Around the World Submerged

by Edward L. Beach

  As for the necessary provisions, submarines have had years of experience in preparing for long cruises, though never for one so long as this. Triton had been designed to carry food supplies for seventy-five days, and we knew her huge hull could easily carry more. Arbitrarily, I resolved to increase this by at least a half, and directed that the ship be provisioned for one hundred and twenty days. If worst came to worst, and a long extended cruise became necessary, we could go on half-rations and stretch the voyage to six months.

  There was the scientific equipment to get ready, also. Most of it would be sent to us by the Navy, but it was up to Triton to decide where it was to be stowed and to make special arrangements for the installation of whatever foundations, telemetering circuits, and remote controls were needed. A whole package had to be prepared without spilling the beans to anyone.

  At 5:45 A.M., when I finally stepped off the train in New London, with sheets of notes in my hand, I realized fully that there were but twelve days left in which to get ready.

  By the fifteenth of February, most of the problems had been solved, and we were nearly ready to begin the voyage. The last eleven days had been crammed with work. Les Kelly, our inspired engineer who had put the ship through her trials, had made his envious good-byes. Commander Will Adams and Lieutenant Commander Bob Buhner, Executive Officer and Operations Officer respectively, had spent most of their time in ComSubLant’s locked chart room plotting our course. With them was the only enlisted man to be informed of the real nature of our trip, Chief Quartermaster William J. Marshall, Adams’ navigational assistant.

  The secret of our voyage was not, in the end, kept from Triton’s officers. After much thought, I got them together and told them, holding back only the indicated super-importance of getting back on time. There was simply too much to be done for them to be kept in the dark; we had to spread our work in too many different directions at once. Except for Marshall, neither Triton’s crew nor the passengers who came aboard a day or so before our departure could be told anything. An announcement had been made that we would be under way for a much longer time than originally scheduled, using my bureaucrat as an excuse. All hands had been advised that our Squadron office—the headquarters of Submarine Squadron 10, to which Triton belonged—would be glad to assist in all personal emergencies, and men expecting additions to their families were especially told to notify the Squadron. A broad hint was given out that strictly personal information pertaining to family increases might find its way into official radio traffic, as it had during the war.

  All hands were advised to lay in a private supply of tobacco, chewing gum, toothpaste, soap, and other personal necessities, for submarines carry no ship’s store where these items may be purchased. (Quartermaster First Class Curtis Beacham was, as a result, observed trying to stow eighteen boxes of cigars, which he figured would just about last him the trip.)

  There was one other person, I realized in a few days, who apparently knew of the real nature of our projected voyage. About midway during our period of preparation, a telephone call came for me. I took it on the private line which had been connected to my stateroom.

  A female voice said, “Captain Beach? Admiral Rickover calling.” I recognized Dixie Davis, the Admiral’s secretary for many years.

  “Beach here,” I said.

  “Beach”—this, after a moment and without preamble, was Rickover’s soft tone—”I’m sending you some changes in your power-plant settings. You may need them. Have them put in immediately. Will you do this?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They will increase the safety and dependability of your plant. We’re doing this ahead of time because I want to do everything I can to help you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I did, indeed. “Yes, sir,” I said again.

  “Leighton is putting them in the mail this afternoon. Let me know personally if there is anything else we can do. I’ll be watching your progress. Good luck!”

  I started to say, “Thank you,” but the receiver clicked before I was able to say a word.

  Next day, as promised, a thick special-delivery envelope arrived for me. Its contents were confidential and must remain so, but perusing them before passing them on to Don Fears, who had taken over Les Kelly’s duties as Engineer, I recognized them as following a pattern already established in earlier nuclear plants. After a period of running in, certain changes, essentially a relaxation of initial operating plant conditions, had been made in both Nautilus and Skate. Dennis Wilkinson and Jim Calvert had had, as a consequence, greater flexibility and a higher safety factor during their subsequent operations, and Bill Anderson, when he took over Nautilus from Wilkinson, had similarly profited. I could imagine the special work it must have taken to get a similar change ready on such short notice for us, and I wondered whether Dave Leigh-ton had had any knowledge of why the extra labor had been so suddenly demanded. I doubted it.

  Triton’s supply officer, Lieutenant Commander Bob Fisher, Supply Corps, USN, was an especially busy man. In response to the order to load the ship for 120 days, he crammed aboard 16,487 pounds of frozen food, 6,631 pounds of canned meat, and 12,130 pounds of canned vegetables. With interest, I noted that he had taken more coffee (1,300 pounds) than potatoes (1,285 pounds). He also stowed as much fresh stuff as he dared, considering spoilage. In all, we carried 77,613 pounds of food.

  In addition, Bob secretly laid in a large store of candy. His reason for this, when I asked him what in thunder he was thinking about, was that he had noted, among the tests planned for the cruise, a period of several days when smoking would be prohibited throughout the ship. In his experience, an extra supply of candy in such cases always proved of value. It was something I hadn’t thought of; I wondered what Beacham would say when he found out.

  There were, indeed, several tests to be carried out during this abstinence-from-smoking period, in addition to those planned for the cruise as a whole. Among them was a test to determine the psychological effects of the smoking ban, and a purely mechanical test to discover the percentage of contaminated aerosols which the smoking ban might remove from the atmosphere inside the ship. With these tests, the Navy’s Medical Research Laboratory hoped to learn whether smoking should be restricted in nuclear submarines during long-submerged cruises, whether the crews of such ships should comprise only nonsmokers, or whether special equipment should be devised and installed to remove the aerosols to allow smoking.

  Fisher exercised great ingenuity in placing his supplies. Submariners have always taken pride in their ability to do this in these cramped vessels, and Bob proved himself adept despite the fact that, before Triton, he had never been to sea in a submarine. Our wartime submarines, designed for crews of sixty-five men, sometimes went to sea with as many as eighty-five and still maintained their sixty-days-provisions capability. Triton, designed for a crew of 171 and endurance of seventy-five days, was to make the world cruise with 183 persons; but we loaded her for 120 days nonetheless.

  Our crew stowed away the increased amounts of foodstuffs, even when the stacks of supplies threatened to usurp their bunk spaces. Since the increased supplies were compatible with our cover story of a lengthened cruise, we did not concern ourselves about crew reactions, but I did worry considerably about Electric Boat workers, many of them experienced, though retired, submarine Chief Petty Officers, who might draw conclusions pretty close to the truth we were so carefully concealing.

  Adequate sleeping space for our expanded complement was also a problem. True, submariners have for years been accustomed to “hot-bunking”—the term used to describe the system in which three men, one in each of the three watch sections, occupy only two bunks in rotation. For a cruise as long as ours, however, I thought individual bunks should be provided for all. But even Triton’s huge size could not comfortably accommodate all of the men. We crammed extra bunks into every conceivable spot, including the atticlike space above the false ceiling in the wardroom and the yeoman’s office, but we were still sh
ort.

  I was for a time very pleased with the eventual solution: Triton, the world’s most modern and marvelous ship, would also be the only undersea craft in our Navy to be fitted with the traditional oldtime sailorman’s joy and comfort, the hammock! We installed two of them; one in the forward torpedo room, the other in the after torpedo room. There were some difficulties, however. No one aboard except myself, apparently, had ever slept in a hammock. No one had ever rigged one—no one knew, for instance, that for sleeping it must be stretched just as tightly as possible, or that a short wooden batten is generally desirable near the sleeper’s head to keep the heavy canvas from curling over his face. No one, in fact, had ever seen a hammock of the kind I was describing. Or at least, so they would have had me believe. I delved deep into my own hammock-sleeping experience during midshipman cruise days in the old battleship Arkansas, designed the hammocks myself, supervised their installation, and personally checked out the men when they used them the first time.

  I was sure that once it was known how comfortable a hammock could be, the lucky occupants would everlastingly bless my thoughtful kindness—and our berthing problems would be over.

  It was not until later that I realized the hammocks were not getting the use I had expected. For a while, someone, anyone, climbed into them when the grapevine announced my approach, but even that custom gradually fell into disuse, and the swaying nests hung empty. Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower both slept in hammocks, and so did John Paul Jones. But times have changed.

  One of our more perplexing tasks was to prepare a suitable memorial to be delivered at Cadiz, the point from which Magellan departed on his successful but, for him, ill-fated circumnavigation. Having optimistically stated that Triton would herself design and procure a suitable plaque, I now found myself in the foundry business, all highly classified, of course, wishing mightily that I had been more reserved. Fortunately, in Tom Thamm Triton had an excellent and imaginative artist, and at the Submarine Base there was a superb woodcarver who, we hoped, could be prevailed upon to make the necessary wooden mold.

  The second design Tom turned out was a beauty. Twenty-three inches in diameter, it depicted a globe in relief, upon which a wreath of olive branches was superimposed. Forming the bottom of the wreath was the US Submarine Force twin-dolphin insignia, and in its center a representation of Magellan’s flagship, the 120-ton Trinidad. Beneath the ship we placed the dates 1519-1960, representing the dates of Magellan’s trip and our own, and inside the circumference of the globe the Latin motto, “Ave Nobilis Dux Iterum Sactum Est.” Freely translated, this means “Hail, Noble Captain, It Is Done Again.”

  I questioned Tom closely about his Latin. He had gathered it by stratagem from an acquaintance, a Latin instructor at neighboring “Conn College”—Connecticut College for Women. Tom had told the teacher he needed the correct wording and spelling of a number of Latin phrases to settle an argument in the wardroom, and she suspected nothing. Still, in looking at the inscription, I could not shake off a feeling that something was wrong. A mental warning bell tinkled, but I ignored it.

  Carving of the wooden form was entrusted to Chief Electrician’s Mate Ernest L. Benson of the Submarine Base. He had a fine reputation in New London for his carefully executed woodcarvings and already had far more orders for them than he could comfortably fill. Benson finally agreed to give our order priority without asking questions, though we could see he was burning with curiosity.

  Our foray into the business of casting plaques taught us, however, that artisans cannot be hurried. Thamm, working in his spare time, took several days, the woodcarver required several more, and casting the metal was practically a trial-and-error operation. Twelve days were simply not enough, and the job was not finished when it came time for us to depart. This, therefore, became one of the items we had to leave to others for execution. The tiny Mystic Foundry was entrusted with the mold of our plaque and Captain Tom Henry, the much admired “Commodore” of Squadron 10, agreed to supervise its completion. He also promised to send it to meet us off Cadiz.

  Every man and officer naturally had his own difficulties to resolve, in addition to his duties on board Triton. Having listed each individual’s chores, I had also prepared a private check-off sheet for myself—but being deeply involved in preparations for the cruise, the daily work which could not be neglected, and a tremendous amount of official correspondence, it usually was not until midnight that I was free to deal with my personal problems. At least twice I saw the first light of morning; and I will long remember how I cursed the income tax and Form 1040, which I was rushing to complete.

  On the fifteenth of February everything had been done, and it seemed as though our last day could be spent in relaxation. But caution, compounded by years of service and the concern that our carefully laid plans might run afoul of some unpredicted problem, dictated a sea trial. It was not a popular decision on board or in the Admiral’s office; and it must be admitted that Ingrid, just returned from California, was less than enthusiastic when she learned that I had asked to go to sea for a single day and night to test equipment, just before shoving off for so long a time.

  After some argument, Admiral Daspit granted permission, and on Monday morning, the fifteenth of February, Triton bade a regretful farewell to Clyde Eidson, our efficient Chief Yeoman, who was scheduled for OCS and commissioned rank in the near future, and headed to sea. This trial run was a good thing, even though it did us out of a holiday. A number of small malfunctions turned up in some of the hastily installed gear, and on Tuesday morning, preceded by radioed emergency repair requests, we were back alongside the dock at Electric Boat. A swarm of specialists descended upon us to set things right.

  Not everything could be put back in order, unfortunately; one piece of equipment out of commission was a special wave-motion sensor which had not been made properly watertight and had flooded as soon as we dived. When external electric equipment in a submarine floods with submergence pressure, it means a long repair. Invariably, the cable connected to it also floods, like a garden hose, all the way to its terminal inside the ship, necessitating its replacement as well. We could not delay for repairs to the wave-motion sensor, important though it was. All else was back in commission by 2:00 P.M.

  I went ashore for a couple of last-minute errands, grabbed a phone, luckily caught Ingrid just as the course she was auditing in Shakespeare at Connecticut College ended for the day.

  “Come down and wish us bon voyage,” I told her.

  Unfortunately, Captain Henry, whose steady support had been invaluable, was ill in the naval base hospital and had to send apologies for not being able to bid us good-bye in person. Thus Commander James M. Calvert, recently skipper of the famous submarine Skate, Carl Shugg, General Manager of Electric Boat, and my wife were the only people to see us off.

  Commander Joseph Baylor Roberts, assigned to us by the Chief of Naval Information, a Naval Reserve officer and a friend of many years, was on the dock with his camera, and insisted on photographing Ingrid’s good-bye kiss. Though we both felt that we were entitled to some privacy on the occasion, we dutifully posed for him.

  Partings are sad when one is young and in love, and they are no less sad when one is older and still in love. But Ingrid is a courageous Navy wife. “Good-bye, sweetheart,” she said, as she kissed me. “Take good care of the Triton!”

  It was sixteen minutes after 2:00 P.M., EST when Triton’s last line was taken in and we backed her gently away from the dock.

  She was on her way at last!

  Tracing its origin to the glacial period during which our country’s outlines were formed, the Thames River in New London flows southward through a cleft between massive piles of time-worn New England granite. For tens of thousands of years the river has worn its way through the channel left by the receding ice, smoothing the rough edges of the stone and carving its channel deep amid the silt and debris which has ineffectually tried to choke it. Sometimes the river between the rocky headland
s is roiled by a storm sweeping to the south, and at these times it takes on the gray colorless hue of a lowering overcast; at more quiet moments the river is blue with the reflection of the sky, as it courses past the massive stone-and-brick lighthouse at the entrance to the buoyed ship-channel.

  On the sixteenth of February, Triton stood out in a channel whipped by a cold north wind. Low in the water, extraordinarily slender in proportions, sinisterly beautiful as only a submarine can be, her huge size dwarfed the bald domes of granite on either side. On deck, a few men busied themselves housing the capstans, stowing away mooring lines and other equipment. Upon the forward part of the long, clean silhouette jutted the angular outline of the ship’s “sail”—some twenty feet high by seventy-five feet long—which provided the support structure for periscopes, radar masts, radio antenna, and other retractable submarine gear. A number of men clustered on the forward part of the sail, which served as Triton’s bridge.

  We were beginning the voyage submariners had been dreaming of ever since nuclear energy had made it possible. Gently, the ship clove the sea-blue water, as though loath to leave yet eager to be on her way. My pulse, had I permitted anyone to take it, might have belied the calm demeanor with which I outwardly surveyed the conning of the ship.

  From my exposed position on our “flying bridge”—on the very top of the sail and unprotected by bulwarks—I had a clear view in all directions. In the wrong kind of weather this could be an unpleasant watch-keeping station, but today, with the north wind at our backs, I was not uncomfortable by the standards to which seamen are accustomed. Little, if any thought, however, was being wasted by anyone on personal comfort or discomfort. Taking a ship to sea, even through a familiar and uncomplicated channel, requires unremitting attention. I was the only person on the bridge who could be said to have any free time at all, and between checks on our navigation in the channel, I focused my binoculars on a prominent boulder at the eastern mouth of the river.