Chapter I: Introduction
(continued)

Project SeaMark

From its earliest stages, the research on the USS ARIZONA involved a partnership between the US Navy and the National Park Service. This alliance was initiated the first year by Superintendent Gary Cummins, who inquired if any Navy diving personnel at Pearl Harbor might be available to assist National Park Service specialists in underwater mapping operations. Reservations about mixing different agency diving policies -- and different diving teams -- proved to be unfounded. The teams quickly melded resources and worked efficiently together within the confines of their respective guidelines. This partnership became an important tradition in the ARIZONA research over the years, eventually having implications for the two agencies well beyond Pearl Harbor.

After the cooperation between NPS divers and the active Navy in 1983 and 1984, the way was paved for more cross-fertilization. The U.S. Navy Reserves became involved with SCRU in 1986 when Detachment 319 from Long Beach, California, led by Commander Orzech, volunteered its services. That unit completed active-duty training requirements by working on the USS ARIZONA and the USS UTAH.

In 1986 Commander David McCampbell became the commanding officer of MDSU One, and his commitment to this cooperative program became a major factor in its remarkable growth. In 1987 the NPS/Navy diving alliance expanded to include four naval reserve units working in Guam and Hawaii. Other naval units teamed up with NPS divers in Cape Cod National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

By 1988 nearly the entire US Navy mobile diving and salvage community, including all 14 reserve units, spent part of its active-duty training with NPS documenting historic shipwrecks. They took on historic-preservation tasks from the Republic of Palau in the Pacific to the Statue of Liberty National Monument in New York Harbor. The interagency arrangement now had a name: Project SeaMark. In 1989 we are attempting to institutionalize it by a formal memorandum of agreement between the Chief of Naval Operations and the Director of the National Park Service.

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