Deep-sea explorer and oceanographer the former US Navy Captain Don Walsh, who became one of the first two men to reach the oceans’ deepest point in 1960, has died at the age of 92.
A fortnight ago, Divernet reported that the iconic dive-watch Walsh had worn on his historic descent piloting the bathyscaphe Trieste had been put up for sale.
Yesterday the JeanRichard Aquastar 60 timepiece sold for US $62,500 (£50,000) at auction – three days after Walsh's death on 12 November.
Born on 2 November, 1931, in Berkeley, California, Walsh had joined the Navy in 1948, working as air-crew before training to become a submarine officer, according to the United States Naval Institute (USNI), which announced Walsh's death. After commanding USS Bashaw, he had gone on to become the Navy’s first deep submersible pilot.
The Trieste had been developed at the Navy Expeditionary Laboratory in San Diego through Operation Nekton – which was kept secret at the time because the Navy did not want what might have proved an expensive failure to be publicised.
“Everything on this had to be designed by us and made by us, because there weren’t any commercial vendors, no catalogue that sold parts or qualified for 20,000 or 16,000psi, eight tons per square inch of pressure and to do the things that we wanted to do,” Walsh had told USNI News in 2020.
“Cameras, lights, samplers, sensors, instrument sensors – all of that we had to design and build, or have built. So we were writing the book for deep-ocean operations. It was really mare incognita.”
Five months of work followed on Guam in the Pacific in 1959, where multiple test dives were carried out. On 15 January, 1960, Lt Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard dived the Trieste 7km into Nero Deep in the Mariana Trench, south-west of the island.
Just over a week later, on 23 January, the pair made their historic dive to 10.911km in Challenger Deep.
“At 31,000ft [9.45km] Trieste was jolted by a muted bang,” Walsh would write later for Scientific American. “In the past we had some very small external components fail but those events produced sharper sounds of implosions.
“This noise was much lower in pitch, as if something big had broken. We checked our instrument readings and all seemed well, and Trieste was descending at the same rate as before, so we decided to proceed.”
Once landed on the seabed, where Trieste would remain for 20 minutes, Piccard had pointed out a small white flatfish. “Though very brief, this was an important observation,” wrote Walsh. “First, it told us that there was a higher-order marine vertebrate living at this incredible depth.
“Second, if there was one then there were probably many, as this was a bottom-dwelling fish. And third, there were sufficient nutrients and oxygen to support life at the deepest seafloor.”
Subsequent submersible descents to Challenger Deep could only ever exceed the Trieste achievement by a matter of a few metres. Walsh was awarded the Legion of Merit for the dive which for the rest of his life, according to USNI, “enabled his influence within the Navy and halls of Congress as a staunch advocate for continued ocean exploration”.
Walsh spent 24 years in the Navy and then, with a PhD in oceanography, taught the subject at the University of Southern California. He was a consultant on a number of Hollywood movies, including The Poseidon Adventure in 1972 and a participant on numerous oceanic expeditions, particularly to polar regions.
In 2001 he visited the wreck of the Titanic on the MIR 2 submersible. He also joined film director James Cameron's Deepsea Challenger team for his solo mission into Challenger Deep in 2012.
He received many accolades for his achievements, including the US Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award and the National Geographic Society's highest honour, the Hubbard Medal.
In 2019, Walsh joined deep-ocean explorer Victor Vescovo on his Five Deeps Expedition, during which his submersible Limiting Factor made repeated dives to the bottom of Challenger Deep,
Triton Submarines CEO Patrick Lahey wore Walsh's Aquastar watch on one of those dives, and the following year Walsh returned to the site with his son Kelly, who took the watch down to the bottom of the ocean for a third time.
Also on Divernet: Vescovo becomes deepest diver – by 16m, Don Walsh leads virtual anniversary deep descent, Son follows father on deepest dive
