Starkey’s Boys: The U.s. Salvage Navy and Navy Deep Sea Diving in the Hawaiian Islands

Deep diving operations, rescues at sea and tearing up every port pulled into, this was the life of the young and ready navy divers stationed on the USS Reclaimer in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii during the early 1990's. The Reclaimer was the navy's go anywhere and do anything vessel in the Pacific. In charge of directing and supervising the roughshod deep sea divers on board was master diver Ed Starkey. Starkey was a leather-skinned and gruff voiced hard hat diver from the Vietnam era who pushed his men to get the job done regardless of danger and uncertainty. Master diver Starkey led the Reclaimer into salvage operations and open ocean rescues for many years. Starkey's Boys is a sailor's true story of the navy's toughest training, deep sea dive school, and most arduous duty, two years on the salvage/rescue ship USS Reclaimer. From the dangerous streets of Panama to the bomb covered landscape of Kahoolawe, the divers of the Reclaimer followed master diver Ed Starkey across the oceans and back. Starkey's Boys is the true story of navy diving in the Hawaiian Islands.