Silent and Unseen

by Alfred McLaren

  During the necessary at-sea workups or practices, followed by those for Captain Davis’ final approval, I learned to grit my teeth with each taunt of, “There goes nuclear power!” whenever I made the most minor of mistakes or took actions that he didn’t agree with. If that wasn’t enough to contend with, when the captain at last pulled my Submarine Qualification Notebook out of his stateroom locker to review it with me, we discovered that the entire electrical systems chapter that I had so laboriously created was missing.5 The captain’s initial reaction was, “Well, you are going to have to do that chapter all over.” Needless to say, it was my turn to have near apoplexy, but I managed to keep my cool and temper. There was too much at stake now. I asked that the exec be immediately called in, to verify that he had seen, reviewed, and approved the notebook, including the missing chapter, before I had delivered it to the commanding officer. The exec did so.

  Where had the missing chapter gone? I was sure Captain Davis knew, and I was sure that he knew whom I suspected. May it forever weigh on the conscience of the officer who, for whatever reason—possibly to complete his own Submarine Qualification Notebook—lifted that chapter.

  I completed my final at-sea examination for submarine qualification in the tense weeks that followed. Under my captain’s close observation, I managed to make several undetected approaches and attacks, with two practice torpedo hits, on an auxiliary vessel escorted by two echo-ranging ASW destroyers. I further demonstrated that I was able to evade and escape both ASW vessels following my attacks.6 Captain Davis grudgingly gave his final approval and sent me on for the required in-port and underway oral and practical-factors examination by a gentleman of the first-order, Lt. Cdr. Haydn Owens, commanding officer of USS Sterlet (SS 392).

  The examination proved to be long and difficult. I was required to complete all ballasting computations relating to the first dive of the day, to personally line up the ventilation and start the diesel engines, to get the boat under way as acting commanding officer, and to navigate Sterlet out of Pearl Harbor Channel to our assigned dive area. I had to execute a crash dive from the surface, act as the boat’s diving officer on the first dive of the day, and successfully trim the boat to a neutral buoyancy condition. Once submerged, I turned over the dive to the regular watch officer and accompanied the captain throughout his boat while he questioned me about various ship’s systems, such as hydraulic, air, water, and electrical. He frequently asked me to demonstrate my ability to operate all these, as appropriate, including responding to a flank speed order, which was called the bell, as the senior controller (an electrician’s mate) in the maneuvering room. Boy, was that exciting, because of the complexity of shifting the electrical propulsion plant from parallel to series battery operation.

  A near-perfect approach and attack with an exercise torpedo on an escorted yard oiler vessel, recovery of the torpedo, navigation of the Pearl Harbor Channel home, and, finally, a smooth twilight landing alongside the original pier from which we departed, finished the day. Captain Owens gave me a complete up-check on my performance, shook my hand, and wholeheartedly congratulated me, as did Sterlet’s officers. They took me to the nearby submarine officers club for a toast with a much-needed Mai Tai before sending me home. All in all, it was a wonderful and unforgettable experience. My wife Mary was vastly relieved to hear the good news on my return home, and we celebrated with yet more Mai Tais with neighbors and close friends.

  Lt. (jg) Alfred S. McLaren receiving gold “Submarine Dolphins” from Lt. Cdr. John A. Davis, commanding officer, USS Greenfish (SS 351), 15 June 1959. U.S. Navy

  I was considered formally qualified in submarines on 15 June 1959, when, in front of the entire crew, Captain Davis personally pinned my Gold Dolphins qualification badge on the left breast of my uniform shirt. There was no qualification party, however, and I was to serve on board Greenfish another week, at which time, on 22 June 1959, I was detached with orders to report, as a newly minted full lieutenant, to the Advanced Nuclear Power School at the U.S. naval submarine base in Groton in early July. My family and I boarded a plane two days later, flew to San Francisco, bought a new car, and drove across country to Groton.

  I was to have no further contact with USS Greenfish or my former commanding officer for the rest of my submarine career, with the exception of receiving a letter several months later that Greenfish had received a Battle Efficiency “E” for the past year. The letter also acknowledged my contributions as both gunnery and torpedo officer and supply and commissary officer toward achieving this honor.

  I realize in hindsight that I learned a great deal from my experiences and the two commanding officers with whom I served during the time I was on Greenfish. From Captain Knudsen I learned the importance of establishing a pleasant wardroom atmosphere both in port and at sea. He was friendly, available, and approachable at all times. I disagreed in one instance, however, with his method of shipboard discipline. From Captain Davis I definitely learned submarine tactics and how to handle a submarine aggressively during Cold War operations. These and many other lessons alluded to were of immeasurable benefit to me as I went on to other attack submarines and in due time became the submarine captain I wanted to be.

  USS Greenfish was to deploy three more times while in the Pacific. The first, during the period 23 September 1959 to 11 January 1960, was to earn her a much-coveted Navy Unit Commendation for an extraordinarily successful Cold War mission under the command of my previous skipper, Al Davis. The remaining two deployments were to WestPac, where she operated with the U.S. Seventh Fleet and conducted both Cold War operations and Vietnam patrols. Following a shipyard overhaul in 1970, she was reassigned to the Submarine Force Atlantic, and then during the years that followed she made deployments to the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and the North Atlantic for a northern European cruise.7

  Greenfish was decommissioned and struck from the U.S. Naval Register on 29 October 1973. She was transferred (sold) to Brazil under the terms of the Security Assistance Program at the submarine base in Groton on 19 December 1973. She was subsequently commissioned the Submarino Amazonas (S-16), the eighth Brazilian Navy ship to be named for the Amazon River. She was struck from service on 15 October 1992, served for several years as a museum boat at the Centro Historico da Marinha in Rio de Janeiro, and then judged to be in too bad a condition to be fully restored. She was subsequently sold on 30 January 2004 to a scrapper at the Niteroi shipyard and immediately dismantled.8

  PART II

  USS Seadragon (SSN 584)

  Arctic Pioneer

  Launch of USS Seadragon (SSN 584), August 1958. U.S. Navy

  CHAPTER 7

  My First Nuclear Submarine

  In early June 1960 I received unexpected orders to report to USS Seadragon (SSN 584) at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine. I was about to complete six months of nuclear power plant prototype training and qualification as a chief operator on the land-based General Electric S-3-G Reactor Plant at West Milton, New York, which followed completion of my six months at Advanced Nuclear Power School in December 1959.1 Prior to receiving orders to report to Seadragon, I had received orders to report to the Snook (SSN 592), a nuclear attack submarine then under construction at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Company, Pascagoula, Mississippi, and scheduled to be launched later in the year. But then one of Seadragon’s officers, Lt. Cdr. William G. Lalor Jr., the engineer, decided to leave the U.S. Navy. I suddenly had the good luck, although I didn’t know it at the time, to be ordered on board as his numerical relief.

  USS Seadragon was named after her illustrious World War II predecessor, the SS 194, and the eponymous seadragon, a beautiful small fish also called the dragonet, that lives in Australian waters. She was the U.S. Navy’s sixth nuclear-powered submarine and the fourth and final member of the Skate submarine class. She had earlier been launched and commissioned at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, and was now in the final stages of being outfitted and loaded out for a forthcoming historic voyage to our new home port in
Pearl Harbor via Baffin Bay, the Northwest Passage, and the North Pole. I would be reporting on board just in time to participate.

  Seadragon’s sisters, Skate (SSN 578) and Sargo (SSN 583), had already made their mark as Arctic submarine pioneers.2 Skate, commanded by Cdr. James F. Calvert, had been to the North Pole twice, in 1958 and 1959, and was the first submarine to surface through the sea ice at the Pole. She was also the first to operate in the Arctic Ocean during the winter. Sargo, commanded by Lt. Cdr. John H. Nicholson, whose highly significant accomplishments remain barely known to this day, was the first nuclear attack submarine to enter and exit the Arctic Basin through the very shallow, ice-covered Bering Strait and operate all through the Arctic Basin in the dead of winter in 1960. She was additionally the first submarine to surface routinely through thick ice, culminating in a successful surfacing through almost four feet of ice at the North Pole.

  Seadragon was set to follow in their illustrious wake with a number of firsts of her own: the first submarine to change home ports via the Arctic Ocean, the first to examine the underside of icebergs in Baffin Bay, and the first to conduct a hydrographic survey of the Northwest Passage, from Baffin Bay via the Parry Channel and the Barrow and McClure Straits, to the Beaufort Sea.

  The Cold War was at this time almost fifteen years old, and relations between the United States and the Soviet bloc had recently become even more tense as a result of the Soviets’ having shot down an American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, in their airspace just two months previous.3 Now, in late June 1960, this was yet one more U.S. nuclear submarine about to traverse the Arctic Ocean and achieve the North Pole fewer than six hundred nautical miles from the Soviet Union’s northernmost island group, Franz Josef Land, and then skirt its territorial limits in the Chukchi and Bering Seas as she proceeded south through the Bering Strait. Would they try to intercept or hinder our transpolar voyage in any way?

  Seadragon’s keel was laid at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on 29 September 1956 and constructed in forty-five months—a total of 375,000 man-days—at a cost of more than $21 million. As many as a thousand men had worked on her in a single day.4 Her overall characteristics were as follows:

  •Displacement: 2,580 tons surfaced, 2,861 tons submerged

  •Length overall: 267.4 feet

  •Beam: 25 feet

  •Draft: 22 feet 5 inches

  •Propulsion system: One Westinghouse S-4-W nuclear reactor plant

  •Propellers: Two five-bladed

  •Speed on surface: Approximately 18 knots

  •Speed submerged: Approximately 20+ knots

  •Range: Unlimited

  •Endurance submerged: Unlimited

  •Armament: Eight 21-inch torpedo tubes, six forward and two aft

  •Crew: 8 officers and 75 enlisted5

  Cdr. George P. Steele was Seadragon’s commanding officer during final construction, her commissioning on 5 December 1959, a shakedown cruise in the Caribbean, and for the upcoming voyage. Steele was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a seasoned veteran, having made two war patrols during World War II and then having served five years on the diesel boat USS Becuna (SS 319), from early 1945, during which he made two war patrols before World War II ended, to 1950. He also served as exec of a new fast attack submarine, USS Harder (SS 568), from 1953 through 1954, and commanded USS Hardhead (SS 365) for two years, from 1955 to 1957. Seadragon’s crew could not have been under better or more experienced leadership for the arduous and potentially dangerous voyage ahead.

  To say I was excited to be serving on Seadragon is an understatement. I was not only reporting to a brand-new, frontline nuclear boat that would be the fourth in history to explore the almost completely unknown Arctic Ocean and achieve the North Pole, but my family and I would be returning to Pearl Harbor and the idyllic environment and lifestyle we had grown to love.

  By now I was a submarine-qualified officer with three Cold War operations under my belt. I could assume duties as an in-port duty officer almost immediately and requalify as an officer of the deck and diving officer of the watch in a relatively short time. I was not yet qualified as an engineering officer of the watch on Seadragon’s Westinghouse S-4-W nuclear power plant, however. A second officer or senior chief petty officer, so qualified, would have to stand duty with me. Nevertheless, I expected to be pulling my own weight.

  I reported for duty on board Seadragon one evening in late June 1960. It was a particularly quiet time for shipyard work. The duty officer was Lt. Joseph A. Farrell III, Seadragon’s acting engineer officer and a fellow Naval Academy graduate, who gave me a warm welcome, as did the crewmembers I encountered. They were friendly, yet entirely professional, and clearly very proud of their submarine.

  After a round of coffee, Joe took me through the boat, beginning with the forward torpedo room. As we proceeded slowly from compartment to compartment, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the newness and cleanliness of everything I saw. The bilges were immaculate. Even the individual valve stems, of several hundred hydraulic and lubricating oil and salt- and freshwater system valves, were clean and free of verdigris. I was also quite taken by the amazing sight of a carpeted steel grand staircase that connected the upper-level operations compartment with the living and messing quarters level directly below. Amazing to me was the fact that, although Seadragon was almost fifty feet shorter than my previous submarine, Greenfish, she appeared to be much roomier. As we walked farther and farther aft, I became increasingly aware that my new boat was vastly more complex than the one I had just left. I had a few brief moments of despair when it dawned on me I would have to work much harder than expected to requalify as a diving officer of the watch and officer of the deck on this very sophisticated boat.

  Simultaneously elated and sobered, I joined Joe Farrell for another cup of coffee in the wardroom, and we briefly discussed what was planned for Seadragon during the remaining weeks before she departed for the Arctic Ocean and her new home port in the Pacific. We would be going to sea for a week or more to thoroughly shake the boat down and, in particular, to test out the under-ice navigation and sonar systems that we would depend on so heavily to get us through the ice-covered Northwest Passage and Arctic Ocean safely. As I prepared to rejoin my wife and young son at the house in Portsmouth we had rented for the month, Joe informed me I should be back on board by 7:00 a.m. the next morning, and to remain overnight to begin intensive training for qualification as an in-port duty officer—forward, as he termed it, since I was not yet qualified as an engineering officer of the watch. The next day I would be introduced to the captain; the exec, Lt. Cdr. James T. “Jim” Strong; and the navigator and senior watch officer, Lt. Edward A. “Al” Burkhalter Jr.

  Worn out and beset with mixed emotions, I returned home shortly before midnight. Mary and Fred Jr. had already retired for the night. With two coffees under my belt and completely overwhelmed by the complexity of my new boat, I can’t say I slept very well.

  I returned on board Seadragon well before 7:00 a.m. the following morning, arriving at the same time as the exec. Jim Strong greeted me warmly and ushered me into the wardroom for breakfast. Already there were Joe Farrell and two other officers: Lt. Thomas L. “Logan” Malone Jr., the operations and diving officer; and Lt. Richard L. “Dick” Thompson, the communications officer. Lt. (jg) Vincent J. Leahy, the supply and commissary officer; and Al Burkhalter, the navigator and senior watch officer, soon joined us. They were a lively bunch who obviously liked each other as they conversed and endlessly kibitzed. Now and then a polite question would be directed my way. I quickly answered, and then the general conversation would resume. The main topic of interest seemed to be that a Commodore O. C. S. Robertson of the Canadian navy, who had transited the Northwest Passage some six years earlier as commanding officer of the Canadian icebreaker Labrador, would join Seadragon on the voyage. Rumor had it he was at least six feet six inches tall, which would be almost too tall for a small submarine and its even smaller bunks and gen
eral living space. (I was six feet four.)

  I further learned we would be joined by several more special riders: Waldo K. Lyon, director of San Diego’s Arctic Submarine Laboratory and a veteran of Nautilus’, Skate’s, and Sargo’s historic voyages to the North Pole. He would be the expedition’s chief scientist, joined by Arthur H. “Art” Roshon, also from the Arctic Submarine Laboratory. Art was the designer of both the iceberg detector and the polynya delineator that Seadragon would use under the ice. Other riders included Walter I. “Walt” Wittmann and Arthur E. “Art” Molloy of the U.S. Navy Hydrographic Office, Washington, DC; Jonathan L. Schere of EDO Corporation, who would operate the upward-beamed fathometer used for measuring ice draft overhead; and Donald C. Alexander and Charles S. Stadtlander of Sperry Corporation, manufacturer of the ships inertial navigation system, which would be used in the Arctic for the first time. A final rider would be Lt. Glenn M. Brewer, an experienced U.S. Navy scuba diver and underwater photographer from the U.S. Navy Photographic Center, Washington, DC.

  As breakfast was concluding, we suddenly heard “Seadragon, Seadragon arriving!” over the 1MC system. We all stood up, and in walked George Steele, our commanding officer. He was a tall, dignified, impressive-looking man. It was obvious that his officers very much liked and respected him.

  I was introduced to the captain, and after a round of coffee he looked in my direction and asked if I would be free to join him in his stateroom for a few minutes. I replied, “Yes, sir!” and followed him when he got up from the table.