Around the World Submerged (14 page)

Two of the latest devices under development we did not yet have in full measure: a really effective way of generating oxygen from the sea, and a dependable means of determining position by gyroscopic instrumentation without celestial observations. Intensive effort had gone into the research and design necessary for a workable and safe oxygen generator for submarine use, and pilot models destined for the Polaris submarines were already being produced. All nuclear submarines carry stored oxygen, compressed in huge steel bottles. Having been completed too soon to have an oxygen generator,
Triton
also carried an extra supply of large “oxygen candles,” similar to those used by miners in some of our country’s deep pits. When ignited, these compounds of sodium, barium, and iron give off intense heat, some smoke, and lots of oxygen over and above that needed to support their own combustion. Appropriately,
they must be set off in an “oxygen furnace,” and lest anyone see in them an answer to some personal or industrial need for oxygen, let him be warned that they are tricky and difficult to handle safely.

As for the gyroscopic navigation system, we had a pilot model for evaluation. Called “ship inertial navigation system,” or SINS, it was designed to measure earth rotation and other normally undetectable forces by means of extra-precise gyroscopes. Automatically it calculates latitude and longitude, and the results appear on dials on the face of a black box. Many a navigator, plagued by fog and bad weather, has thought of inventing such a gadget. As a midshipman at the Naval Academy, I had designed one, too, and, theoretically speaking, it might have worked. Now, many years later, similar computers are used in our ballistic missiles and two of them, “robbed” from missiles, had been placed aboard
Nautilus
and
Skate
for their polar explorations. One of our missions on this cruise was to give our SINS a thorough checkout, continually comparing its computed positions to our own best-determined fixes. When SINS is perfected, the only use a navigator will have for the stars will be for an occasional check—and to preserve one of the ancient and romantic arts of the seaman. This device will someday spell the end of that respected professional, the navigator of the open sea.

After exactly an hour of ventilating the ship, we pulled down the periscopes, shut the induction valves, and went deep again. In
Triton,
the “inboard hull ventilation valve”—our back-up in case the hydraulically operated outboard valve fails—is right outside the Captain’s stateroom, and is shut on diving by the duty wardroom steward. But despite Chief Steward William (“Joe”) Green’s extreme brawn, he could not shut the inboard hull ventilation valve. When I came aft from the conning tower, I found him grunting and heaving, tugging with bulging muscles at the long-handled operating mechanism. Before going deep, the ship had been checked
tight with hydraulic and electric outboard valves both properly shut; thus, there was never any danger of flooding, but this critically important valve could not be closed no matter how hard we tried.

Submarines always have a “backup” for everything, so that a single casualty should not, of itself, spell catastrophe; but one of the reasons why the
Squalus
sank was that when her hydraulic air valve failed to shut, two hand-operated valves in the same tremendous air pipe also could not be shut. About a third of her crew drowned in the flooded after compartments and the rest were rescued through a newly developed diving rescue chamber.
Squalus
herself remained on the bottom for months until she could be raised and salvaged. It is perhaps appropriate to note that within a few weeks of the
Squalus
incident, the British and Japanese navies suffered similar submarine disasters, and in neither of those cases were any personnel rescued.

Triton
’s design featured, among other things, a large, heavy steel plate in the overhead of the “officer’s country”—also right outside my room—which could be removed for inspection of the induction piping. The job took several hours, and the men working on the plate were so cramped for space that they could barely swing a wrench. But the plate finally came off and we found a smashed and rusted flashlight which had lodged in the induction valve seat, its crushed case testifying to the strength in “Joe” Green’s arms. Some careless workman had probably left it there months ago.

Who knows but what some other careless workman, or perhaps a survivor of
Squalus’
crew, may even today carry in his soul the secret knowledge of why a similar valve could not be shut—or unaccountably swung open again—on that dreadful day?

Shortly before noon, Will Adams sought me out, carefully closing the door behind my stateroom curtain before speaking.
“Captain, when do you plan to make the announcement about our trip?” he asked.

“Sometime tomorrow,” I told him. “What’s the hurry?”

“The whole crew is on edge, sir,” Will said. “They know we’re well clear of Nantucket. We should have headed northeast long ago, if we’re really going up north. Continuing on down this way is a giveaway that something is up.” Will paused. “Is there any special reason for not passing the word out now?”

“The only reason left,” I said, “is that if anything were to go wrong we might still have to turn back; and I wouldn’t want to come into port and have the word get out about this operation.”

Will nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said, “but that could happen and wreck the trip any time. The crew knows that something is up and are making up all sorts of rumors.”

“There’s more, too,” I said. “For the time being, if we did have to go back, there would still be a chance to fix whatever is wrong and, by speeding up a little, make the trip on schedule anyway.”

Will nodded, not entirely convinced that staying on schedule was a matter of so much importance. He was my right-hand man, but I couldn’t tell him the one thing which I knew would change his mind.

There was a strain among all the officers, too. I felt it the moment Will and I joined them for lunch. In the wardroom, we resolutely kept the conversation away from this subject, but as the afternoon wore on I realized that regard for the feelings of our men required that they be informed earlier than I had originally intended. This being our first complete day at sea, after an extremely strenuous period of preparation, Will had scheduled no drills. Perhaps this was a mistake; it gave everyone more leisure to think about our prospects. In the meantime, our glorious ship was throwing the miles astern in joyous abandon. Shakedown cruise or no, she was on her way,
and every mile made me all the more certain that here, at last, was a ship which would repay with interest all the heartbreak and unfulfilled promise of
Trigger
II.

It was about four o’clock in the afternoon, I believe, when I finally decided there was nothing to be gained by delaying the announcement any longer. It was easily done, using the ship’s general announcing microphone in the control room.

Everything seemed to stop when I said, sententiously “Now hear this!”

I could sense conversation stopping, people settling themselves to listen, some of them perhaps adjusting the volume of the speakers in their compartments the better to hear. Even the muted clamor of our pumps and blowers, the whirring hundreds of small motors whose continued performance was essential to
Triton’
s survival, seemed to hush—and yet they grew more distinct as surrounding noises subsided even more.

“Men,” I said, “I know you’ve all been waiting to learn what this cruise is about and why we’re still headed southeast. A number of you may have guessed before this that something special is taking place. The amount of provisions we have loaded aboard and the special preparations we’ve had to make have been a tip-off. I know also that you can guess why we have had to keep the real objectives of this cruise concealed until we were well on our way. Now, at last, I can tell you that we are going on the voyage which all submariners have dreamed of ever since they possessed the means of doing so. We have the ship and we have the crew. We are going to go around the world, nonstop. And we’re going to do it entirely submerged!”

If someone had dropped a wrench at that moment it would have sounded like a depth charge. There was absolute silence throughout the ship. My thumb, holding down the microphone button, was aching. I shifted hands, put the microphone to my lips again.

“I know you all realize what a test this is going to be of our
new ship, and of ourselves,” I said. “No ship in the world, so far as I know, has ever made a voyage of such magnitude at the speed of advance which we shall have to maintain. There are many missions to accomplish. We have a regular schedule to meet. There are a lot of experiments to perform, a lot of readings to make, a lot of recordings and data to take. When we get back to the United States, we will be expected to turn in the most complete set of scientific data ever taken by a submarine.” I paused again, wondered why my hands were paining me so, shifted them for the second time, and went on.

“I know I don’t have to remind you of the importance that every man do his duty properly and exactly as required. I know you’ll all do that, for you all realize that upon each and every one of us depends the success of this cruise. I know that no one aboard would like to be the cause of our failure.

“But the cruise goes even farther than that,” I said. “For in a sense it will never end. We, in our ship, are here and now endeavoring to accomplish something of importance for the glory of our country and our Navy. From now on we will be bound together by a shared experience which will be with us the rest of our lives. Little though anyone hearing these words may appreciate it now, if we can make this cruise successfully we will carry from now on the knowledge of having recorded one of history’s great voyages. Regardless of what fate has lined up for us after this, we must remain worthy. For whatever we do, now or hereafter, will reflect upon what we are here starting to do today.”

I paused again, still wondering why the microphone button was so hard to hold down. Both hands were now gripping the mike, thumbs superposed upon each other and squeezing the button as though they could better convey by sheer force the sense of urgency which possessed me. My fingers were trembling slightly and I realized I was perspiring.

It seemed as though there should have been a lot more to say, but somehow this covered it. I made a couple of false
starts, finally put the microphone to my lips again.

“God bless you all,” I said. “My deep thanks for the work you have already done and for the additional work which I know will be performed by everyone on board. That’s all.”

The silence lasted nearly a minute. I could sense everyone drawing himself up, furtively eying the men nearby to see whether any of them revealed the emotions he felt. The unofficial code of the sailor requires that he remain outwardly unaffected by words of praise or blame, condemnation or exhortation. Yet I knew, deep inside, the thrill of the adventure must be stirring in their chests as it was in mine, along with fervent determination to see it through.

It was only a few hours later that my hopes for an uneventful voyage were dashed and my warning premonition of trouble fulfilled. Don Fears, face taut, brought the bad news. “I’m afraid we’ll have to shut down the port engine, Captain. We have a bad leak in one of the condenser circulating pumps—”

“How much water are we making, Don?” I asked anxiously, after he had given me the details of the problem. “How long will the engine be out of commission?”

“Can’t tell yet,” said Don. “The leak is on a main condenser circulating water pump, and there are no valves between it and the sea except the main sea valves themselves. To fix it, we have to take sea pressure off. To do that, we have to close the main sea valves, and that shuts down the condenser. That’s why we have to stop the engine.”

I went back with Don to take a look. It was exactly as he had stated. Although the work was started immediately, the leak was in a very difficult place to reach; several failures were experienced, and it was early morning of the next day before we finally got a patch to hold.

In the meantime, I had become acutely aware of the great versatility of
Triton’
s dual-reactor power plant. With the port engine stopped and locked fast, we were dragging our immobile port propeller through the water like a great bronze parachute. But the starboard engine, unaffected by anything that happened to its mate, was driving away with great ease. Although the leaking pipe caused our port engine to be stopped for over five hours, when the job was done, we had virtually maintained our required speed of advance—losing only a few miles which would be easy to regain.

One of the safety features designed into nuclear ships is a warning siren which sounds piercingly in the engineering spaces when certain important electrical circuits connected with the reactors malfunction. Hardly had the leak been fixed—I seemed to have been asleep less than a minute, though it actually was a couple of hours—when I heard the siren shrieking. Within seconds the engineering messenger had sought me out—as though I needed a special call after
that
alarm! It could signify only one thing; something was wrong with one of the reactors.