The ATEA
This small oxygen device was used during World War II to allow tank crews to escape from a sunken tank. The DD tank was an amphibious tank capable of floating by raising a collar. In case the amphibious action failed, the sherman tank would sink. The crew would then drown. To prevent this, a simple set was developed that consisted of a 6-litre breathing lung containing a compact scrubber. Before entering the water, the sets were filled with pure oxygen using a central cylinder with regulator and manifold valves. This amount of oxygen provided gas to breathe for 7 minutes. In an emergency, the lung also contained a special mini oxygen cartridge, the ‘Oxylet’ which provided a small amount of reserve oxygen in case of emergency. The mouthpiece was equipped with a lockable valve and the crew had goggles and nose clip. The video film below shows the whole process including the training of the crew.
The following photos were offered to me by Danny from GasmaskUK https://gasmasksuk.wixsite.com/gasmasksuk for which I would like to thank him very much. The set is in his collection and I have been offered to share the photos with you!
Therebreathersite was founded by Jan Willem Bech in 1999. After a diving career of many years, he decided to start technical diving in 1999. He immediately noticed that at that time there was almost no website that contained the history of closed breathing systems. The start for the website led to a huge collection that offered about 1,300 pages of information until 2019. In 2019, a fresh start was made with the website now freely available online for everyone. Therebreathersite is a source of information for divers, researchers, technicians and students. I hope you enjoy browsing the content!