Clearance diver
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A Clearance Diver was originally a specialist naval diver who used explosives underwater to remove obstructions to make harbours and shipping channels safe to navigate, but later the term "clearance diver" was used to include other naval underwater work. Units of clearance divers were first formed during and after the Second World War to clear ports and harbours in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe of unexploded ordnance and shipwrecks and booby traps laid by the Germans.
The first units were Royal Navy Mine and Bomb Disposal Units. They were succeeded by the "Port Clearance Parties" (P Parties). The first operations by P Parties included clearing away the debris of unexploded ammunition left during the Normandy Invasion. Six groups of Clearance Divers including Commonwealth and European allied forces were in operation by 1945.
Naval work diver training is much longer and harder than sport diver training and has much stricter entry requirements: see Frogman#Frogman training.
For a long time navies used the old-type heavy standard diving dress when work needed doing underwater. During and after World War II some of them started using frogman-type gear when frogman's kit became available. Later they started often using open-circuit scuba gear for work diving.
In some navies including Britain's, work divers must have a line and a linesman when possible.
[edit] Nations with naval work diving groups
[edit] Australia
See Clearance Diving Team (RAN) - The Australian Navy Clearance Team. They also serve as combat divers.
[edit] Britain
British Royal Navy naval work divers are officially called Clearance Divers. For a long time they usually used the Siebe Gorman CDBA rebreather. In the 1990s they used a type of automatic mixture rebreather which is so heavy that on surfacing after a dive even a very physically fit naval diver preferred to remove the rebreather while still in the water and have it craned out separately.
Other combinations of kit used in the past by British work divers were:-
- Sladen suit and weighted boots and Siebe Gorman Salvus.
- Sladen suit and weighted boots and aqualung. According to a 1950s British naval diving manual, this was the only approved way to use the aqualung.
See http://www.mcdoa.org.uk/RN_Clearance_Diving_Branch.htm .
[edit] Canada
Canada has currently two operational units from which Clearance Divers perform a variety of tasks:-
- Combat Diving: see Frogman#Canada.
- Battle Damage Repair (BDR)
- Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD)
- Force Protection (FP).
These units are:-
- Fleet Diving Unit Pacific based at CFB Esquimalt, British Columbia.
- Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic based near CFB Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Clearance Diving Officers and Divers also serve at:-
- the Experimental Diving Unit (EDU) at Defence Research and Development Canada
- the CFSAL - EOD School in CFB Borden, Ontario.
Clearance Diving Officers and Clearance Divers also serve at D Dive S (Director Diving Safety) at the Department of National Defence Headquarters (Canada) in Ottawa, Ontario.
[edit] France
France's Clearance Dives are called the Plongeurs Démineurs (link in French).
[edit] Germany
Minentaucher is Germany's Clearance Diver force.
[edit] Norway
Norway's naval work divers and Clearance Diver force is called Minedykkerkommandoen = "the mine diver command".
[edit] USA
See Underwater Demolition Team - US Navy, 1943 -1967
