Captain Bill Searle, former U.S. Navy Supervisor of Salvage, passed away at the age of 86 on March 31, 2009.
were used in Vietnam. As Supervisor of Salvage, Captain Searle and his office also engaged in major deep ocean search and recovery operations, including locating the submarine Scorpion, and locating and recovering the Hbomb that the Air Force had lost in 2,300 feet of water off Palomares, Spain as the result of a mid-air collision. He also had oversight of major oil pollution incidents, including the Santa Barbara oil spill in California, and the Ocean Eagle oil spill and salvage/wreck removal in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Captain Searle's last assignment before retiring from the Navy in 1970 was to follow up on his earlier participation as Supervisor of Salvage in the design and engineering of a new class of salvage vessel. He retired only after the first vessel of that class was launched. Captain Searle's career in salvage, however, did not end with that launch. Indeed, he quickly followed that with his own launch of the Searle Consortium, from which Captain Searle and others from what he sometimes referred to as his "stable of experts" took on special assignments worldwide. In this capacity, he became a particular favorite of the United Nations when they had need for salvage or ocean engineering services. The United Nations in fact granted him status with
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the rank of Ambassador while he served as special consultant, taking technical charge of the U.N. Relief Operation Bangladesh, clearing hundreds of wrecks from the Pussur River and other waterways of that newly formed country following its revolution. Captain Searle also continued as an academic in this specialized field of salvage and ocean engineering. He served as visiting lecturer on the staff of the Department of Ocean Engineering at M.I.T., and he lectured on salvage and ocean engineering subjects at the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, as well as other distinguished colleges and universities. Captain Searle also served two terms as a member of the Marine Board of the National Research Council, and has been honored by many of the other organizations of which he was a member, teacher, and leader. Captain Searle recently co-authored a work entitled "Undersea Valor" on the subject of submarine salvage and rescue. Those who knew him will miss Captain Searle, and those who didn't can still appreciate his many contributions in the fields of marine salvage and ocean engineering. Our nation and many persons benefitted from his service and tutelage.
Marine Technology Reporter 29
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