A Dream Come True: Growing up in Germany, Growing Old in the Usa

By Dieter Marcuse

This book paints a frank picture of a young man living in difficult times. In spite of this, he manages to have fun. As a young boy he was a slow learner, quite bad in school. Then, at age 18, he had a kind of awakening and from then on "took off". His first love ended in tragedy when he discovered that he could not live with a girl with mental problems. In spite of this, he studied at a university in Berlin and became a physicist. He used a chance encounter with American scientists to apply for a job in the USA at the world famous Bell Laboratories. There, he flourished, had a wonderful life, married a wonderful girl and lived happily ever after.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 3, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477232385

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© 2012 by Dieter Marcuse. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any

means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/28/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3239-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-3238-5 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012911782

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter I

Childhood in Koenigsberg and War

Chapter II

End of War, Apprenticeship and Education

Chapter III

Maria

Chapter IV

Bell Laboratories

Chapter V

Salt Lake City

Chapter VI

Trips to Russia

Chapter VII

Visit to Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad)

Chapter VIII

Once More Around The World

Chapter IX

I End My Career

Chapter X

Epilog

Preface

When I turned 74, I had been retired from my job at Bell Laboratories for 10 years and had just ended my second career as a consultant for various firms and a university. Looking for some other worthwhile pursuit it occurred to me that during my long life I had experienced things that in some sense are out of the ordinary. I am not saying that my experiences where unique, but the average American does not live through the collapse of civilization at the end of a long and devastating war. He or she is not forced to flee their home before it is taken over by the former enemy. And, finally, he or she does not usually decide to leave his home country to settle in a new world. All this and more had happened to me. I also wanted to sit down and think of all that I had lived through. What better way to collect your thoughts and remember everything in detail than to write it down? That is how these memoirs came into being.

Now, 9 years later, at age 83, I am still alive. I guess most people may wonder what will be left of them once they are gone. This reminded me of my memoirs. If I published them as a book, I could be assured that something of me will survive my own existence. When my wife read in the newspaper the review of a book written by somebody who, like myself, had written his memoirs but he had taken the further step of publishing them. I thought, if he could do that, so can I.

This is how it happened that you, dear readers, are now looking at this book. I hope that you will find it interesting and perhaps even entertaining.

Chapter I

Childhood in Koenigsberg and War

1 Parents and Grandparents

Any biography should start with a brief description of the author’s ancestry. Unfortunately, I do not know much about my ancestors whom I can follow barely to my great grand parents. Both sides of my family seem solidly rooted in East Prussia. To those who are not familiar with that term, let me explain that East Prussia was settled by the Teutonic Knights in the 13-th century. These knights had taken part in the crusades and, after returning from the Holy Land, were looking for new adventures East of Germany in a region adjacent to which today is Lithuania and Poland. The knights subjugated the local population and established their rule over a region South-East of the Baltic Sea. This country was largely agricultural. It had beautiful lakes and forests in the East and a flat, less heavily forested regions, in the Northwest. After World War One, East Prussia was separated from the rest of Germany by the Polish Corridor.

My parents came from different parts of East Prussia. My mother was born in a town called Lyck which was at the Eastern border of the area close to Poland. While my father came from Tilsit (remember Tilsit cheese?) at the Northernmost extreme of East Prussia. My maternal grandfather Solty was a protestant minister who preached his sermons in German and Polish since some of the older peasants in his district spoke Polish better than German even though they were German citizens. This grandfather died of a heart attack when he was 48 years old, which he suffered at a railroad station on his way home from a wedding at which he had officiated. My mother was 12 years old at the time. The loss of her husband must have been very hard on my maternal grandmother. In addition to my mother, she had an older daughter, Tante Hilde, and a very much younger daughter, Tante Irmgard, who was still so young that she did not remember her father. As far as I know, my maternal grandfather came from a family of farmers. The father of my maternal grandmother, named Axt, was a forester. My mother’s fatherless family had to subsist on a very meager pension and survived mainly due to the financial and moral support of an older sister of my grandmother’s. When she was old enough, my mother attended a seminary for teachers. However, before she could finish, she met and married my father at the age of 19.

When I think of my mother’s life I realize how hard it had been and how much luckier I have been in my life by comparison. My mother’s life was overshadowed by several disastrous historical events. Having lost her father at an early age, she grew up in poverty during the First World War and had to flee when Russian troops occupied her home town. After she married my father, they lived through the horrible period of hyperinflation which followed Germany’s defeat in the First World War. Just when things seemed to get better, the Nazis came to power and threatened my father’s career and life with their antisemitic policies. Then came the Second World War with bombing raids and general deprivations. Again, my parents had to flee their home, leaving most of their belongings behind and losing all of their real estate property. After the Nazi threat had vanished with the defeat of Germany in the Second World War, she came under the rule of the German communists who were imported into East Germany by the victorious Russian army. The communists did not pose a mortal threat to my parents, as the Nazis had done, but East Germany, where they ended up living due to the circumstances of power politics, never flourished like West Germany, so that life there remained frugal and generally bleak. Only after my father’s death was my mother able to leave East Germany and join my sister in West Germany. However, at that time she was too old to enjoy the relative prosperity in which she was now permitted to live.

My father was born into the family of a Jewish doctor and his non-Jewish wife. However, my paternal grandfather did not consider himself to be Jewish since he had converted to Christianity and did not practice the Jewish religion. Contrary to my mother’s fate, my father’s family was prosperous. Also, my father, being 17 years older than my mother, experienced the good life before World War One as a child and later as a young adult. He was already 30 years old when the First World War broke out. By comparison, my mother was than 13 years old. My paternal grandfather came from a family of merchants. However, I must admit to my consternation that I do not know the profession of the father of my paternal grandmother. I just know that her maiden name was Rademacher, which means wheel maker. I could tell much more about my parents but that would be another story which does not belong here.

2 My Childhood from 1929 to 1934

The year of my birth coincided with the onset of the great depression in America. It was February 27, 1929 when I was born in a hospital in Koenigsberg, East Prussia. When my sister, Lore, was born 5 years earlier in my mother’s home town, Lyck, near the Polish border, my mother gave birth at home. Apparently this was not such a good experience because for the birth of her second child she decided to go to the hospital.

Even though I was generally in good health, I suffered from frequent indigestion. My parents told me that this was due to poor advice given to them by the pediatrician. When they sought his advice, I had not yet been given solid food. The doctor told them to let me eat whatever I would accept. So I got solid food which did not agree with me and I became seriously ill. Fortunately, my parents then went to another doctor who gave them more sensible advice so that I at least stayed alive. However, I was severely malnourished so that my bones remained soft and I became quite bowlegged. This did correct itself as I grew up, but below the knees my legs always remained somewhat curved. Also, my digestive system remained delicate. I remember that I often felt sick and remained generally skinny and weak. Therefore, when the time came to enroll me in school, I was sent to a private school since the doctor and my parents thought that I would not be able to cope with the rougher environment of the public schools and would probably also catch more childhood diseases. During the first 5 years of my life we lived on the second floor of an apartment house in Henriettenstrasse. I don’t recall how many rooms we had. But there was a long corridor, a dining room and the so called Herrenzimmer, which was the room my father principally occupied. We also had a Kinderzimmer in which I slept with my sister. The apartment house had thin walls so that one could hear the activities of the neighbors. My parents were much annoyed by the radio of the tenants adjacent to our apartment. But as a small child this noise did not bother me. On the contrary, lying in bed in the evening when I was supposed to fall asleep, I was singing along with the tunes from the radio that came through the wall from the neighboring apartment. Also there were other children in this house. I had a friend, called Dieter Lemke, with whom I played a lot. As childhood memories go, mine are mostly quite blurred. So, I seem to remember that the father of my playmate was a member of the SA. This was Hitler’s private army which he had established long before he came to power but which he kept going all during his reign. The only other thing about my friend’s father was, that he shot himself. I don’t know whether this occurred during the time we both lived on Henriettenstrasse or whether it had occurred earlier or even later. Among my playmates there also was a little girl. But accept for the fact that I found her interesting, I remember very little about her.

The apartment house complex was built around a courtyard in which each family had a tiny plot. In ours, my parents had placed a sand box for us children to play in and a swing. Also, there was an open common area in which the older children played with balls.

My sister, Lore, had two girl friends, twins, who lived in the apartment below us. As my sister and her friends were 5 years older than I, they did not play a large part in my life at that time, with one notable exception. One spring, when the snow was melting, the water accumulated in an open field which was near our house. Underneath the water there was still ice. My sister and her friends amused themselves by sliding around on the water-covered ice on sleds which they pushed along with wooden poles. On one of these excursion my sister put me on her lap and I was thrilled to ride along in the water as if sailing in a boat.

One morning I had a terrifying experience. The front door to our apartment had been painted. When my parents tried to open the door the next morning, it was glued shut by the paint. When I became aware of this, I panicked since I was convinced that we now were imprisoned in the apartment forever.

There are other vague memories. Walking in the neighborhood with our live-in maid, I seem to remember that we saw in one yard a monkey sitting on a horizontal pole to which it was confined by a chain. When in later years I asked my sister and my parents if there really had been such a monkey, neither of them could confirm this memory. Perhaps I had dreamed it all or had transposed a scene from a movie into an actual childhood experience. Many of the visual impressions I remember from my life on Henriettenstrasse come from photographs which I saw when I was much older. We also had a tom cat, called Schnurri which translates into purry. This cat lived with us for many years. As a boy I very much wanted to have a dog, but this wish was never fulfilled. However, I don’t think that I was ever afraid of dogs. On my walks with my mother or the maid, we came by a big dog who was either on a chain or barked at us from behind a fence. Instead of being intimidated I shouted at the animal: dog, calm down!.

Talking about dogs, there was a strange imaginary creature that was often mentioned in my early childhood. Whenever I misbehaved or otherwise needed to be chastised or threatened, our maid would say. If you don’t behave the Buschebaubau will come and get you. I never learned who this mysterious creature was, but my playmates knew him too and talked about him. I wished I could translate Buschebaubau into English. The first part Busche has no meaning that I can discern. It almost has a Russian sound and, who knows, perhaps that is where it originated. Baubau is, of course, a baby’s way of saying "bowwow in German. That is the reason why I am inclined to think that the creature must have been a dog.

Among my memory fragments there is one where I passed a large crowd of people who were standing in a big square listening to a loudspeaker. I seem to remember that this was on the occasion of the funeral of the German president Hindenburg who was instrumental in Hitler’s coming to power.

Before I was old enough to go to school, I was sent to nursery school. I dimly remember how terrified I was when I realized that I would have to stay in nursery school without my mother being present. At first, she pretended that she would stay, but when she sneaked away, I cried pitifully. I don’t know how long it took, but eventually I learned to cope with being in nursery school without my mother. I can’t remember if I ever enjoyed going there.

However, I do remember an important incident from my nursery school days. The class was visiting the local radio station. At this time, my parents did not even own a proper radio but listened to it by means of a crystal set through earphones. In the studios of the radio station we were shown how things work. In particular, they produced a doll which I do not remember very clearly except that its hair consisted of wires that stuck out from its head like spines on a porcupine and that its name was Funkpurzel. Even though I cannot translate this word, I can explain what it means. Funk appears in the German word for radio which is Rundfunk. Purzel is a cute word with no direct meaning but it conjures up visions of a little creature performing somersaults on the ground or on a trampoline. We children were allowed to inspect this doll. But now my memory becomes weird, because I remember that after we had all seen the doll, the person who conducted the tour threw it into the air where it disappeared mysteriously. It literally vanished into thin air. I was tremendously impressed and was convinced that this doll was the most important part of the operation of the radio station and that it was this doll with its wire hair that made the station work. Now I understood all about radio!

During the years we lived at Henriettenstrasse, my parents went through rough times of which I remained mostly unaware and heard about only much later. The problem had to do with Hitler’s coming to power in January 1933 when I was not quite 4 years old. While most people were jubilant, my father was not. Since his father, my paternal grand father whom I had never known, was Jewish, Hitler’s infamous laws against the Jews affected him immediately. On coming to power, Hitler decreed that all public servants of Jewish descent had to be furloughed indefinitely. My father was a judge on a court called Oberlandesgericht, in German. This was a court of appeals which heard cases which had already been adjudicated by a lower court but whose decision had not been accepted by one of the parties in the dispute. So after Hitler’s rise to power my father found himself temporarily out of a job. My mother told me much later about the sad scene. While everybody was in a jubilant mood, she and my father were deeply depressed. When one of my mother’s relatives wrote to her, this is a wonderful time, what a joy to be alive, she could only shake her head in sorrow since my father was more inclined to thoughts of suicide. Fortunately for him, the Nazis were belligerent, warlike people who valued participation in war and in the armed forces very highly. So they amended the original ruling to the effect that half-Jewish people who had fought and distinguished themselves in the First World War, would be exempt from the ruling. My father had been an officer in the war and had been wounded on the Russian front for which he received the medal of the Iron Cross Second Class. Because of this distinction he was allowed to remain in his position at the court. However, he never received any promotions which, in the civil service are almost automatic. While all his non-Jewish colleagues advanced steadily, he was stuck in the position he occupied in January 1933. Since I have mentioned my father’s job, I would also like to tell that he had a most romantic office. The court was located in the old castle built by the Teutonic Knights at the end of the 13th century to protect the town of Koenigsberg. The castle had very thick walls and sturdy looking watch towers at its four corners. In my father’s office his desk stood in a niche by the window. This niche was cut into the wall which was 2 m (6.5 feet)thick! This castle survived the air raids of the Second World War and the siege by the Red Army, but it was blown up and completely removed as a symbol of Prussian might when Koenigsberg became Kaliningrad. However, I am getting way ahead of my story, all this happened many years later.

Since I have mentioned several times the existence of a live-in maid, this is a good place to say a few words about this subject. From the time they were married (in 1920) to the beginning of the Second World War my parents had employed maids. For people in my father’s position it was a given that there would be a maid. I think that this was as much a matter of prestige as a necessity. Once the war started, my mother had to manage without the help of a maid for the rest of her life.

I do not know who the maid was during the time my parents lived in Lyck, but in Koenigsberg the first two maids were called Frieda and were actually related to each other. Both were girls from the country side. They became quite attached to the family and were almost treated as family members—but not quite. For example, during meal time, the maid ate alone in the kitchen while the family ate in the dining room. Our maids contributed considerably to the upbringing of my sister and me. They played with us, took us out for walks and entertained us indoors to some extent. They were part surrogate mother and part friend. The first Frieda played an important part in our family until long after she quit our service. The reason for this is interesting. My father had always been interested in farming and at some time in his life had even considered becoming a farmer. Since this position did suit neither his temperament nor his social position, he settled for buying himself a farm some distance outside of Koenigsberg in whose development and management he took a lively interest. However, since he could certainly not manage the farm himself, he needed a tenant farmer. Such a person presented himself in the person of a friend of Frieda’s. This friend, Fritz, was unemployed at the time. Therefore, he jumped at the opportunity my father offered him of running the farm. Frieda and Fritz married and moved out to Oblitten which was a village a few miles outside of Koenigsberg. Since this was my father’s property, we often went there to look at the place, to enjoy the countryside and to visit with Frieda and Fritz. This way, I got some insight into farming. I learned about farm animals and farm machinery. Fritz was an excellent farmer. He had been trained as a smith which came in handy for shoeing horses and repairing farm machinery. Fritz was a great guy and we all loved him just as dearly as we loved his wife Frieda. They had two children. Helga, the oldest was of my age and the two of us played with each other every time I came to visit.

With Frieda gone, my parents needed another maid. Once more, the original Frieda came to the rescue and suggested her sister in law, Fritz’s sister, as her replacement. This second Frieda was in our home when I was born. Later on she too married but stayed in Koenigsberg. She visited us sometimes and we went to visit her. With the second Frieda gone, the baton passed to Kaete. I think Kaete also was somehow related to the two Friedas but I do not know exactly in what way. Kaete was only two years older than my sister Lore and the two became fast friends. With the name Kaete I associate the following experience. Kaete’s parents lived on a farm or estate. I seem to remember that her father was the gardener on the estate. In any case, when I was perhaps 9 years old, Kaete took me with her for a weekend at her home. I don’t remember whether this was on her initiative or whether my mother had asked for the favor. I tend to think that Kaete may have asked my mother because in later years Kaete kept saying that she regarded me as somewhere between a young brother and her child. At first I was interested in everything I saw in the new surroundings. But then the sun went down, it got dark and I began to feel strange in the living room among these strangers. Except for Kaete I did not know anyone else. When the radio began to play some sad music, my composure collapsed and I began to cry for my mama. Perhaps it was unwise of my hosts to take this sudden attack of homesickness too seriously. But in no time at all I found myself sitting between Kaete and her fiance, Willy, on Willy’s motorcycle driving through the night back towards Koenigsberg. This was a fabulous experience well worth the trouble. In those days there was hardly any traffic at night on these country roads. The motorcycle roared through the dark. Only the small portion of the road illuminated by the single headlight was visible and on either side the dark shadows of the trees lining the avenue whisked by. Quite exhilarated I reached home and the reassuring presence of my mother. I think it had been well worthwhile being homesick. How else could I have hoped to hitch a night ride on a motorcycle.

Kaete left us just before the war broke out. She married Willy and had three children, two boys and a girl. Sadly, Willy suffered a stroke towards the end of his long life and was unable to speak the last time I saw him. Kaete lived for several more years with her daughter and son in law, she died in January 2004.

The last maid, Johanna, stayed with us only a few month and left no impression on me. My father called her the pearl. I think she came from a distinguished family and took this position only to fill in between the end of her schooling and her impending marriage. After her, we never had another maid.

3 My Childhood from 1935 to 1944

My father was not happy in the apartment on Henriettenstrasse because of the noise from the neighbors in the apartments below us, above us and on either side of us. Therefore, in 1935 when I was 6 years old, my parents bought a house on the outskirts of Koenigsberg at Passargestrasse 11. The house was two stories high and had a full basement and attic. Originally, its facade had been dark red but before we moved in, my parents had it painted a friendly yellow color with green shutters. In this house my sister and I had each our own rooms. My sister’s room was larger with two windows facing the street. My room had only one window and faced the garden. The window protruded from the long, slanting roof. Looking out of it, I saw a large apple tree growing on the lawn just beneath me. Looking to the right, I could see the street. In my opinion it was a beautiful room.

The most wonderful aspect of the new house was its garden which contained a lawn, some flower beds, several fruit trees and most importantly a large beech tree with dark red leaves. On this tree I spent most of my free time. The tree was so large that I had to conquer it in stages. Originally I managed to get up just on its lowest branches. But as I grew older, I ventured higher and higher until I reached the very top where the branches became thin and my father worried that one day they would break and I would fall down breaking my legs or worse. In fact, he probably had not even had time to consider such worrisome thoughts when something did really happen. Soon after we had moved, my little friend from Henriettenstrasse, Dieter Lemke, came to visit me. No sooner had he arrived, when I ran out with him to my tree to show him my most wonderful new possession. My friend immediately proceeded to climb the tree, but just as soon fell out of it and landed on the ground. He was not seriously hurt, but apparently hurt badly enough that his mother, who had brought him, took him home right away. My father worried that he could have suffered internal injuries and was afraid of an impending lawsuit. Fortunately, nothing bad came of it, but my friend never visited me again and our friendship was over.

After the move, I was enrolled in a private school which was owned and operated by three spinster sisters with the name of Rausch. I had already been to a similar private school when we lived in Henriettenstrasse, but for such a short time that it left no impression on me and I can remember nothing about it. In the school of the sisters Rausch I spent four years from 1935 to the fateful year 1939 when the Second World War broke out. The private school operated in one room. All four grades were there together. It was a typical one-room school. There might have been somewhere between 10 to 20 children. Strangely enough, in my memory they were all girls even though there must have been boys too. In fact, there definitely was at least one other boy who was one year older and became my friend. Our parents knew each other since his father was also a judge at another court. But more than that, this family, Grimm, had originally come from Lyck, just like my mother and Mrs. Grimm and my mother knew each other already from childhood. Thus, it was natural that they renewed their acquaintance and that I began to play with their son, Eberhard. Eberhard had a sister, Gisela, who had been crosseyed and was required to wear glasses to correct this condition. Because of these unbecoming glasses I considered her unattractive. When I met her years later as a young woman I was amazed how beautiful she was. Eberhard was one year older than I and our temperaments and interests were very different. Eberhard was clumsy with his hands whereas I was more skillful and could build things, which he could not. His parents, who hoped that I would be able to teach Eberhard some dexterity, suggested that we spend time together playing with a construction set. Unfortunately, this failed miserably. Eberhard never got the hang of it so that his efforts at building simple models never succeeded. However, he had a gift for music and later on became a professional cellist. The entire Grimm family was musical so that they often would play some instruments and sing while I was there. I remember that at least on one occasion, they sang a song which shocked me. Its lyrics dealt with a young soldier who bemoaned the fact that he was going into battle and knew that he would be killed. It also implied that such a death was glorious and desirable. My parents as well as my sister also played the piano so that at home I was used to music and singing, but I had never heard such sad songs before. In retrospect I am amazed that the Grimms would sing such songs as they were favored by the Nazis. I do not think that they were Nazis themselves.

Eberhard had a parakeet while I had a fish tank with goldfish. Once, after Eberhard had come home from a visit with me, his parents asked him what we had been doing. He replied, we sat in front of the fish tank and stared at the fish. I am sure we had done other things as well, but this must have bored him so, that it was the first thing that came to his mind. Needless to say, Eberhard was useless when it came to climbing trees. Our friendship would probably have ended anyhow due to our different interests, but it ended abruptly when his father was transfered to Tilsit. It was strange that these people had come from my mother’s home town, Lyck, had then been transfered to Koenigsberg and finally ended up in my father’s home town, Tilsit. One summer we spent together with the Grimms in a rented house in the seaside resort town, Rauschen, at the Baltic Sea. This was a happy time. Both Mr. andMrs. Grimm were cheerful people who were often laughing and joking which made my mother very happy, who liked this kind of an atmosphere. It contrasted favorably with my father’s more serious disposition. When I grew older, I began to see that Mr. Grimm’s jolly temperament could also get on ones nerves, since it was almost impossible for him to be serious. In particular, he was prone to flirt with any women in sight. This went so far, that his daughter once told him in disgust to stop it. However, during our joint vacation at the Baltic Sea I was too young to notice such personality flaws and enjoyed the general cheerful atmosphere.

The Grimms also gave children’s parties to which I was invited. Once I went to their house dressed up in a wolf’s costume. Since the apartment where the Grimms lived was not far from our house, I walked to this party. The Grimms lived in a long apartment house which was located next to another such house which was occupied by two brothers with whom I became very friendly after the Grimms had moved away. My future friends watched my entry into the Grimm’s apartment, dressed as a wolf. They later told me that I had made an impression on them.

The neighborhood in which we now lived had many attractive features. It was within easy walking distance of the river Pregel which runs through Koenigsberg and provides a connection of the town with the Baltic Sea. Seagoing ships can sail all the way from the Baltic sea to the wharfs of Koenigsberg bringing goods from all over the world. Koenigsberg was thus an important entry point for goods into East Prussia. This was of particular importance after the First World War when the creation of the Polish Corridor had severed East Prussia from its home country. Of course, there was a rail connection through the Polish corridor. But this was under the control of the Poles. I remember that on my first trip from Koenigsberg to Berlin the train stopped at the border to the Polish corridor and police in foreign looking uniforms came onboard and walked through the train.

I was fascinated by the ship traffic on the river and often walked down to it watching the ships come in, go out, or load and unload their cargo. There was always something interesting to see. On the way to the river, I crossed the railroad line which ran from Koenigsberg to the port city, Pillau, on the Baltic Sea. The road crossed the railroad via a bridge. Standing on the bridge, one could not only see how the freight cars were assembled into long freight trains but, more excitingly, one was completely immersed in steam and smoke when one of the steam locomotives (and there were no others) passed underneath the railroad bridge. I have often stood there waiting for a locomotive to come by and enjoyed the experience of seeing the world around me vanish in steam and smoke.

Along this railroad line, but sufficiently far away that one was not bothered by it, was a region of small gardens. These gardens were not owned by the people who worked in them but were leased to people who lived in the inner city with no access to gardens. Through this colony of rented gardens ran a broad walkway called The Promenade, where my father took his daily walks on which I accompanied him occasionally. As one walked along the promenade, one could see on one side the railroad relatively close, the river in the distance and a gasworks where gas was made from coal. The gas was stored in tanks that were open on the bottom where they floated in water like inverted tin cans. When they were full of gas the tanks stuck high out of the water, when they were nearly empty, they