THE ICE DIARIES
THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE COLD WAR'S MOST DARING MISSIONBy WILLIAM R. ANDERSON DON KEITHThomas Nelson
Copyright © 2008 Captain William R. Anderson with Don Keith
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-0-7852-2759-5Contents
Preface..............................................................ixIntroduction.........................................................xiiiPART I: A TRUE SUBMARINEChapter 1 The Journey Begins.........................................3Chapter 2 An Audience with the Admiral...............................16Chapter 3 Giving Myself a Job........................................27Chapter 4 Prospective Commander......................................38Chapter 5 Taking the Helm............................................46Chapter 6 The Fourth Great Ocean.....................................57Chapter 7 Periscope in Puget Sound...................................67Chapter 8 Pointing North.............................................75Chapter 9 "You Are Going to Wreck This Program!".....................83PART II: DIVING BENEATH THE ICEChapter 10 To the Edge of the Unknown................................89Chapter 11 Collision!................................................106Chapter 12 Good as New...............................................118Chapter 13 Bow to the North..........................................126Chapter 14 Lost Beneath the Ice......................................133PART III: OPERATION SUNSHINE IChapter 15 Answering the Russians....................................145Chapter 16 A Chance Encounter........................................154Chapter 17 The President and the Admiral.............................161Chapter 18 Poker Face................................................170Chapter 19 Locating Leaks and Fighting Fires.........................179Chapter 20 "Execute Operation Sunshine"..............................189Chapter 21 En Route to England-Via the Pole..........................198Chapter 22 Close Encounter...........................................208Chapter 23 Reverse Course............................................217Chapter 24 Retreat to Pearl..........................................227Chapter 25 Preparing for "Panama"....................................234Chapter 26 The Race Is On............................................243PART IV: OPERATION SUNSHINE IIChapter 27 "The Panama-Arctic-Pearl Shuttle".........................251Chapter 28 Where No Man Has Gone Before..............................262Chapter 29 Point of No Return........................................272Chapter 30 Nautilus 90 North.........................................280Chapter 31 "A Voyage of Importance"..................................283PART V: WELCOME HOME, PANOPOSChapter 32 "Well Done"...............................................297Chapter 33 "The President Is Waiting"................................300Chapter 34 The Sun Shines on Nautilus................................308Epilogue.............................................................333Sailing Rosters......................................................339Index................................................................345Acknowledgments......................................................359
Chapter One
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
Reactor critical is an atomic-age term akin to saying a powerful engine is running. Technically, it means that a controlled, self-sustaining chain reaction of nuclear fission has been achieved within the thick, strong walls of a reactor. Very simply, nuclear fission heats circulating water that makes steam that turns turbines that provide either propulsion or electricity-or both in the case of seagoing vessels. The production of energy by nuclear fission is commonplace today, on land as well as at sea, but it was only a far-reaching concept in 1939, the year I-a farm boy from Tennessee-entered the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
Parallel to my first step toward becoming a naval officer, the federal government, under the auspices of the U.S. Navy, took its first step toward the atomic age by allocating the tiny sum of $1,500 to study nuclear fission and its possibilities. The study confirmed earlier speculation: nuclear reactors had the potential of providing the ideal power for naval vessels. Submarines in particular could benefit because reactors require neither oxygen nor exhaust, and the calibration of fuel, or energy reserve, could be done in years rather than days.
The demands of World War II, however, forced the navy to postpone its atomic dreams. The federal government channeled all nuclear research into the top-secret Manhattan Project, established in 1942 to develop super-explosive atomic bombs.
In the spring of that year, as the war raged in Europe as well as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, my classmates and I prepared for our graduation from the Academy. Under normal conditions we would not have completed our studies until 1943, but to help meet the war's need for naval officers, we remained nominally the "Class of 1943," but we actually graduated in 1942. Cramming a four-year program into three meant extended classroom instruction, reduced leave, and a big cutback of onboard ship training and summer cruises. Still, graduating a full year ahead of schedule agreed with most everyone. Spirits ran high despite the solemn reality that each of us would soon be receiving orders that would likely put us in the thick of war.
As graduation approaches, midshipmen traditionally have the opportunity to state their service or duty preferences. Some choose large surface vessels such as battleships, carriers, and cruisers. Others go to flight school or join the marines. I preferred the smaller vessels, such as destroyers, destroyer escorts, and submarines. At that time, though, submarine duty was not an option straight out of the Academy. Two years of experience on a surface vessel was a qualifying prerequisite. So I was surprised when my roommate, Dunbar Lawson, burst into our room announcing that forty of our class would be allowed to go directly into submarine service. The two-year service requirement had been temporarily lifted due to the demands of war.
I had never been on a submarine, but I rushed to sign up. I think I was the fourth person to do so. Turns out more than forty Academy graduates volunteered, and the navy accepted everyone who met the initial qualifications.
An aspect of submarines that I liked was that it was an all-volunteer service. I figured the commitment and character of the men on board submarines would be of the highest quality found in the navy. I was not wrong about that.
There were a couple of other factors as well. Submarine pay was slightly higher because it was considered to be more hazardous duty. I had also heard the food was the best in the navy.
But what I really liked about submarines was the small number of sailors comprising a crew. It stood to reason that an officer on a submarine would be given more responsibility at a faster pace than on a large vessel; overall advancement in rank usually would be in lockstep with responsibility. I was not wrong about this either.
So, after a sped-up graduation from the Naval Academy, I went directly to sub school in New London. It was there where I boarded my first submarine, an old boat that was being used only for training.
Sub school was also hurried up. Everyone worked seven days a week. Even the married students had to stay on the base every other night. Six months of training were compressed into three. I had excelled in academics during my three years of military school back in my home state of Tennessee before going to Annapolis. I think my class standing at the Academy, roughly in the middle of some five hundred students, however, reflected the attitude of a young man who was tired of classrooms and theories.
Sub school seemed to wake me up. I loved it.
The war in the Pacific gave me plenty of opportunity to put my training into practice. My real education had just begun. I was lucky in every way, particularly in that I always had extraordinarily capable senior and commanding officers as well as shipmates. They set good examples of leadership and conduct that inspired me to do my best. That experience no doubt helped me the rest of my life, and certainly on our Nautilus missions beneath the polar ice.
My initial World War II assignment aboard Tarpon is a good example. After an all-night flight to Pearl Harbor, I reported aboard the submarine and was welcomed by her new skipper, Tom Wogan. Tarpon had already been labeled a "bad luck" boat. She had yet to sink an enemy vessel, even though she had been in the Pacific when the war began and this was to be her fifth official war patrol. Not long into my first run, the submarine's luck appeared to have changed for the better. We encountered a huge Japanese convoy, a long string of targets lined up in perfect position for us to attack. Before we could maneuver for an assault, the enemy apparently spotted our periscope in the calm sea. We were suddenly under a heavy depth charge attack from several destroyers. We managed to get away, but the targets were gone. The rest of the patrol proved equally fruitless.
When we returned to Pearl Harbor, we fully expected the worst. But Admiral Charles Lockwood, the Pacific submarine commander, once again demonstrated his positive leadership style, making a lasting impression on a young officer. Instead of relieving our skipper or castigating the crew, he expressed his confidence in us and told Captain Wogan that he and his crew-including me-had another chance to show what we could do.
Under way for Tarpon's sixth patrol, I had the bridge on the eight-to-twelve watch one night when radar reported a large contact. The target ship appeared to be accompanied by only one escort vessel. I called the skipper to the bridge while I, as officer of the deck, ordered a course change so that the submarine would face the target in order to gauge its distance and course. While still on the surface, we hurried to catch up and then went to radar depth. We quickly lined up for an attack, a four-torpedo spread. Each weapon left our tubes ten seconds apart. This was a tactic designed to give the best possible chance of one or two of our torpedoes striking the target. To our amazement, all four of them exploded. We knew immediately that the vessel was much larger than we had thought, and we also knew that we had sent it to the bottom.
It turned out to be the Tatsuta Maru, an ocean liner that was being used by the Japanese as a troop ship. We also learned that she was bound for the island campaigns with as many as three thousand enemy soldiers aboard.
We sank a second vessel later on that same run, and the combined tonnage made that the best of any submarine patrol in the war to that point. Tom Wogan's perseverance and Admiral Lockwood's faith in him and his crew had paid off handsomely. That was a valuable lesson to observe firsthand.
When we returned to base, Lockwood told Wogan, "Captain, you can have anything you want." Our skipper quickly responded that what he wanted was for as many of the crew as possible to have shore leave back in the States. The admiral obliged.
That reward proved especially fortuitous for Reuben "Woody" Woodall, another Academy graduate aboard Tarpon, and me. We were both in love with our Academy sweethearts and wasted no time getting back to the States to see them.
I had met Yvonne "Bonny" Etzel of Newark, Delaware, through roommate Dunbar Lawson. She soon became my steady date. She was a loyal, charming, and beautiful young lady who on many occasions made the three-hour trip from her school, the University of Delaware, to Annapolis just to be my date at a dance or other Academy event. We quickly fell in love.
After her graduation she became an airline stewardess. At the time that profession required flight attendants to be single. A silly rule at best, it was probably broken many times, including by us. On that short leave to the States in 1943, Bonny and I met in Kansas City, where she was based at the time, far away from family and friends. There we were secretly married.
Reuben went straight to Washington, D.C., and married Peggy Johnston, daughter of Captain Donald H. Johnston, Naval Academy Class of '22. Reuben, a fine gentleman and officer, and I crossed paths many times during the war and have remained lifelong friends, but we were never shipmates again.
Upon my return to Hawaii, I was surprised to find that I had been transferred to Narwhal, an older and larger boat, one of the four submarines that were at Pearl Harbor when the Japanese attacked on December 7, 1941. Her commander-and my new skipper-was to become another strong influence. His name was Frank Latta.
A versatile man and exceptional leader, Latta was well respected by everyone in the submarine service and was very popular with his crew. Since he was a motorcycle enthusiast, the crew members stored a dismantled bike aboard, keeping it serviced and ready to put back together so the skipper could ride it when we arrived in port.
Since Narwhal was larger than most other submarines of that time, we had a special job to do. We were detailed to haul supplies to Philippine guerillas, including guns, ammunition, medical supplies, food, and even counterfeit Japanese invasion currency, an attempt to disrupt the economy of the occupied nation. We also took along ten men, commandos sent to assist the resistance.
At one of our unloading stops, three destroyers surprised us while we were at the dock. With shells from their cannon splashing all around us, we quickly tossed overboard the stores on deck and got out into water deep enough to submerge and attempt to hide. After a rattling depth-charge attack on us, we decided the enemy warships had moved far enough away that we could risk making a run for it on the surface. The Japanese spotted us, though, and quickly gave chase. Latta ordered full speed.
Narwhal was not the fastest submarine in the fleet, and after an hour of getting all we could from her diesel engines, the enemy ships were still in hot pursuit. Our chief engineer, Jake Plummer, not fully aware of our situation, called up to the bridge, "Captain, if we keep up this pace, we won't have any engines left back here!"
Latta's reply was immediate: "If we slow down, we won't need any damn engines!"
Somehow we coaxed a few more turns from those big diesels and managed to get away.
Frank Latta was later assigned to put in commission Lagarto (SS-371), a new submarine under construction. Before he left Hawaii for Wisconsin, where the boat was being built, Frank asked if I would be interested in following him to his new command. I thought the world of Captain Latta and enthusiastically accepted his offer
About three weeks later, however, I received a note from Latta saying that he had asked the navy to assign me to Lagarto, but they had been reluctant to do so. Orders had already been written to another officer to fill the number-three slot on the new boat. The other officer had received those orders. To change them at that time would be extremely disruptive. Captain Latta noted that he had reluctantly withdrawn his request. Tragically, on her second war patrol, with Frank Latta at the helm, Lagarto was lost in the Gulf of Siam with all hands, May 3, 1945. Had fate not sent me in another direction, I could easily have been aboard Lagarto that night.
After my secret marriage in Kansas City, I did not return to the States again for about a year, staying in New London just long enough to help put the USS Trutta (SS-421) in commission before returning to combat in the Pacific. In August 1945, while I was on my eleventh war patrol, two of the atomic bombs created by the Manhattan Project were dropped over Japan. World War II ended abruptly.
Almost immediately Manhattan Project officials turned their focus to other uses of the atom by inviting representatives from the army, navy, and certain defense contractors to assemble at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the "secret" city where development of the bomb was based. The hope was that this group effort would produce a practical, functioning reactor that could be used for peaceful purposes.
Vice Admiral Lockwood, a man I greatly admired, had risen to command the entire Pacific submarine fleet during the war. He recounted years later of attending one of the Oak Ridge status briefings where he heard words that "sounded like something out of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
Also at one of those briefings was another navy man, a wiry engineering officer by the name of Captain Hyman G. Rickover. He was inspired by the possibilities of nuclear energy and saw early on that, as far as the U.S. Navy was concerned, a submarine would be the perfect application. He and members of his loyal group promoted the idea that the navy needed such technology, that it was the future of sea warfare.
It would not be easy. This would be the most difficult application to accomplish. Not only would a reactor have to be designed, it would have to be crafted to be small enough to fit within a submarine's hull. Moreover, the first steam plant to ever propel a submerged vehicle had to be built. Hardly any item or material needed for the job could be purchased. It all had to be developed. Moreover, there were huge maintenance and safety issues that would have to be resolved down the road.
Not to worry, Rickover must have thought. He was an engineer and in his mind enough was already known about the science or physics of nuclear fission; additional theoretical study would accomplish very little. He felt the time was right to define the objective and turn the task over to engineers, allowing them to begin the project in earnest.
Just what was the task? Build a true submarine, the ultimate stealth man-of-war, unencumbered by the limitations of conventional diesel submarines. This ship would not need to surface for months on end. Refueling worries would be a thing of the past. The nuclear reactor would provide virtually unlimited power as well as maintain an atmosphere within the boat that would ensure the safety and health of the crew. It would be a marvel, a real-life energy system that would rival Jules Verne's fantasy.
Rickover worked doggedly for the next six years lining up the political forces and engaging the scientific and engineering talent from civil as well as military sources. They completed the initial crucial steps of that task: development of a reactor by, it turns out, Westinghouse Corporation; authorization from President Truman for a ship to put it in; and an agreement with Electric Boat in Groton to build it.
By the time construction began on Nautilus, I was at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, 150 miles north of Groton, focusing on the construction of another submarine, the conventional diesel submarine USS Tang (SS-563). I was her executive officer (second in command, "exec" or "XO" for short). My job was to check out the boat, monitor the correction of problems, equip the boat with supplies and necessary gear, and assemble and train the crew. I had plenty of help, of course.
It was exciting to read the news accounts of the fanfare surrounding the events on June 14, 1952, the day President Truman laid the keel of the Nautilus. But, very frankly, the promise that nuclear power held for the navy-or me-was not in the forefront of my mind. More urgent and worrisome was the fact that it turned out that I had not been readying Tang for routine, peacetime exercises. By then our country had been at war with North Korea for two years, and I was headed for potential conflict in the Pacific once more.
My primary missions in the Korean theater were reconnaissance patrols and training of U.S. antisubmarine forces. The fighting, if not the war officially, ended in July 1953, a few months after I took command of the USS Wahoo (SS-565). She was my first command and I loved every minute of it. Having held every officer's job aboard a submarine, I state with some authority that the skipper has it the best!
(Continues...)
Excerpted from THE ICE DIARIESby WILLIAM R. ANDERSON DON KEITH Copyright © 2008 by Captain William R. Anderson with Don Keith. Excerpted by permission.
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