Scope and content:

Series 3) BATHYSCAPH TRIESTE: Materials in this series document Dietz's role in important research collaborations between London's Office of Naval Research, Jacques Piccard, and the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory regarding reinforcement and testing of the bathyscaph Trieste. It includes correspondence, reports, memoranda, diving logs, sound recordings and research files on submersibles and deep ocean diving dating primarily from 1956 to 1964. Specifically, it includes original records relating to the development and execution of Project Nekton. The Project Nekton operation was a series of manned shallow test dives and deep dives off the coast of Guam, which culminated in Trieste submerging to a record-setting depth of approximately 35,800 feet in the Challenger Deep, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench. The series includes both paper documentation and sound recordings that were referenced by Dietz and Piccard for the publication of their book Seven Miles Down: The Story of the Bathyscaph Trieste (1961).

Arranged in four subseries: A) Papers and Records, B) Sound Recording Transcripts, C) Audiocassettes, D) Dictaphone Belts.

A) Papers and Records: Dietz's paper documentation relating to Trieste and deep-submersible research. Includes correspondence, technical memoranda (primarily from the US Navy teams associated with Project Nekton), diving logs, and photographs.

B) Sound Recording Transcripts: In 2000, sixty-one Dictabelts from the Dietz collection believed to contain content related to Trieste were reformatted to audiocassette, and the recordings were also transcribed at that time. This subseries contains a transcript for all sixty-one reformatted recordings, in addition to a small selection of additional transcripts generated from other original recordings (not in the collection) made during Trieste dives around 1960. Content on the tapes not related to the unique history of the Trieste (i.e., speakers reading from manuscripts or commenting on manuscript edits, probably related to Seven Miles Down), was not transcribed.

C) Audiocassettes: These audiocassettes are reformatted and remastered recordings of sixty-one Dictaphone belts from the Dietz Papers, a project that was completed in 2000 as a joint preservation effort between the SIO Archives and the U.S. Navy. Most of the recordings contain observations, recollections, and commentary on the Trieste's Project Nekton dives, and in some recordings, the speakers (primarily Dietz, Jacques Piccard, and Andreas Rechnitzer) appear to be referring to notes, memoranda, or manuscripts. The recordings date from between 1958 and 1963. At the time of processing, any notations that were written on the Dictabelt envelopes were copied and transcribed onto the cassette cases; these notations have been recorded in the finding aid. Full transcripts of these recordings are also available in the preceding subseries. The sixty-one Dictabelt recordings were reformatted onto fourteen audiocassette tapes, and there are two copies of each tape. The audiocassettes were digitized in 2008, and digital versions of the recordings are available to researchers upon request.

D) Dictaphone Belts: Dietz's papers originally contained almost 100 Dictaphone belt sound recordings which were created by Dietz, Jacques Piccard, Andreas Rechnitzer, and others. Fifty-four of these belts were in a box Dietz labelled, "Trieste B'Scaph File Letters." Other belts were found throughout the collection. In preparation for reformatting, the belts were gathered and arranged alphabetically by the given title on the original envelopes (so similar titles, like "Big Dive" or "San Diego Dives" could be grouped together) and all notations, including dates, were transcribed and transferred to the finding aid. For organization, the belts were given unique sequential numbers by archives staff. In 2000, sixty-one belts that were appraised and considered likely to contain important content were reformatted to audiocassette and transcribed; in 2008, the audiocassettes were digitized. While the original belts are restricted, the reformatted versions and transcripts are available for research.

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