Lambertsen

In 2009, Dr. Lambertsen received the distinguished service award from the OSS Society, which honors the old intelligence service.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

His 1939 invention, the Lambertsen Amphibious Respirator Unit, or LARU, is considered a forerunner of the scuba technology used today.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

After the OSS was disbanded in 1945, Dr. Lambertsen arranged to demonstrate LARUs to the different military branches.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

Dr. Lambertsen, who had a second home on Maryland's Eastern Shore, was a longtime professor at his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

One of the men Dr. Lambertsen trained was able to swim more than a mile underwater in the Potomac River and remain submerged for 48 minutes.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

Dr. Lambertsen's device was further tested in Operation Cincinnati, in which OSS swimmers clandestinely infiltrated the heavy defenses of the U.S. Navy harbor at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and blew up an old barge.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

During one training exercise near St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Dr. Lambertsen and another swimmer made the first exit and re-entry from a submarine.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

After the Navy rejected his device at first, Dr. Lambertsen demonstrated the LARU in the swimming pool of the Shoreham Hotel in Washington in 1942 to the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II predecessor of the CIA.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

In the 1950s and 1960s, collaborating with the J.H. Emerson Co., Dr. Lambertsen developed an advanced version of his underwater breathing system.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011

Lambertsen, who as a medical student in 1939 invented a revolutionary underwater breathing system used by the military in World War II and who later helped coin the popular acronym to describe his device and others like it - scuba - died of renal failure Feb. 11 at his home in Newtown Square, Pa.

Christian J. Lambertsen, OSS officer who created early scuba device, dies at 93 2011