Fort Drum, the concrete battleship.
Out of the depths ...
Photos by Lazare Teper
Delegation head Mike Smith
administers first aid.
product floating on the surface? I triaged my fears, and
decided to put that one aside.
While waiting for the rope, I looked for the first time at
my surroundings and saw that I was, indeed, in a large
room of approximately the length and breadth I had
sensed just before the fall. But how far had I fallen? I
guessed the height of the deck to be about 30 to 35 feet.
However, 40 feet may be more nearly accurate — as others present at the time and historical records concerning
the fort’s dimensions indicate.
How in the world did I avoid breaking my legs, or even
my back, falling into such shallow water from that height?
The answer can only be that, although I began my fall in
an upright posture, I gradually rotated forward by 90 degrees, thus spreading the impact of my contact with the
water over my entire body.
As I continued looking around in the light of more flaming spheres of newsprint, I saw something even more
sobering. Protruding above the surface of the water all
around me were large rocks and concrete blocks. I had
fallen in the only open space in which I could possibly have
survived a 40-foot drop!
Spinning to Safety
Soon the rope arrived, cheering me immeasurably as I
imagined all manner of marine predators circling and sizing up my meaty white legs. Judging that my freedom of
action at the top would be greater if I ascended in a standing, rather than in a seated position, I stepped onto the
rope’s loop, rather than sitting in it, and the crew began
slowly hauling me up.
Suddenly the rope began spinning — and I spun along
with it. The centrifugal force induced both vertigo and a
growing fear that I would lose my grip, resulting in an instant replay of my swan dive. Tony Bennett may have left
his heart in San Francisco, but I definitely did not want to
leave my body at the bottom of Fort Drum!
After what seemed a much longer time than it actually
was, I arrived just below the deck and had to shout for the
crew to stop hauling. From where I hung, I could see that
the edge of the deck was bright, sharp metal, and I did not
want my body dragged across that blade by over-enthusi-astic rescuers, especially while spinning. With the help of
strong arms on the deck, I was able to gain control, stop
the spin and clamber over the edge with only a minor two-inch slice along the fatty part of my waistline.
Luck was with me that day. The worst injury was to my
watch, which was a total loss. My body got away with
scrapes and scratches.
The motor launch dropped me off on the Bataan
Peninsula (site of the bloody “death march” of World War
II), where I was checked out and treated at the infirmary
of a blue-jeans factory located there. After a quick shower,
I was outfitted in some of their products, since the clothes
in which I had begun the day were no longer usable, and
then zipped across the bay in a motorboat just in time to
join my colleagues for lunch and the afternoon tour of the
wartime tunnels.
All in all, it was an eventful and memorable day. When
it began, I had never heard of Fort Drum. By the time it
ended, the concrete battleship had become a place I will
never forget.
And although by the end of the day I had scratched off
one of my “nine lives,” that was just fine by me, considering the alternative. ■
