Tue Jul 23, 2013 4:31 pm
I haven't much to add to what has already been said about this title, but I can confirm that my own copy is also a first edition dated 1955. The book is also listed in the NAUI International Bibliography of Diving and Related Sciences, again with the date of publication 1955. I believe I purchased my copy in one of San Francisco's used book stores on my first visit States-side in December 1980. Tne price back then was $2.85! The book seems very spearfishing oriented and I'm pleased to see breathhold diving given its fair share of attention. The illustrations are mostly black and white drawings, with two sets of monochrome photographs.
I think I bought the book at the same time as I purchased Schenk and Kendall's "Shallow water diving and spearfishing". I prefer the latter because it has much more information about equipment, with clear photographs of items such as suits rather than the brief descriptions of kit found in Vanderkogel's tome. The 1955 edition of the Carriers' "Dive" caps them all, however, in my humble opinion, not least because of the classified equipment lists in its first appendix. Perfect when researching gear from the mid-1950s. The second, 1963, edition of the Carriers' volume lacks such an equipment list.