Silent and Unseen

by Alfred McLaren

  We were now more than halfway through the Northwest Passage but had yet to encounter the sea ice that normally blocks its more western portions. The real risk for Seadragon would be coming to periscope depth or surfacing in heavy ice for the first time. This would be particularly dangerous if the ice ridges and floes were in motion and colliding and grinding together due to the strong winds typical of the area.

  A major event occurred at 5:12 p.m. on 19 August when we became the first submarine to pass close aboard the North Magnetic Pole, while still navigating Viscount Melville Sound. British explorer Commander John Clark Ross had discovered this much sought-after pole some three hundred miles southeast of our position on 1 June 1831.24 Seadragon followed a zigzag course at a depth of three hundred feet through Viscount Melville Sound so as to chart as much bottom topography as possible in an area that had never been surveyed before. The passage was an easy one because, to our relief, the bottom remained quite regular and the water deep throughout.

  We finally encountered the ice pack at 3:45 a.m. on 20 August at longitude 110º W. Walt Wittmann in his initial report to Captain Steele stated that this much open water in the Northwest Passage had not been seen in modern times.25 There was no doubt that we were well into it now, as indicated by the upward-beamed fathometer. Ten-foot block and brash ice overhead quickly became deep draft ridges every five hundred yards, reaching as much as eighteen to twenty-one feet beneath the sea. Sea ice of six feet in thickness then gradually filled in the space between these ridges such that only occasional open water was seen overhead as a twenty-four-hour rotating ice watch was set. “An impenetrable, stone-like roof blocking us from access to air,” as Captain Steele put it, would, in all probability, be our operating environment until just north of the Bering Strait, several weeks distant.26

  Deep-draft ice keels sixty to seventy-five feet beneath the sea lay overhead as we changed course to the northwest and entered the deeper water of McClure Strait. If calculations were correct, we would pass safely between Melville Island to the north and Banks Island to the south as we headed toward the open Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Ocean. As all in the control room figuratively held their breath for the next several hours, Captain Steele began to read aloud from the story of the investigator and commander Robert McClure.27

  After two hours it appeared certain that the danger of a head-on collision with Banks or Melville Islands had passed. Captain Steele congratulated Al Burkhalter and asked that he let him know when Seadragon had reached longitude 125º W, a line that passed just west of Prince Patrick Island, the northwestern island of the Parry Channel. It was here that our orders called for sending a message changing from the operational control (CHOP) of the commander in chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet (CincLant) and ComSubLant, at Norfolk, to that of commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (CincPac), at Pearl Harbor. Our trip would be made public on receipt of this report. Most importantly to us, our families would finally learn what we had been doing since we left Portsmouth.

  The navigator reported that we would clear the McClure Strait and reach the point at 2:15 a.m. the following morning, 21 August. The captain put the officer of the deck on a three-hundred-yard execute effective at that time. This was a technique developed by the commanding officer of USS Skate, Cdr. James F. Calvert, in 1958 as the first step in surfacing within the Arctic pack ice. It called for being alert for any open water or thin-ice openings: polynyas, leads, or skylights at least three hundred yards long.28 When one was encountered, the officer of the deck was to put Seadragon into a Williamson Turn, designed to return us to the center of this possible surfacing area, and station the polynya-plotting party.

  A long lead was located at 3:40 a.m., and the boat smartly returned to a surfacing point well within it. Captain Steele took the conn and carefully eased us up into a polynya with sharply defined edges. As soon as Seadragon’s sail was awash, Steele raised the periscope, confirmed that all was clear, and ordered the requisite antenna raised. He then gave Chief Radioman John K. Evans permission to inform CincPac at Pearl Harbor that Seadragon had completed the first submerged transit of the Northwest Passage and was “reporting for duty.”29

  USS Seadragon (SSN 584) route through Northwest Passage, August 1960. U.S. Navy

  CHAPTER 10

  Surfacing at the Pole

  Seadragon’s next objective was to achieve the North Pole some 840 nautical miles to the north. Before we could submerge and set course, however, she had to remain on the surface within a quite sizable, 350- by 400-yard polynya for another five hours following the exchange of messages with CincPac. Our task was to install protective steel bars over the cavity in the sail into which the radar mast with its delicate antenna was lowered. Additional bars were also bolted over the bridge cockpit in order to protect the compass repeater and its fittings within. Once completed, we would be fully prepared to avert damage from any heavy ice as we approached the surface or when actually surfacing through or within the ice-filled leads and polynyas en route. The navigator and his team took advantage of a near-perfect day to take a series of sun lines to determine latitude and to firmly fix our position. At the same time, Captain Steele allowed members of an excited crew to come on deck to view, take pictures of, and, most importantly contemplate the magnificent, heavily hummocked ice stretching to the horizon in all directions that we would be operating beneath during the weeks to come. There was no doubt in my mind, as I noted their expressions, that all got the basic message that we needed to ensure that Seadragon emerged safely in the Chukchi Sea on the other side.1

  Once the work was completed, all hands were sent below, deck hatches were shut, and the bridge was cleared. All MBT vents were opened, and Seadragon slipped quietly beneath the ice. We proceeded to a depth of three hundred feet and set course for the North Pole. A course north along longitude 117° W was taken initially. This was followed by a super-imposed broad zigzag course that covered the least known parts of the Arctic Ocean. It was, at the same time, well away from the tracks followed to the North Pole by our predecessors, Nautilus and Sargo.2

  At noon on 21 August, we were well beneath the permanent Arctic pack ice. By the time the off-going officer of the deck, Lt. (jg) Vince Leahy, had reported his relief to the captain, Seadragon was already passing beneath deep-draft pressure ridges, or keels, that reached almost a hundred feet beneath the sea. This exceeded not only the maximum predicted by Walt Wittmann for this area, but also for the Arctic Ocean as a whole. Even-deeper-draft ice keels were encountered as the afternoon progressed. Captain Steele prudently ordered the officer of the deck to proceed to four hundred feet. This gave us a greater safety margin from the very heavy ice overhead should we unexpectedly lose depth control at our present speed of sixteen knots.3

  Visibility was estimated to be on the order of several hundred feet in the pale blue and quite clear polar water. On the bow-mounted underwater TV in the control room, we were continuously treated to a spectacular panorama of the underside of the sea ice that we were the first in history to see. Individual keels like huge claws seemed to probe, one after another, deeper and deeper toward us. The continuous flow of undulating ice as it passed overhead reminded me of low-lying stratus clouds. The thicker portions were blacker and more ominous, except that the outlines of individual floes were much sharper than those of clouds, adding to their sinister aspect.

  Some couldn’t help but think of Sir Hubert Wilkins and his converted U.S. World War I diesel electric submarine, Nautilus, which reached latitude 84° N almost thirty years before, in 1931. It now seems unbelievable that, well into the twentieth century, anyone could have thought that the underside of the Arctic ice pack was perfectly flat, much less believe that a submarine such as Wilkins’ Nautilus would head north for a first transit beneath the Arctic ice pack with much of her topside configured like an inverted sled runner. Just a glance at Seadragon’s upward-beamed fathometer recordings showed that Wilkins’ submarine would have been hopelessly trapped within the irregular
and quite thick under-ice topography of the Arctic ice pack if she had managed to force her way completely beneath the nearest ice floe on that expedition.

  As Seadragon proceeded farther north, the ice cover overhead gradually approached 100 percent. The number of open-water leads and polynyas noted on the upward-beamed fathometer steadily decreased, as did the depth of pressure ridges. To our surprise, however, at about noon on 22 August, Seadragon entered an area where the sea ice seemed to have completely disappeared. This continued for over three miles before the ice pack was reengaged. Investigation at slow speed on another, near perpendicular, axis confirmed that we were beneath a gigantic polynya that was as wide as it was long.4

  We proceeded to the surface at approximately 12:20 p.m. and found ourselves in what could best be termed a large lake that was completely clear of ice. With the exception of a low mist, visibility was good thanks to a brisk northeast wind that generated slight waves.5

  Captain Steele decided to take advantage of what appeared to be near ideal conditions to check out Seadragon’s ability to moor to the thick first-year ice that ringed the polynya, which was approximately six feet thick overall. He ordered Lt. Robert D. “Bob” Doelling, the first lieutenant, to break out two six-foot steel mooring spikes of three-inch pipe and sledgehammers and ferry them over to the ice edge via rubber life raft.6 In the meantime, the chief of the boat, Philip Le Clair, cut loose the mooring lines from the topside lockers where they had been tightly lashed to prevent them from streaming loose and getting entangled in the propellers.7

  The iron mooring spikes were carefully lifted from the life raft and dragged a hundred feet or so onto the ice floe to which we planned to moor. Once in their respective positions, the captain ordered them driven into the ice. This turned out to be a near impossible task, sledgehammers notwithstanding, since the ice was as hard as concrete. After the better part of an hour amid loud cursing and grumbling, the men had driven spikes to a depth of approximately two feet. Light, weighted heaving lines were tossed from the boat to those on shore and used to pull our heavier nylon mooring lines onto the ice where they could be secured to our new mooring posts. Captain Steele brought Seadragon gently alongside the ice edge. The lines were doubled, and the underway watch was secured.8

  Shore leave, as it were, was now granted to all hands not on watch. The crew was told we would be moored for at least six hours. Orange life jackets were required for all going onto the ice. We were instructed to remain within sight and hailing distance of the boat and not to wander off alone at any time.

  As the crew prepared to go out on the ice, a few Arctic-experienced hands had fun cautioning those going ashore about the threat of polar bears. “You won’t be able to see one until it opens its mouth,” they said, supplying vivid descriptions of how a polar bear can quietly sneak up on the unwary by holding one paw over its black nose and mouth, close to within thirty feet, and then suddenly pounce on its intended victim. Human beings, they said, were a favorite food, and a polar bear could smell a human from miles away. Furthermore, they could run at speeds up to thirty miles per hour, so it was wise to go ashore with someone slower than you were.

  Captain Steele noted in his book, “The surface of the ice field was irregular, generally rough, and covered with what seemed to be old snow crystals that crunched when stepped upon. Great lines of upended ice floes over eight feet high marked the pressure ridges/ice keels that we had seen from below.”9 The rafting of one ice floe over another that created these ridges was a result of the unusually high winds that characterized this harsh environment. In addition, refrozen melt ponds and dark pools of water dotted the surface in all directions. Beneath each lay an icy water column that descended some 11,000 feet beneath the sea.10 These partly hidden crevices would pose the most immediate danger for the unwary crewmember if he accidently stepped into one.

  As members of the crew wandered over the ice, the captain gave Lt. Glenn Brewer and his scuba team permission to make their first dive in the near vicinity of the polar ice pack, restricting them to one of familiarization and instructing them, to their disappointment, not to go under the ice at this time.

  Before going out on the ice, I spent a good deal of time in the control room using our new 70-mm periscope camera to record the fantastic scene that surrounded us. The photos I shot that day and other photos taken during the remainder of the voyage were used in the media during the next several decades. Afterward I joined my shipmates in an all-hands snowball fight that erupted during our remaining hours on the surface, soon to degenerate to an inevitable crew-versus–officers and chief petty officers melee. The officers’ side got the worst of it.

  Tired and happy after our lengthy excursion on the ice, the sea and anchor detail was set, the mooring lines were taken on board, and Seadragon got under way. The polynya was so enormous that after a brief detour to the south the captain ordered a course change to due north and increased speed to fifteen knots, certainly the highest speed ever attained on the surface within the polar ice pack. As we proceeded forward with still no ice in sight, we joked about continuing all the way to the North Pole on the surface. The edge of the vast ice pack soon reappeared, however, and we made a normal quick dive to test depth in order to check and record the characteristics of the water column beneath us. We recorded a water temperature of about 38° Fahrenheit at the surface, which decreased steeply to slightly less than 30° at twenty feet beneath the surface. The temperature then remained a steady 30° to test depth.

  Shortly after breakfast on 23 August, the officer of the deck in the control room reported that visibility under water was exceptionally good with extraordinarily clear detail. Deep-draft keels could be seen on the TV reaching down to as much as ninety feet beneath the surface. The movie camera and tape recorder were ordered started to catch as much of this unearthly and strikingly beautiful image as possible.11

  USS Seadragon (SSN 584) crewmembers explore ice pack in Arctic Ocean, August 1960. U.S. Navy

  Captain Steele later ordered the officer of the deck to slow to seven knots and ease the boat up to a depth of 150 feet. Once there, speed was reduced to three knots, and the captain slowly raised the periscope. He was immediately heard to gasp and exclaim as he observed gigantic blue-black masses of ice rush toward and then pass above and over the periscope. Those watching the TV monitor had much the same reaction. It would appear as if we were in imminent danger at first, but the iceberg-detector watch continually reassured all that we were well clear of the massive procession of huge ice boulders that passed rapidly overhead. The captain next called the exec, Lt. Cdr. Jim Strong, to the periscope to observe. He too was startled by the continuously evolving ice display and could only murmur, “What a sight, what a sight!”12 Called to the periscope, our senior scientist, Waldo Lyon, had the same reaction. This veteran of essentially all earlier voyages by U.S. submarines under ice had never seen anything like it, for the simple reason that none of these submarines had been equipped with underwater television.

  Heavy sea ice above USS Seadragon (SSN 584) near North Pole, August 1960. U.S. Navy

  The captain took the time to permit each of our crew of 102 men to observe the unbelievably harsh yet beautiful under-ice topography that continually passed over us. The inevitable submariner’s rough joke was played halfway through when our underwater photographer, Lt. Glenn Brewer, took the periscope. He had no sooner put his eye to it than the whole submarine shook with a heavy, thudding shock, followed by several more shocks in rapid succession. With his eyes wide in horror, Glenn quickly lowered the periscope and almost fell to the deck. He had a near heart attack as the rest of us roared with laughter. The captain had given the weapons officer, Lieutenant Doelling, permission to fire water slugs, using high-pressure air, from the forward torpedo tube just as Glenn put his eye to the scope.

  Once all of the crew and officers had had a good look, we settled into a more normal watch routine as we sped toward the North Pole at a depth of four hundred feet.
<
br />   Seadragon continued transiting at deep depth for the next several days. The vast polar ice pack that passed overhead seemed much like a never-ending grayish white blanket of malevolent-looking clouds. Its general undersea topography was extremely rugged. We encountered many deep-draft keels of over sixty to eighty feet along our route, thrusting downward like sharp talons, ever ready to catch the unwary. We also passed beneath a surprising number of open-water polynyas and leads. One could easily conclude from the latter that a submarine would have absolutely no difficulty locating open water during the summer months should it come to the surface in the event of an emergency.

  Baseball on the Ice

  On 25 August 1960 USS Seadragon reached the North Pole. We were the fourth nuclear submarine to achieve the Pole and the third to surface there. We were now midway geographically through the first transpolar submarine voyage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to Seadragon’s new home port in Pearl Harbor. Our slogan for the voyage was, appropriately, “Under the ice to paradise!”

  Seadragon surfaced early morning within a medium-sized polynya that was surrounded by thick sea ice as far as the eye could see. The skies were clear and the air temperature a bracing 28° Fahrenheit. Only a light cover of snow blanketed the ice. Scattered throughout were small pools of meltwater that had refrozen into clear glass-like ice and huge ridges throughout like seams on a baseball.

  A number of memorable events took place during our brief visit to the North Pole. Captain Steele talked over the radio with the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station located at the geographic South Pole in the Antarctic.13 We also sent scuba divers under the ice at the North Pole for the first time ever. We sent a survival party off to set up camp several hundred yards away from the boat as an exercise in determining how quickly crewmembers could exit the boat in the event of an emergency. The most indelible memory, however, was the first game of baseball ever played at the North Pole.