Lawrence Allen Shumaker Papers, 1958 - 2009
2011-11

Summary Information

Repository
Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives
Creator
Shumaker, Lawrence Allen, 1932-2008
Title
Lawrence Allen Shumaker Papers
ID
2011-11
Date
1958 - 2009
Extent
1.51 Cubic feet : 3 manuscript boxes, 1 legal manuscript box, 1 map case folder
Language
English

Preferred Citation

Lawrence Allen Shumaker Papers, 1958-2009, 2011-11. Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives, University of California, San Diego Libraries.

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Biographical Note

Lawrence “Larry” Allen Shumaker was born February 13, 1932 in Los Angeles to Neilson Free Shumaker (1902-1986) and Edith Emery Shumaker (b.1906). His mother remarried, and he also used his stepfather’s surname of Archer. He began his oceanographic career as a Sea Scout with the Boy Scouts of America.

After attending East Los Angeles Junior College, Shumaker enrolled at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he was a classmate of Don Walsh, and he graduated in 1954 with a B.S. in engineering. Shumaker later attended the US Naval Submarine School in New London, Connecticut in 1957, took graduate courses in geology and oceanography at San Diego State University and University of California Extension in San Diego in 1960-1961, and attended the Prospective Submarine Commanding Officer School in 1963.

Shumaker spent sixteen years in active service in the US Navy , including service aboard the USS Mansfield (1954-1956) and submarines USS  Bonita (1957), USS  Rasher (1958-1959), USS  Caiman (1962) and USS  Capitaine (1963). He was stationed at the US Naval Electronics Laboratory in San Diego from 1959-1962 and 1964-1965, at the Bureau of Ships in Washington, DC, from 1965-1966, and the US Naval Amphibious School Special Operations Department in Coronado in 1966.

While stationed at NEL, Shumaker joined the crew of the bathyscaph Trieste as assistant officer in charge, working under Lt. Don Walsh. He provided surface support for the record setting dive of  Trieste to 35,800 feet in the Marianas Trench on January 23, 1960. Although Shumaker did not make the deepest dive himself, he piloted  Trieste on test dives and on another deep dive to 19,000 feet.

Shumaker received a commendation for President Eisenhower for his work with Trieste, along with Don Walsh, Jacques Piccard, and Andreas Rechnitzer. Shumaker listed the record dive in his resume as simply “the successful team effort of accomplishing a manned dive of 35,803 feet.”

From 1964-1965, Shumaker served as chief pilot of Trieste II and was involved in the search for the wreck of the submarine USS  Thresher. After leaving active service in 1966, he joined the US Naval Reserve Submarine Division and was awarded the rank of Commander in 1968.

His first civilian employment was with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company in Sunnyvale, California as a research specialist in 1966 and then with the Lockheed Ocean Laboratory in San Diego in 1967. By 1969, he was group engineer and chief pilot of Submersible Operations for Lockheed. He created a training program for the Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle (DSRV) pilots, was chief pilot for the Deep Quest submersible, and was test pilot for the Navy’s  DSRV-1 and  DSRV-2 submersibles, which were built at Lockheed.

In 1973, Shumaker left Lockheed for the Deep Submergence Engineering and Operations Section at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, where he managed operations for the submersible Alvin and its support ship  Lulu, and led five exploration expeditions.

Shumaker continued his career at the Fluor Corporation in Irvine, where he managed operations of experimental offshore oil platforms from 1978-1979, and at Interstate Electronics Corporation in Anaheim, where he was in charge of operations of the Ocean Survey Vessel Antelope from 1979-1980. He directed the Ocean Sciences Department at IEC from 1980-1984.

He spent the next year as director of Undersea Programs for Frequency Engineering Laboratories in Farmingdale, New Jersey, and then two years as a consultant to companies writing proposals to the US Navy. In 1987, he joined General Offshore Corporation in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands, where he ran the US Navy Sonobuoy Quality Assurance Program until 1992. He then returned to WHOI as a relief expedition leader for the Deep Submersible Operations Group until 1996. In 1999, Shumaker worked as dive supervisor for the DeepWorker 2000 submersible.

A member of the Marine Technology Society, the Navy League of the United States, and the Explorers Club, Shumaker also founded the Deep Submersible Pilots Association in 1967 and was its first president. He was awarded the Chicago Geographic Society Gold Medal and the first Richard Hopper Day Memorial Medal for Exploration and Discovery from the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, both in 1960.

Shumaker married Ione “Corky” Elizabeth Beck (1930-2006) in 1954. They had four children together and remained married until her death in 2006. Three of his children (Lawrence, Kurt and Erica) predeceased him. Cmdr. Shumaker died at the age of 76 on October 21, 2008. He was survived by his sister, Marsha Olvito; daughter, Suzanne Shumaker; and nine grandchildren.

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Scope and Content

The collection consists of the papers of Navy commander and explorer Lawrence Allen Shumaker, including correspondence, news clippings, dive logs and reports on submersibles Trieste, Trieste II, Alvin, Deep Quest, DeepWorker 2000, DSRV-1 and  DSRV-2, and deep submergence vehicle training programs.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

Scripps Institution of Oceanography Archives

University of California San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive #0219
La Jolla, California, 92093-0219

Provenance

The Lawrence Allen Shumaker Papers were received from Suzanne Shumaker on 14 December 2010.

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Related Materials

Related Materials

The Scripps Archives has the following collections related to the Lawrence Allen Shumaker Papers:

95-11, Robert Sinclair Dietz Papers, 1905-1994.

Dives of the Bathyscaph Trieste, 1958-1963: Transcriptions of Sixty-One Dictabelt Recordings in the Robert Sinclair Dietz Papers, 1905-1994, 95-11.   http://scilib.ucsd.edu/sio/hist/Dives%20Bathyscaph%20Trieste%20Dictabelts.pdf

2001-19, Robert Raymond Hessler Papers, 1949-2000.

2005-40, SIO Communications Office Records, 1967-2008.

2006-01, A Memorial, and a Celebration of Life to Andy Rechnitzer, 23 October 2005. Videorecording.

2010-02 and 2010-20, Trieste 50th Anniversary of Man’s Deepest Dive, 23 January 2010. Audio and videorecordings.

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Controlled Access Headings

Corporate Name(s)

  • Lockheed Missiles and Space Company.
  • US Naval Electronics Laboratory.

Personal Name(s)

  • Piccard, Jacques, 1922-2008
  • Rechnitzer, Andreas Buchwald, 1924-2005
  • Shumaker, Lawrence Allen, 1932-2008
  • Walsh, Don, 1931-

Subject(s)

  • Alvin (Submersible)
  • Deep Quest (Submersible)
  • DeepWorker 2000 (Submersible)
  • Marianas Trench
  • Trieste (Bathyscaph)
  • Trieste II (Bathyscaph)
  • Underwater Exploration

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Collection Inventory

Biographical Information, Lawrence Shumaker, 1968 - 2009 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 1

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Deep Quest 

Deep Quest (SAS), 1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 2

Activity Reports 

1967 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 3

1968 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 4-5

1970 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 6

1971 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 7

1972 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   1 8-9

Correspondence, 1966 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 1

D.Q. Flash Reports, 1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 2

Deep Quest Dive Records, 1968 - 1972 


    Oversize
Mixed materials   1
    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 3

Deep Quest Log Notes, 10 July 1968 - 4 February 1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 4

Deep Quest Santa Monica Bay Search & Recovery Operations, 17 January to 5 March 1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 5

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Chronological Files 

1958 - 1963 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 6

1964 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 7

1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 8

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Dive Logs 

Personal Dive Log 

1974 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 9

1973 - 1977 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 12

Personal Dive Record, 1959 - 1996 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 10

Log Book, 1962 - 1964 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 11

L.A. Shumaker, 24 July - 3 August 1978 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 12

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Bathyscaph Trieste 

1960 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 13
    Box Folder
Mixed materials   2 13

Design of the Bathyscaph Trieste II, c1964 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 1

Trieste II Dive Records, 1958 - 1964 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 14
    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 2

Trieste Dive Summary 

1960 - 1961 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 3

1958 - 1962 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 15

Review of Bathyscaph Trieste Operations, 1958 - 1961. December 1961 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 4

Trieste II Dive Logs, 1964 - 1965 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 5

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DeepWorker Dive Logs, 1999 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 6

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Alvin/Lulu 

Dive Summary, 1964 - 1978 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 7

Alvin Dive Logs, 1976 - 2008 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 8

Alvin & Cayman. Tony's Training, Cayman Islands, 1993 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 9

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Deep Submergence Vehicle 

Final Report on Deep Submergence Research Conducted During the Period 16 June 1961 through 31 December 1973. WHOI, June 1974. 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 10

International Maritime, Inc. (IMI) Deep Submersible Vehicle (DSV) Training Program Prospectus, 1993 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 11

DSRV-1 Mystic, c1994 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 12

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Azors, [Exploring Hydrospace, n.d.] 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   3 13

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Bermuda Visit Notes, n.d. 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 1

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Environmental Hazards to Submersible Operations, n.d. 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 2

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Discovering Earth's Final Frontier: A US Strategy for Ocean Exploration, 2000 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 3

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Correspondence, 1999 - 2004 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 4

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Interdepartmental Communications, 1967 - 1969 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 5

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Investigation, 1963 - 1964 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 6

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Member Lists, 1962 - 2004 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 7

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Articles and Manuscripts, 1961 - 1978 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 8

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DSRV Alvin: A Review of Accomplishments. WHOI, January 1977 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 9

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"Why Deep" Study, 1968 Report. Ocean Systems Research and Development Division, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company. 


    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 10

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News Clips, 1960 - 1962 


    Oversize
Mixed materials   2
    Box Folder
Mixed materials   4 11

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Oversize

Certificate, Submarine Force, US Pacific Fleet, 12 April 1963 

3

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