Which is what happened on at least one of the "sugar" boats we lost between the wars. They sent divers down to the sub after it sank,and found that there were a few survivors left in the forward torpedo room. An attempt was made to salvage the sub as quickly as possible to hopefully get the sub to the surface before those men died,but they never really had a chance. The weather got bad,and the divers ran into problems. It was a gallant try,but it was doomed to failure from the very beginning.(I'd give the sub#,but to be honest I forgot which one it was. I think we lost at least 3 S Boats due to accidents between the wars.).
It was incidents like that that led to the development of the momsen lung and the special rescue diving bell.(Who's name escapes me). Which culminated in the rescue of half of the Squalus' crew after she sank due to the failure of her main induction to close during a dive.
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