Max Nohl might not quite be a household name, but he is certainly well-known in the diving community. He was a pioneer in underwater apparatus, an adventurer, a treasure-hunter, an inventor, and thrill-seeker. Thankfully, he wrote a memoir that made its way to the Milwaukee Public Library after his death. Luckily, a few determined folks there and at the Wisconsin Historical Society made sure it was published and brought his stories out of the murky depths for readers today.
Nohl sounds like the kind of kid who must have been getting into trouble, but because he wanted play pirates after dark or climbed too high into a tree. As a child, he nearly drowned in a lake (he couldn’t swim yet) and he promised himself he would never be afraid of drowning — because he would invent a way to breathe underwater. He left the Great Lakes and the upper midwest for MIT where he studied the properties of thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, pressure, and more, all in effort to understand deep level diving. While there, he befriended another student who had a rudimentary suit and the two went to a frozen Walden Pond to test it. Nohl was hooked.
With the line in my hand, I slid down and hit the wreck in fifty seconds. The water was almost slack and as clear as it had ever been. …It was early in the dive–I had my full time–and I looked over the slime-covered edge into the black hold below and realized with a swelling of excitement that within this hour, God and air compressor willing, I would touch our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. … The water darkened rapidly as I climbed down the slippery rungs, my six-foot radius of visibility decreasing decidedly. And then, I struck something solid and soon was standing on a firm base. Bending down, I found it was not a ‘tween deck. It was not the bottom. It was not wreckage. I was standing on a huge pile of bottles. ~Pg. 162
Nohl and his friends dove a few wrecks, looking for valuable cargo or safes rumored to be full of cash. But Nohl’s most remarkable contributions to diving were his innovations and experiments. He worked scientists to find possible preventions for the bends (a painful, sometimes fatal, condition when a deep diver surfaces too quickly). He sat in pressurized rooms for days, allowing his body to be a test subject for various methods of depressurization. It was here that they learned mixing gases, like helium, in a diver’s air supply, prevents the bends.
Nohl also developed an early scuba tank that allowed divers to move freely underwater. Having had his air hose get hung up on wreckage more than once, he knew the importance of this as both an exploratory freedom and a vital safety measure.
He even crossed paths with Newt Perry (of Weeki Wachee and Wakulla Springs fame) and invented some underwater viewing platforms, clear bottom boats, and developed underwater photography equipment. Watch his films online at the Wisconsin HIstorical Society.
Nohl was a very good writer. His stories are vibrant and funny as well as tense. The reader knows he lived to tell the tale but even so, many of the adventures are startling to read about. His composure is astounding but it was also his reliance on science and experience that got him through the crises. After all, he had decided he would never be afraid of drowning ever again.
This book is just so good. It reveals a specific era in American history, when innovation came from the Everyman. Nohl was a character and we are lucky to have his stories, told in his own words. It is a treasure, and one I am thankful the Wisconsin Historical Society decided to share.
My sincere thanks to Wisconsin Historical Society Press for the review copy.
Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society Press
Publication date: May 20, 2025
Print length: 424 pages
ISBN-10: 1976600286