedia cites the 1975 book "Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan" by Clay Blair Jr. as revealing that the Sculpin crewmembers killed on the Japanese cargo boat were not actually part of the crew that helped rescue Squalus.

Continuity errors

• On page 4, in panel 3, Sibitsky takes orders from someone he addresses as "Lieutenant". Nobody of this rank is mentioned anywhere else in the comic, and the amount of real life officers present who could be addressed as "Lieutenant" are numerous (Lt. Cdr. McCann, Lt. Cdr. Charles "Swede" Momsen, Lt. George A. Sharp of Falcon, etc.).
• A footnote on page 6 invites readers to find out more about the re-floating of the sunken submarine in "Raising the Squalus". No publication by this name is known to exist. Did Marvel UK plan to release an English translation of "S.O.S. le Squalus a coulé !" from a 1969 issue of Tintin? Who knows!

External links

• We Rescue The Men From The U. S. S. Squalus, by Lt. Comdr. C. W. Shilling (MC) USN