‘Spacemen’ Under The Ice

– It’s not a nice weather for a swim – even the sight of them makes me shiver with cold – says a young mother who is taking a walk with her son by the backwater of the Tisza at Csongrád, when they notice the divers preparing for a dive. The little lad wanted to see the wild ducks and the ’big white birds’ but he stops at the ’spacemen’ and stares at them with his mouth open – the soldiers are putting the waterproof diver suits on. "Mommy, who are they and what are they doing?" – he asks hesitantly.

What we see is really futuristic. On the bank, bottles are lining up and there are lead belts, fins, masks, and knives next to them. Everything is carefully arranged on the sides of a tent laid out on the snow. The guys are helping each other to climb into the so-called drysuits used in cold water diving. Just a few more minutes and they are ready, and seeing the result we can say – with a little exaggeration – that they really look like astronauts.

Major Dezsõ Kürti, the leader of the reconnaissance unit of the HDF 37th ’Ferenc Rákóczi II’ Engineering Battalion of Szentes, is also preparing for a dive. In the Szentes corps the officer filling this position has been responsible for the management of the activities of military divers for long, therefore when Major Kürti took over this position he decided he would also sign up for the basic diving training. He has completed it with success, so as a third class diver he is now entitled to dive under the ice.

– I don’t deny it, I’m a bit nervous because out here, in the frozen backwater of the river, the circumstances are entirely different than what I’ve got used to in the training pool or even in the Tisza – says the senior officer, who also tells me that ice diving is considered diving in a confined space, thus there are special rules. For example a rescue diver must also be present who can get into the water in seconds if necessary, and help those who got into trouble.

The ’almighty lord’ of the training session, the diving supervisor apologizes to me, but we have to interrupt our conversation. Major Kürti has to go into the water, the temperature of which – as the thermometer indicates – is only 1,5–2°C. Although it is still a lot warmer than the air. In spite of the brilliant sunshine, the thermometer shows minus seven degrees…

The diving supervisor, that is Staff Sergeant Róbert Márton, the only active master diver in the Hungarian Defence Forces, checks the equipment of the major (just to be safe, the divers take two bottles and two diving regulators with them when they dive under ice) and sees if the safety rope has been properly secured to his waist.

The task sounds easy: as indicated by the tugs, the divers have to swim under the ice and reach a point chosen by the diving instructor, then make a so-called self-rescue dive. It means that the diver has to cut a hole in the ice with the help of his knife, and by holding up his hand, indicate his position to the troops on land. In an emergency, this is the only way to find a frogman who stuck under the ice cover. Yes, the task seems easy, but as we soon find out, it is not so easy to execute it…

Only a few centimetres of ice cover the water near the riverside, but the cover gets ‘fatter’ as we move away from the bank. Partly because of the weather, but it is also the place where warm water from the Csongrád bath meets the backwater of the Tisza, which makes freezing more difficult. The water does not freeze at all on an area of a few hundred square metres, this is where the wild ducks and swans find shelter for the winter. To the delight of the locals, who often come to the riverside to feed the birds. But today there is also a special spectacle awaiting them, more and more people are watching the divers.

Since the ice would not carry the weight of several people and the equipment, the leaders of the engineering battalion have decided that instead of diving ’from the water’, this time they will dive from the bank. Even though the divers of the Szentes corps usually dive from the ice at their traditional February ice diving – at least when the conditions are ideal. This makes it possible for them to practice how to cut a hole professionally with the regular equipments used in the Hungarian Defence Forces. Of course, the last time there were ’ideal conditions’ was four years ago. In 2007, the backwater did not freeze at all, and since then ice diving has been cancelled – due to various reasons – every year. Consequently, the guys have been waiting for this day anxiously.

Diving under ice is a very good physical test for military divers. Those who are frightened or panic and do not dare to dive are, unfortunately, unsuitable for this position – tells me Staff Sergeant Márton while he is watching the major making a dive. Another diver, the line tender holds the orange rope tied to the major’s waist. "Signal him to go left!" – says the diving supervisor, and the line tender pulls the rope once.

Pulling the rope is the only way to communicate with the diver in the water. ’One tug’ means ’attention, an order follows!’. Then regardless of what he is doing, the frogman has to stop, turn towards the rope, and indicate with one tug: he is ready to receive the command. ’Two tugs’ mean ’come up from where you are!’, and only the diver can pull the rope three times, which means there is an emergency. In this case everything has to be done to bring the frogman up to the surface as quickly as possible. Four tugs mean ’go right!’, five mean ’go left!’, six is ’go ahead!’, seven tugs stand for the order ’go back!’. As the saying goes, it is as easy as the alphabet. Still, it is very important that everybody is aware of the rope signals, since this is the only way of communication between the troops on the bank and the diver in the water.

So the line tender makes the ‘five tugs’, and soon the driver is in the right place. Several minutes go by, but the point of the diving knife does not break through the ice. What is more, a bit later Major Kürti appears where there is no ice.

– The collar which is supposed to lift me up to the surface did not inflate. So no matter how hard I tried, I could not break the ice from under, I was carried away by the force each time I hit the ice. Never mind, I’ll do it next time – says the senior officer a bit sadly, and we can clearly see that he is a little afflicted by the failure. As we have found out later, the bottle inflating the collar functioned improperly…

The diver following the senior officer is more fortunate, on the bank of the river we can hear him knocking on the ice with his knife. Just a few more minutes, and the knife appearing from under the ice cover, and a bit later a hand indicate: the soldier has carried out the task.

On the riverside there is the usual hot tea waiting for both of them. It is a protective drink and it also warms up the body. The medic, Staff Sergeant József Szilvási gives cups of tea to those who have just got out of the water. For a member of the medical corps must be present whenever there is a diving training, and in the event of ice diving as well, of course. Every dive is preceded by a stringent examination. Those who have a respiratory disease cannot go into the water, and people with higher blood pressure than 140/90 are not given a ’diving permit’ either – says the medic.

In the meantime, another two divers have put their suits on by the riverside. They are diving under the ice with the Kirby Morgan hard hat diving equipment. The suit, the helmet, and the ‘other accessories’ mean 30-40 kilograms of extra load for a diver – it is no wonder that it is very difficult for the troops to get into the water, they have to hang on to a rope in order to do that. The frogmen are connected to the land with coloured ‘wires’. The yellow hose is for the breathing gas, red is for communication, and the blue one sends data on the depth and the temperature of the water to the control panel, which is operated by Sergeant First Class Zoltán Kánvási, who does not have time to talk with us because he has to pay attention to the radio and the data arriving from the river. All he can tell us at the moment is that the equipment may be heavy, but it is still the ‘lighter version’, which would not be enough in a river because the current would take the boys away, they would ‘float on the end of the cable’. But in standing water it is more than enough for practicing the tasks.

A bit later we find out that the non-commissioned officer is also a first class diver himself, and he would also dive, but at the moment he is the only one who knows how to operate the control panel so he is on ‘land’ duty today.

The task is the same, they have to do what the scuba divers did: go in a certain direction under the ice – they communicate with the aforesaid red cable, instead of tugs – and make a hole in the ice cover with the help of their knives, then indicate with their hands where they are. Of course, there are divers for whom this is not enough, they break the thick ice with their helmet and climb out of the water up to the waist…

For Corporal Zsolt Varga, it is the first time he’s dived under the ice, what is more, he has done it with the hard hat equipment. He is gasping for breath when he returns, and tells me that he thought this task would be less exhausting, and he would not have thought that despite the closed suit, he could still feel how cold the water is. But he enjoyed the dive very much, and he was also happy that the range of vision was more than two metres under the water, so he could see almost everything. Even if the sight was quite depressing, since all he could see was the ’empty’ water. He couldn’t find hibernating fish either, which he could have brought up to prepare a ’fisherman’s soup’ – he tells us laughing, then he is also given a big cup of hot tea.