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National Geographic : 1960 Aug
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KODACHROMEBY JOHN E. FLETCHER, NATIONALGEOGRAPHICSTAFF ( N.G.S. President Eisenhower Honors the Bathynauts at the White House He holds a flag taken on the dive; another rests in National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D. C. Jacques Piccard wears the Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award, Lieutenant Walsh the Legion of Merit. Dr. Andreas Rechnitzer, scientific chief of the dives, received the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and Lt. Lawrence Shumaker, assistant to Walsh, the Navy Commendation Ribbon with Metal Pendant. into the afternoon air. The dive had ended. Our first contact with the civilized part of the sea was not merely rough but violent. The wind was blowing even harder than in the morning; the waves were also heavier and higher. But weather was of little or no im portance now. Planes Give Divers a Noisy Greeting On reaching the Trieste's deck, I had the impression of emerging in the middle of an air meet. Several Navy jets and a plane of the Guam Air Rescue unit were sailing around above us with an infernal racket, dip ping their wings to greet us. A few miles away the Lewis, and behind her the Wandank, were approaching rapidly. Suddenly I saw, a few yards from the bathy scaph and just behind the crest of a gigantic wave, a tiny black rubber boat loaded with four men-two sailors and two photographers. Like a centipede in an avalanche of sand, the small boat glided down the flank of a wave and ascended almost vertically toward another crest. With all the speed its little engine could produce, it turned in a circle around us, going up and then down; and in the wind and the salt and the sea I heard the photographers plead: "Salute, do salute, please." As ever, photographers! But, indeed, we saluted gladly; not for posterity, to be sure, not for the photogra phers, but for the rediscovered sun and pure air, even for the wind and the waves that submerged us each instant. We had only one thought: profound gratitude for the success achieved, gratitude toward all those who had contributed to the success of this uncommon day. 239
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