Author Series | Rachel Lance | Chamber Divers

Discover the unbelievable saga of the scientists - men and women - who changed underwater exploration forever. Biomedical engineer and blast-injury specialist, Dr. Rachel Lance, discusses her new book Chamber Divers, which uncovers a story that has been buried in classified records for a generation. Publisher’s Weekly opines, “A riveting account of the daredevil Allied researchers who made advances in underwater warfare possible during WWII…Propulsively narrated and full of moments of astonishing sacrifice, this brings a remarkable history to light.”
On the beaches of Normandy, two summers before D-Day, the Allies attempted an all but forgotten landing. Of the nearly seven thousand Allied troops sent ashore, only a few hundred survived the terrible massacre, and the reason for the debacle was a lack of reconnaissance. The shore turned out to be impassable to tanks. The Nazis had hidden obstacles in unexpected places. The fortifications were more numerous-and deadly-than imagined. The Allies knew they needed to take the fight to Hitler on the European mainland to end the war, but they could not afford to be unprepared again. A small group of eccentric researchers, experimenting on themselves from inside pressure tanks in the middle of the London air raids, explored the deadly science needed to enable the critical reconnaissance vessels and underwater breathing apparatuses that would enable the Allies’ dramatic, history-making success during the next major beach landing: D-Day. Based on top secret documents only recently declassified, this is the story of a band of maverick submarine researchers who without their lab and its wartime work, neither SEALs nor submarines could prowl the ocean the way they do today.
Rachel Lance is a biomedical engineer and blast-injury specialist who works as a scientific researcher on military diving projects at Duke University. Before returning to graduate school to earn her PhD, Dr. Lance spent several years as an engineer for the United States Navy, working to build specialized underwater equipment for use by navy divers, SEALs, and Marine Force Recon personnel.