Geoffrey Mainwaring Sladen

Early 1942 the Sladen Suit development

The Sladen Suit is named after an English officer named Geoffrey Mainwaring Sladen. Sladen was born in Reigate, Surrey, England, on 3 Aug 1904 baptized and on 31 Aug 1904 married Anna Maria Rolt in Amersham in 1931.
Sladen served virtually all his life and held a large number of ranks and awards such as DSC and DSO. He commanded a large number of ships and submarines including HMS H50, HMS Oswald, HMS Trident, HMS Titania, HMS Sheffield and HMS Musketeer. Apart from these feats of arms, he was appointed executive of the Human Torpedo or Charioteer program where he worked in close contact with Siebe Gorman &Co and developed the “Sladen Suit.” In Siebe Gorman’s experimental department, the AEDU worked with Kenneth Donald (Book: Oxygen and the Diver ISBN 185421176 5) and Professor J.B.S. Haldane on the development of breathing apparatus and diving suits.

The Charioteers were expected to have to stay underwater for up to 6 hours which placed high demands on the suit. During the very intense experiments involving more than a thousand dives, the divers developed a mythical monster named “Oxygen Pete” who supposedly lurked at the bottom of the wetbell by Siebe. The delusions were certainly prompted by the many oxygen poisonings that occurred during the experiments. The book by Kenneth Donald (Leutenant-Commander D.S.C, M.D., R.N) bears witness to this. Sladen did not become very famous for his contribution to the development of this program, but the suit of charioteers is forever named after Sladen. Sladen died in October 1985.

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