He has been active in the design, manufacture and operation of manned and unmanned submersibles. Captain Walsh dove to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge near the Azores, to the wreck of RMS Titanic, and to the WWII German battleship Bismarck. Since 1959 Captain Walsh has participated in diving operations with more than two dozen manned submersibles, piloting seven of them, and he has participated in more than 50 polar expeditions. He then founded the Oregon-based consulting company, International Maritime Inc., and he continues to run that business today. In 1975 Captain Walsh retired from the US Navy to be a professor of ocean engineering at the University of Southern California he was the founding director of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Studies. During this period, Captain Walsh pursued a PhD in oceanography from Texas A&M University, focusing on remote sensing, and in l969 earned an MA in political science from San Diego State University, where his research was on law-of-the-sea issues. His 24-year naval career included service in both the Korean and Vietnam wars. Promoted to commander, Captain Walsh went on to serve as Special Assistant (Submarines) to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development, and later as Deputy Director of Navy Laboratories. Walsh served aboard the Trieste from 1959-1962 and made the historic descent with Piccard. He followed up his academy years with two years in the Amphibious Forces, followed by submarine school, and service in the submarines Rasher (SSR-269), Sea Fox (SS-402), and Bugara (SS-331), eventually commanding Bashaw (AGSS-241). He joined the US Navy in 1948, and served as an aircrewman in torpedo bombers until he entered the Naval Academy in 1950. Their groundbreaking descent stood unmatched for 52 years.īorn in Berkeley, California, Don Walsh grew up in the San Francisco Bay area. Walsh was also the first submersible pilot in the US, and the first officer-in-charge of the Trieste at the Navy Electronics Laboratory in San Diego. Designated USN Deep Submersible Pilot #1, then Lt.
Lieutenant Don Walsh made history in January 1960 when he and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard dove the bathyscaphe Trieste to the deepest place in the world’s oceans, the Mariana Trench. We recognized his many accomplishments in the evening’s awards dinner journal: In 2012, CAPT Don Walsh, USN (Ret.) was awarded with the NMHS Distinguished Service Award at the Annual Awards Dinner.
0 kommentar(er)
