Some people also load up damage control folks from available recruits at port. That's what I tend to do as well. I also sometimes keep my gunners in there but since the damage bug is fixed (people on deck like gunners would keep getting wounded if their guns were damaged and repaired) that hasn't been necessary.
I really can't offer too much advice for how to put together a good damage control team as the documentation for crew skills/specializations/abilities and their effects is nonexistant. I can tell you what I do and it seems to work. Before my first patrol I look at all my compartments for unskilled/unrated characters like recruits and seamen. If there are some with really bad skills I retire them. Next I go look at who's available to hire. I focus primarily on "free" characters like ensigns and recruits.
After filling up compartment slots with the most qualified available for free I'll go talent hunting. Anyone with reasonably good stats, especially in mechanical, gets put into the damage control team as a standby alternate. I try to find at least one ensign with reasonable mechanical and electrical stats as well as a solid leadership score to put in charge. If there's a second with impressive potential I'll stick him in too. After that I stick with seamen. Why as ensigns have better stats by and large? I suspect there must be a downside, undocumented, to having too many officers around and too few enlisted under them. Otherwise I can't see why you'd have so many free ensigns available. They'd cost something and be less numerous.
That might just be my imagination at work trying to think like a game designer, YMMV.
There are two ways to use damage control teams. Hit "Battlestations" and they come active along with every other seaman on the ship - and you'll notice efficiency in every compartment maxes out. However this is very fatiguing and you'll want to make sure you turn it off when you're done. I suspect this helps the damage control people out as well since regular crew stationed in a compartment will do minor repairs on their own. When the danger is over and you've ended battlestations make sure you also manually turn off the damage control team. They'll stay on duty even after the alert has ended. The other way to use damage control, of course, is to select it. Both battlestations and damage control activation orders are under the reports/personnel tab.
Assuming you have damage and the damage control team activated go to the damage reports. You can decide what systems you want repaired and in what order. Bulkheads are very important as are engines and pumps. Once a bulkhead is fixed flooding will usually go down. Not sure if one of the pumps is associated with this or not. You can also select entire systems from the left handed column and it will highlight which individual bits of equipment you need to get them operational again. Just drag and drop from the lists or from the damage control priority list at the bottom of the page. Special warning: even after bulkheads are repaired you may not want to dive - at all - until you're out of danger. They're probably weakened and can collapse with the slightest external pressure and there is no indication of this, that I can see, on the damage control page. Even refitting won't completely fix this - you need to return to port and end your patrol.
But if you want to experiment make sure you're safe and then slowly dive to periscope depth. If that works take it down a little deeper. I'd stay in the 3D internal view because that's the only place you'll get an early warning of things going badly. What warnings? Look for spewing water and flickering electrical lights. At this point try to surface. If that's not working blow ballast, a command under the contol room tab. Increase your speed as well. The faster you are moving the faster you surface or sink because of the flow of water over and under your diving planes (those fin like whiskers sticking out from the nose of your sub).
Good luck. Hope this was helpful.
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