TheLambertsen Amphibious Respiratory Unit (LARU) is an early model of closed circuit oxygenrebreather used by militaryfrogmen.Christian J. Lambertsen designed a series of them in the US in 1940 (patent filing date: 16 Dec 1940) and in 1944 (issue date: 2 May 1944).[1]
The LARU is what the initials SCUBA (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) originally meant; Lambertsen changed his invention's name to SCUBA in 1952;[2] but later "SCUBA", gradually changing to "scuba", came to mean (first in the USA) any self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. (Moderndiving regulator technology was invented byÉmile Gagnan andJacques-Yves Cousteau in 1943 and was not related to rebreathers; nowadays the word SCUBA is largely used to mean Gagnan's and Cousteau's invention and its derivatives.)
Lambertsen designed the LARU while a medical student and demonstrated the LARU to theOffice of Strategic Services (OSS) (after already being rejected by the U.S. Navy) in a pool at theShoreham Hotel in Washington D.C. in 1942[3][4] The OSS "Operational Swimmer Group" was formed and Lambertsen's responsibilities included training and developing methods of combining self-contained diving and swimmer delivery including the LARU.[5][6]
Many diving rebreathers are descended from it. However, there were earlier underwater uses of rebreathers:
