Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit

The Lambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (Laru, for short) is an early model of frogman's rebreather. Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the USA in 1940 (filing date: 16 Dec 1940) and in 1944 (issue date: 2 May 1944).^[1] A Laru is the same device as a SCUBA set since Lambertsen changed his invention's name to SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) in 1952.^[2] In spite of that diving regulator technology was invented by Émile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943 and wasn't originally related to rebreathers, nowadays' use of the word SCUBA is largely attributed to Gagnan's and Cousteau's invention.

The version in the images linked to below, show:

• Two apparent large lengthways backpack cylinders under a hard metal cover: the right cylinder is oxygen and the left apparent cylinder is the absorbent canister.
• Fullface mask with small eye holes like an old-type gasmask
• Two breathing bags, one on each shoulder.
• 4 lengths of wide corrugated breathing tubes in a loop: from the mask to one of the breathing bags to the canister to the other breathing bag to the mask.
• Its harness is a strong cloth jacket that enclosed the diver's chest.
• Mid front, a long zipped pocket: the diagrams do not show whether it was for kit or for diving weights.

Many diving rebreathers are descended from it. However, there were earlier underwater uses of rebreathers:

• Davis Escape Set
• Siebe Gorman Salvus
• The rebreathers used by the Italian Decima Flottiglia MAS frogmen in World War II

References

External links

• A long biography about him, and about the rebreather that he designed
• Images of his rebreather