Silent and Unseen

by Alfred McLaren

  The Mysterious Boing

  Back in the mid-1950s, the Soviet Union’s submarine force was frequently given credit for capabilities that it did not yet have, particularly with regard to the long-range deployment of its submarines. As a result, Submarine Force Pacific spooked easily, and frequently overreacted at times when we heard something under water that we could not readily classify. Toward the end of the ten-day exercise in 1958 mentioned above, Greenfish was playing the role of a submerged enemy submarine when our sonar watch thought he detected a Soviet submarine in our vicinity. He initially concluded that it was a Soviet Zulu-class diesel electric attack submarine based on several low-frequency active sonar pings detected close aboard that sounded like loud boings.5

  Our commanding officer, Lt. Cdr. Jack Knudsen, immediately took the conn, ordering Greenfish to head for periscope depth and then to a fully surfaced condition as per ComSubPac’s standing orders in such a situation. An Uncle Joe code word alert was immediately sent off to all other exercise participants via VHF radio and via the underwater telephone in the event there might be any other U.S. submarines operating fully submerged in our near vicinity.

  Once all participating submarines were on the surface and accounted for, ASW patrol aircraft were called in to search for and localize the possible Soviet intruder. An intensive search of the area over several hours using sonobuoys turned up nothing, however, and the exercise was resumed after all participating units had been repositioned. All of us on board Greenfish were frustrated and disappointed, of course.

  This scenario was to repeat itself innumerable times in the local operating areas surrounding Pearl Harbor for the next four decades at considerable cost of valuable military resources and operational time, never resulting in the location of the supposed active-ranging Soviet submarine intruder. Then, in early November 2002, David Starr Jordan, a U.S. research vessel cruising Hawaiian waters, detected the same boing sounds and eventually tracked them down during the course of several days to a Pacific minke whale, about twenty-three feet long.6 Some researchers believed it might be a mating call.7 More recently, authorities have concluded that the dwarf minke whale, discovered just fifteen years ago, was and is the source of these noises.8

  After You, Alphonse

  I learned quickly that when we went to sea for local operations of a day or more, we remained in the same summer-dress khaki uniform throughout. It was only on the longer operations of a week or more that we might take a very short submarine shower and change clothes. We turned the shower on to wet ourselves, turning the water off to soap down, and then turning on the water just long enough to rinse off. A limited freshwater capacity precluded ever taking the long, hot showers enjoyed at home or in port. The odor of human exertion was pretty rank. The boat, moreover, smelled to high heaven of diesel oil. Little wonder that each new crewmember had to quickly develop submarine nose, or near-complete nasal insensitivity to this witch’s brew of evil smells. Submarines were not termed “pig boats” in the old days for nothing.

  I can never forget my first shower at sea. Ensign S and I were the newest officers on board. One day when showers were allowed, the more senior officers said, to our utter surprise, “You two go ahead and take yours first.” “What a gentlemanly gesture,” we thought, and I urged S to go first since he was a year junior to me. It was only when I heard his anguished screams that I recognized we’d both been had: our brother officers wanted us to drain all the cold water out of the shower piping before they took their own showers.

  Survival on a submarine requires several important personal attributes if one is to adapt successfully to life within the confined and always crowded spaces. The first is to possess a keen sense of alertness and responsibility toward the execution of all duties, both assigned and implied, and to execute them correctly and completely: from the minute he steps on board, shipmates depend on each crewmember to carry out his job, particularly in life-threatening or potentially life-threatening situations. This is best termed situational awareness. Just a moment of inattention while on watch during submerged operations can result in collision, flooding, fire, and a host of other calamities that can cause the loss of the submarine and all on board. The second attribute, a sense of humor, especially the ability to laugh at oneself, is absolutely essential if a new crewmember is to successfully integrate into an existing submarine crew. Finally, the third personal attribute is an ability to retreat into and live within one’s own heads or inner space when necessary. Quarters below decks are so close that true privacy is virtually impossible to achieve.

  Officer Submarine Qualification

  The watch-standing qualifications that I had to complete as a junior officer during the weeks and months that followed first reporting on board included diving officer of the watch and officer of the deck both surfaced and submerged. I was required to learn every detail of Greenfish and her equipment, systems, and characteristics from stem to stern.

  As both a guide and as written affirmation, incorporating the qualifying officer’s and commanding officer’s signatures, was completion of a Submarine Qualification Notebook for the particular submarine. The notebook covered each system—water, hydraulic, electric—throughout the boat with an attendant list of practical factors that the individual had to complete to a qualifying officer’s satisfaction. The notebook also covered all submarine evolutions, operations, and emergency procedures, both surfaced and submerged.

  Successful qualification on the submarine’s hydraulic systems, for example, required us to trace out or hand-over-hand the entire system or systems and, in the process, produce a drawing that showed every line and valve and related equipment, such as pumps, filters, and accumulators, that we had sighted. Qualification also required that we demonstrate the ability to operate each system safely, or any portion thereof, in the event of an immediate need, such as an operational emergency.

  To qualify in submarine evolutions and operations, an officer or senior petty officer had to demonstrate to a senior officer or the captain that he could safely operate any and all equipment, including attendant valves and electrical switches and controls during all phases of a diving and surfacing operation or emergency. In addition, he had to demonstrate that he could supervise the safe operation of the entire system by qualified crewmembers, if needed. Moreover, an officer had to demonstrate the ability to get his submarine under way from a pier or tender and to make a landing upon return to port. As diving officer of the watch and as a conning officer (more senior), he had to conduct dives, surfacings, and ascents to and descents from periscope depth, and he had to conduct emergency descents below the surface to evade attack and emergency surfacings to deal with flooding, fire, or a catastrophic Freon leak, for example.

  During those years and for most of my career, officer submarine qualification also included making approaches and attacks, using actual practice or dummy torpedoes, against individual surface or submerged targets, and escorted ones as well. Finally, all officers on Greenfish were required to demonstrate that they could break contact from and escape from an ASW vessel or a hostile submarine that had detected us.

  Military Justice, of a Sort

  My first real encounter with military justice was on Greenfish during the spring of 1958 before our first deployment in the Northern Pacific. A crewmember had somehow gone afoul of the military justice system, and I suddenly found myself appointed by my commanding officer to head a special court-martial to be conducted on board while in our home port of Pearl Harbor. I had received some military justice training at the U.S. Naval Academy and while serving on the destroyer Gregory before I entered submarine training. That being said, I had never been exposed to anything involving serious disciplinary measures, much less in any sort of court-martial.

  Although I no longer remember what the young man was charged with, I do recall the exec telling me before the trial that it was expected the defendant would be awarded a bad conduct discharge from the U.S. Navy. Talk about being placed in a positi
on of responsibility to ensure justice is done and then having pressure applied by one’s seniors before the trial had even begun! I should have been suspicious from the outset, because the idea of putting the most junior officer, and a lieutenant junior grade at that, into such a position was ludicrous when the boat had at least four lieutenants and one lieutenant commander who would have been more appropriate as head of a special court-martial.

  The trial over which I presided was held in Greenfish’s wardroom and lasted some three days. During the trial, the prosecutor argued against the defendant and the defense argued on his behalf. Once their cases had been made and final arguments concluded, it was up to me to make the final judgment as whether the defendant was guilty or not guilty, and to pronounce sentence. The exec, who was following the case closely, cornered me during a break, before I had rendered my decision and pronounced judgment, and told me in unmistakable terms what my commanding officer expected me to decide. After listening to three days of argument for and against, however, I was convinced that the prosecutor had not proven his case, and that there were no grounds for awarding the young man a bad conduct discharge.

  Leaving the military service with anything less than an honorable discharge is very serious, and could have profound consequences for the rest of an individual’s life, particularly with regard to future employment. I was definitely not going to be part of any sort of what I considered railroading to please even my commanding officer, at that or at any other time.

  Back in the “courtroom,” I rendered a verdict of not guilty and adjourned the trial. Before long I found myself on the wrong side of both Greenfish’s executive and commanding officers.9 Captain Knudsen somehow managed to overrule my decision, had the young man placed in a nearby Navy brig, and initiated action to give him a bad conduct discharge.

  As punishment for not complying with my skipper’s desire, I was ordered to visit the young man every day until he was transferred to the mainland for final processing and discharge. That was kind of like throwing Br’er Rabbit into the briar patch, and I readily complied.

  The idea here, I suppose, was not just to punish, but to teach me a lesson by humiliating me. As ordered, I visited the young man each day and, from our conversations and the young man’s manner, became even more convinced that I had made the right decision. I conveyed this to the exec and ended up losing even more standing with the skipper. Despite the subsequent slight dip in my fitness report under loyalty, I never regretted rendering the verdict of not guilty.

  The entire ordeal caused me to lose respect for and mistrust military justice as it was practiced during my naval service of some twenty-six years. This and other incidents that I subsequently witnessed persuaded me that the powers that be, or any senior officer with court-martial authority, could railroad a decision in any direction he wanted. That harkens back to an old saying that I heard many years ago: “Military justice is to justice as military music is to music.”

  I learned two lessons from this unpleasant experience. The first was, Never be too quick to judge one’s shipmate and fellow human being. The second was, Never allow a situation to get so far out of control on board that anything beyond a nonjudicial Captain’s Mast would ever be necessary.10 If it did, then we would have had to look to where the problem really lay with regard to onboard leadership, beginning with the commanding officer.

  CHAPTER 3

  Our First Deployment: Western Pacific 1958

  Diesel electric submarines were the workhorses of the submarine force during the first decades of the Cold War. These boats were, with a few exceptions like the new Tang and Barbel classes, all World War II veterans, snorkel-equipped, and modified under the GUPPY program. They were also somewhat quieter and less detectable under water as a result of myriad lessons in sound quieting learned during that war. Most of these submarines were initially commanded and manned by a high percentage of war patrol veterans, many of whom had survived serious depth charge attacks by Japanese destroyers and patrol craft. The advent of nuclear power and the launch of USS Nautilus (SSN 571) in 1954 spurred a steady increase in the number of nuclear attack submarines being built and sent to sea, beginning in the early 1960s. As a consequence, the diesel electric submarine was gradually phased out, with its final Cold War deployments occurring in the early 1970s.

  In those days, a diesel electric-powered submarine normally transited in friendly or neutral waters on the surface, using its diesel engines for propulsion. When transiting or on patrol in unfriendly waters during the Cold War, however, she had to exert maximum effort to remain completely undetected. Otherwise, U.S. surface and air forces might mistake one of their own for a Cold War adversary.

  Operational constraints thus required a submarine like Greenfish to operate completely submerged using battery propulsion during daylight hours. Depending on the operation order, the prescribed speed of advance, and the operational situation, submerged speeds could range from a minimum of less than a knot to a maximum that approached twenty knots. The former speed could normally be maintained in excess of thirty-six hours without the need to recharge the batteries. The latter speed, however, could not be sustained for more than half an hour. Once the batteries’ capacity had been reduced significantly or approached being completely discharged, the submarine would have to come to periscope depth and snorkel or surface in order to run its diesel engines both for propulsion and for recharging the batteries.

  The major drawback of snorkeling at periscope depth in a Cold War patrol area was the high noise level of the diesel engines and the constant opening and shutting of the head valve as the submarine proceeded through heavy seas. When snorkeling, the submarine became infinitely more detectable to the passive sonars of unfriendly submarines or aircraft sonobuoys than if it were proceeding at or below periscope depth on battery propulsion alone. The large snorkel head valve and the diesel exhaust spray also made the submarine more detectable by visual and radar means. Nonetheless, pulling off station and using the snorkel was better than having to surface. It was also possible to conduct quick battery topping off charges of as little as twenty to thirty minutes, in contrast to a complete battery charge that might require hours to complete.

  In sum, the condition and state of charge of a diesel electric submarine’s batteries were always of prime importance during the early days of the Cold War. A submarine could not operate effectively without well-maintained batteries, charged as fully as possible. This was a matter of operational life or death, whether it involved a Cold War mission or an actual war patrol.

  Greenfish departed in late May 1958 for a six-month WestPac deployment of some six weeks’ duration in the Northern Pacific—my first as a young and not-yet-fully qualified submarine officer. The months in the WestPac proved to be quite intensive and eventful. They included not only exercises with the Seventh Fleet and port visits to Subic Bay, Hong Kong; and Yokosuka, Japan; but also, and more importantly to my basic education as an attack submarine and future commanding officer, the conduct of two lengthy Cold War missions in the Northern Pacific under the leadership of a new commanding officer.

  One of my first duties on Greenfish was to qualify as a diving officer of the watch, followed by qualifying as officer of the deck in port and under way.1 Diving officer, followed by officer of the deck under way, were also to be my normal watches during much of the WestPac deployment that we had just departed for. Fortunately, all new submarine officers reporting to their first boat had already learned all the basic skills required of a diving officer of the watch during their six months at submarine school, since we had had repeated opportunities to practice these newly learned skills during weekly at-sea training periods on various boats based out of New London/Groton.

  The usual routine when transiting to patrol assignments in the vast reaches of the Northern Pacific was to run at the greatest and most economical speed, when possible on the surface. We were under strict orders, however, to remain completely undetected by both friendly and potential adv
ersary forces, so we transited at high speed on the surface during hours of darkness and fully submerged or at periscope depth during daylight hours. The time spent exposed on the surface meant that every closing visual or radar contact that we detected posed a threat to our ability to remain undetected. The submarine was thus frequently forced to dive as rapidly as possible in order to avoid detection. The World War II–era diesel electric submarines available for Cold War operations were all capable of submerging on the order of thirty seconds or less. That was the standard that the officers and crew constantly trained for and adhered to.

  Diesel electric submarines at the time transited on the surface with all main ballast tanks (MBTs; seven in Greenfish’s case) dry and two small variable ballast tanks, negative and safety, fully flooded. Once the order, “Dive, dive!” was given, the bow and stern planes were placed on full dive, speed was increased to full, and all MBT vents were opened. The boat would submerge beneath the surface in an increasingly negative buoyancy condition as the MBTs fully flooded with water. Once well beneath the surface en route to ordered depth, the diving officer of the watch would order, “Blow negative tank to the mark!” with speed decreased to “All ahead two-thirds!” (approximately eight knots). The diving officer of the watch would then order further decreases in speed as he proceeded to trim the boat such that neutral buoyancy was achieved and it was possible to hover at the ordered depth at dead stop, or with no way on.2 Trim adjustments by shifting water between tanks fore and aft were also made, as necessary, to achieve a completely horizontal or zero bubble condition.

  The operational depth chosen once beneath the surface depended largely on the depth of water, nature of threat, its distance from the boat, and underwater acoustic conditions expected. Generally, it was always wise to dive well beneath the predicted acoustic layer.3