Man of Honor: Leaving a Legacy of Determination

The life and service of Carl Maxie Brashear, the U.S. Navy’s first Black deep sea diver, was the subject of the latest presentation of Virginia Treasures, sponsored by AARP Virginia. 

Ross Patterson, the assistant curator of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum in Portsmouth, noted that Brashear’s early days in the Navy were told in the movie “Men of Honor,” starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr., in the role of the young seaman. 

Brashear served as the film’s technical adviser, Patterson said, because “he wanted to make sure it was telling his life story the way it happened.” Brashear considered the film 90 percent accurate. 

Brashear’s service in the Navy began, “just as the Navy gets integrated with President Truman's proclamation in 1948,” Patterson said. He started as a steward, which at the time was the limit for Blacks in the Navy. One day, after seeing diving and salvage operations, his dream to be a Navy diver emerged. 

Brashear “got to witness several Navy divers actually going down and doing salvage work in plain sight, and this inspired him,” Patterson said. Brashear started applying to be a Navy diver, sending more than 100 applications to the Navy over a three-year period.. 

“He faced widespread discrimination,” Patterson said. As recounted in the movie, Brashear was repeatedly told that he “would not make it. He had a lot of racist notes written on his equipment where he was stationed. It was not a pleasant experience.”  

After hard work and overcoming obstacles, Brashear became a First Class Diver in June 1954.  

On March 23, 1966, an accident aboard the USS Hoist seemed destined to end Brashear’s diving career.  The ship was part of an operation to salvage a nuclear bomb that had fallen into the ocean off Palomares, Spain, as the result of a mid-air collision between to Air Force planes. While Brashear was directing the transfer of a crate to hold the bomb once it was recovered, a mooring line broke and a steel pipe flew across the deck. Brashear pushed a fellow sailor out of harms way, but was struck below the left knee, his leg shattered.  

For his action in saving the sailor, Brashear was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal—the services’ highest peacetime award for heroism. 

The accident put Brashear in the Naval Regional Medical Center in Portsmouth from May 1966 to March 1967, during which time his leg was a amputated below the knee. Because of infection, a second operation removed more of his leg. 

But the injury did not deter Brashear, who remained determined to become a master diver. Wearing a prosthetic leg—which was painted for a Caucasian wearer—Brashear trained on his own to improve his strength and to do the job despite not having both legs. In April 1968 he became the first amputee to be recertified as a Navy diver. 

Two years later, Brashear became one of the first two Black master divers. Patterson said Brashear made contributions to the Navy as a master diver by monitoring and improving diving safety practices. 

Brashear retired after 48 years of military service on April 1,1979. But he still was tied to the Navy, becoming a civilian employee for the government, working at Naval Station Norfolk. 

Brashear died at the Naval Medical Center Portsmouth on July 25, 2006 and was buried at Woodlawn Memorial Gardens in Norfolk. After his death, his sons established the Carl Brashear Foundation, with the goal to tell their father’s story.  The foundation has given the Diver of the Year Award to Navy divers since 2015. 

The dry cargo ship USNS Carl Brashear was named in his honor and placed in service on March 4, 2009. 

A 120-bed Veterans Center, in Radcliff, Ky., was renamed and rededicated as the Carl M. Brashear Radcliffe Veteran Center in 2017. 

The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard Museum is located at 2 High Street in Portsmouth.