VOICE BENEATH THE SEA

[Music] [Applause] sailing toward a distant Shore on a summer night this ship is participating in the greatest international peacetime operation in communications history to the men and women of Great Britain Canada and the United States whose combined efforts have made possible the first transatlantic telephone cable this film record is dedicated here is history as they made it it was in New York on November 27 1953 that the transatlantic telephone cable project officially began as a contract of international cooperation was signed by top executives of the American telephone and telegraph company and the eastern telephone and telegraph company in London almost simultaneously Great Britain's then Postmaster General signed for the British post office while in Montreal Canada's cooperation was assured by the director of the agency in charge of overseas communications it was a remarkable contract providing for the sharing of research personnel equipment and cost it called for the construction of a radio relay system from the United States border to Eastern Nova Scotia a single cable spanning Cabot Strait and across Newfoundland and finally to deepwater cables across the Atlantic to better understand the complexities of this challenging project let's look briefly at some basic principles of sound and of communication [Music] communication by voice has always involved the kind of broadcast the transmission of the sound waves of speech hello and their movement through space to the point of reception or hearing for countless centuries man's ability to communicate by speech had one prime limitation distance [Music] a man named Bell provided the solution mr. Watson come here I want you the telephone changed voice waves into electrical impulses which raced along a wire to another telephone which changed these impulses back to voice waves again come here I want you the first telephone lines were very short but as telephone service expanded and long distance service became a reality the problems of keeping the voices loud and clear multiplied in San Francisco in nineteen six a man could shout into a telephone [Music] and by the time his voice was transmitted 400 miles to Los Angeles it sounded like a distant whisper [Music] through the years while they were working to improve the service in every way telephone people gave special attention to this problem of keeping conversations strong and clear over ever greater distances an answer in the telephone repeater or amplifier made possible by the invention of the vacuum tube this device magnifies or boosts a fading signal a million times and sends it on its way [Music] these repeaters with the aid of electronic filters also make it possible to transmit not just one but many telephone conversations at the same time over a single conductor in a kind of electronic symphony [Music] the complex sound pattern moves on its way with the speed of light amplified and re amplified along the route to reach its distant distribution point there the separate conversations are filtered apart and each goes on to reach its own private personal goal in land transmission a coaxial cable is frequently used to carry the complex sound pattern made up of many telephone conversation with radio relay another form of transmission overland the voices travel from tower to tower on a radio beam being amplified and re amplified at each relay point along the way however since relay towers must always be in sight of each other inevitably the limit to radio relay transmission is the ocean radio telephone communication of another type has been in service across the Atlantic for many years radio waves are beamed to the sky and reflected down to earth on the other side of the ocean however nearly all the wavelengths available for telephone communication have already been put to use to handle the ever-growing volume of international calls and unfortunately at times atmospheric conditions interfere with the satisfactory operation of the radio telephone system the answer to improve transatlantic telephone communication was a cable a telephone cable from shore to shore Telegraph cables across the ocean had been operating for nearly a century but the telegraphic transmission of Morse code was relatively simple compared with the far more complex electronic problem of transmitting many telephone conversations at the same time to keep the conversations strong and clear a telephone cable 2,000 miles long had to have repeaters at intervals across the ocean floor in this case those repeaters had to be a specially designed to fit within the cable itself then they could be paid out through the machinery of the cable laying ship to slide down into ocean depths there to operate untouched by man for twenty years and more Bell Laboratories source of so many important developments in communications history was primarily responsible for research and design of the flexible repeater and in the hillside New Jersey plant of Western Electric manufacturing organization of the Bell System the 102 repeaters required for the telephone project were produced here under the most scientific conditions of temperature and humidity control 300 men and women worked at jobs requiring a special combination of qualities and skills patience born of experience and infinite attention to detail the core of a simple coil yet that coil must operate perfectly for 20 years and more perhaps two and a half miles beneath the sea Wow and with the ultimate of care it had to past microscopic inspection at every test the finished coil was sent to take its place as one of the many intricate parts of a single section of the repeater assembly with a precision worthy of the finest watch the parts were assembled into a lucite case tooled by hand to the most Manute of tolerances seventeen different units joined together made up the repeater assembly vacuum tubes resistors condensers all the essential parts for the repeater to do its job beneath the sea protection against being crushed by the tremendous pressures at ocean depths was provided by interlocking steel rings a copper tube outside the steel rings would prevent a single drop of seawater from getting into the repeater and possibly silencing the cable the ends of the repeater were sealed under great heat by a complex braising process those N seals were then tested by a process involving an important industrial application of atomic energy the sealed and was surrounded by a hood into which a radioisotope was pumped the entire unit was then subjected to pressures up to 8,000 pounds per square inch to test the seal a Geiger counter would then detect the radioisotope within the repeater if the seal were not perfect its every test past each finished repeater was packed in a specially designed container later it would be shipped to the plant of simplex wire and cable company in New Hampshire ear production was already underway on that portion of the Atlantic cable to be manufactured in the United States part of the telephone cable was the wire of purest copper along which conversations would actually travel but around that Center conductor there had to be a whole series of protective coverings insulation was provided by a type of plastic known as polyethylene one of the many newer research products whose development makes the telephone cable possible [Music] on the armoring line the cable moved swiftly growing in diameter with each new tape and covering the juggernaut like armoring machine world on the vitally important covering of steel wires with final coverings of hot tar and jute the process was complete the finished cable moved off the assembly line to storage tanks for its final test the armoring of all the flexible repeaters for the cable project was also the responsibility of simplex wire and cable many new adaptations of old techniques were required to surround the tube like structure of the repeater with the armored wire and other materials which would protect it against the hazards of the undersea [Music] remarkably the diameter of the fully armored repeater was only about twice that of the cable itself late spring of 1955 found Her Majesty's ship monarch loading cable at the simplex plan [Music] repeaters now spliced into the cable but still receiving that handle with care' treatment moved up onto the ship as loading neared completion the first actual cable lay of the project was about to begin selection of the best possible transatlantic route was one of the many problems requiring consultation between representatives of Great Britain and Canada and executives of a TN t--'s long lines department which was primarily responsible for cabling operations to the south were too many existing Telegraph cables in some areas extensive fishing grounds were a hazard to the far north there was the menace of icebergs all these factors were considered in the final selection of routes for the two cables required one carrying voices east the other west chosen as eastern terminus for the cable was the Scottish seacoast town of Oban while the western terminus was the town of Clare until in Canada's Island province of Newfoundland on a day in July the clarin ville shore station was finished every installation complete a half mile offshore the monarch layered anchor her crew already beginning to unload the shore end of the cable over the bow eaves it went with oil drums attached so that small boats could tow it to the beach [Music] out of the water it came like some legendary sea monster transatlantic number one the black stub end of a slithering weight to which half a hundred men must bend their backs but on this day that cable end was the symbol of a great beginning as it was pushed and pulled into the cable station stripped of its armor and the core laid bare the cable end was attached to the terminal equipment on the monarch the other end of the cable was connected into the ship's Test room and now there should be contact from ship to shore and there was a contact that would be constant till the end of the cable in the Monarchs holes was bleed off 200 miles to the east of banker and away [Music] the ship move down random sound people paying out smoothly and down into the depths officers and men were at their appointed tasks sensing the importance of the beginning of this historic crossing within a few short hours the event occurred for which so many had planned for so long [Music] the first repeater was coming up from the Monarchs hold and there she was bending around the cable drum pretty as you please moving forward along the foredeck the repeater went on over the bow shields and down into the icy waters of the sound to the men in the test room checking anxious moments had the launching affected the signals moving through the repeater to the shore and it had not performance was exactly as planned it was one repeater down and a hundred and one to go the shipboard splicing operation was of special concern to top executives of the Bell System who were on board to observe every activity of the first 200-mile cable run the replacing of the insulation around the newly braised splice was an exacting skill demanding process the finished splice was always triple checked by x-ray to be certain it was without flaw of any kind far from land now the ship moved on all proceeding according to schedule as the last of this first section of 200 miles of cable was paid out there was the job of blowing off the cable and in the chart room the exact location of the boy had to be marked with infinite care to be sure it would be found on the ship's return and then as mists closed in and the fog grew thick the boy itself went over the side to ride there alone on the gray green sea the cable end held fast the first step of our task completed it was home to England for the monarch - the plan of submarine cables limited at Erath on the River Thames here the next run of cable have been waiting to be loaded on board [Music] 1,300 miles of deepwater cable moved on to the ship where men virtually walked the length of the Atlantic backwards coiling it into the huge hole fully laden the monarch was on her way back to that carefully charted spot on the West Atlantic to recover the boy splice the ends of the cable together and continue laying cable eastward toward the Scottish Shore on that Shore the colorful town of Oakland is only a short distance from the nearby station which was to serve as the eastern terminus of transatlantic number one the puffer a small boat which could maneuver in these shallow waters landed the shore end of the cable this time it was mainly Scotsman who supplied the manpower to drag the cable end up the beach toward the station the shore and secured the puffer headed for deeper waters a few miles offshore to leave the cable blew it off for the monarch on September 26 1955 those waters off Obon the monarch raised the boy the puffer had left behind before that day was ended a memorable entry could be written in the Monarchs log slipped final splice in 14 fathoms first cable section completed it meant voices could now travel from clarin Ville to open but voices could not be carried the other way until the next year when the return cable would be completed with the total job half done it was a time for men from both sides of the Atlantic who shared responsibility for the job to take stock of progress thus far and look forward to the year ahead actually apart from the deep sea cable laying operations other work was moving forward in Canada in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland here the plan called for trenching in many miles of the cable Overland across some of the most rugged terrain of the island province in the land laying operations as in so many phases of the entire project men from Canada Great Britain and the United States proved how effectively they could work together as a team whatever the terrain whatever the weather the cable was put down across Cabot Street on the mainland Canadians and Americans were at work constructing the towers and stations for the radio relay section the giant cornucopia like horns which were to serve as receivers and transmitters of the radio beam were raised and put in place as the towers of Steel were completed in the relay stations the amplifying equipment was tested for unattended operation when the transatlantic service was ready to begin the second year of the cable project began with the closing of the 300-mile breach across Cabot Strait from Terrence ville in Newfoundland to Sydney mines in Nova Scotia across the comparatively shallow waters of Cabot Strait the rigid type repeaters designed in England's Dallas Hill laboratories were used if launching them was somewhat of a job after all it was April according to the calendar and the balmy weather of a North Atlantic spring made it all seem pleasant and easy for this crossing only one cable was required since the rigid type repeaters could amplify conversations in both directions at once on this run it was primarily British personnel who were responsible for technical operations maintaining constant contact through the cable from ship to shore the Cabot Strait laying completed there remained the most dramatic chapter of this yet unfinished saga of the see the final runs of the Atlantic crossing as the cable laying pattern had been sent in 1955 so it was repeated in 56 by the time the ship reached the Atlantic deeps where cable was paid out over the stern more than 70 repeaters were already in their place on the ocean floor [Music] there were happenings in those two years of Atlantic operations that some men aboard will never forget in one of them the name of a woman was involved I own her profession complicating the lives of men she was a hurricane thanks to I own a boy was lost a boy the monarch had put down far at sea at the end of one of her cable runs Ione's winds had torn that boy loose and the cable end was somewhere far beneath on the ocean floor in time I own was gone and the weather cleared after long days of grappling that end of cable was caught at last hauled up from the sea it came onto the fore deck where a splice could be made and the monarch could continue on her way in the test room contact through the cable was now with the open station far behind the monarch on the Scottish Shore and as the Strand along the sea grew ever longer the signals continued strong and clear and now by day by night as the ship moved closer to the western shore to every man aboard there was a growing sense of urgency and expectation if hours were long and they often were it mattered less and less for now as the cable went down mile on measured mile there was an awareness of the finality of this voyage all other work was done the radio relay towers and shore stations were ready to receive the first words the cable was to carry installations were complete auxiliary power supplies ready for their need in the overseas telephone exchange in New York all was prepared for the added volume of calls the new cable would make possible the personnel were trained new positions standing by in London's international exchange there was an equal readiness for the new links to be forged links which would provide improved service not only to Great Britain but onto the continent as well and then as the monarch sailed back into the very waters where she had laid the first of the cable more than a year before there came the moment every man on board had waited for so long the buoy was sighted off Clare until that boy which held the final end of cable leading to the clarin ville shore station with the raising of that boy the final chapter of the Atlantic crossing was ready to be written then on the foredeck it was actually happening the making of the final splice was in process the ends cut clean armour wire stripped away inner core's laid bare brazing together of the separate ends the armored wires replaced and tightly bound now all that remained of the Atlantic telephone cable not yet undersea was a loop of cable there on the foredeck a loop that the crew was moving slowly toward the bow working skillfully but with the greatest care for a single mistake could still damage or even break the cable line and now she was moving out over the sheets down slowly down and it was done the last loop of the Atlantic telephone cable disappeared into the waters of the sound in the Monarchs log the most important entry it had ever known final splice completed Monarchs task finished in the clarin ville shore station technicians stood ready and waiting eager for that first two-way contact through the cables with the open station 2,000 miles away the test was quickly passed with voices racing Swift and clear across the conquered deep there were many who had brought this thing to pass through the efforts of thousands of Americans British and Canadians working at a hundred different tasks a significant contribution to communications history has been achieved the world is smaller today for their efforts it is to be hoped that the years to come may provide many other examples of the kind of international cooperation which is brought to reality the voice beneath the sea you