Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

10

Sunday, March sixth, was a day of rest, well deserved by all hands, and it was noteworthy for a special reason. Our growing concern over our fathometer had caused us to keep a closer-than-usual watch over it and over our regular search-sonar equipment, too. Searching out ahead, to our great pleasure, the latter at 1610 detected something that looked like a fifty-foot peak, or boulder, on the bottom. A moment later, as Triton herself passed over the spot, the fathometer registered the accuracy of the information. It was a comforting thought to know that our search sonar, designed to detect other ships and submarines, might be depended on to give us adequate warning of the approach of shoal water.

For two days, Triton roared toward Cape Horn, driving to make up lost time. On Monday, the seventh of March, we reached the storied Land’s End of the western hemisphere.

I had been giving some thought to how we should make proper observance of our passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific and finally hit upon a simple idea. In the Triton Eagle, I occasionally wrote a column called “The Skipper’s Corner,” to say things which it seemed might best be handled informally. On the seventh of March, therefore, the following entry appeared in “The Skipper’s Corner”:

As for Cape Horn, Triton will make a photographic reconnaissance on it, and then Mr. Roberts will make a National Geographic reconnaissance. Following this, as we cruise by for the 3rd or 4th time, I intend to require every man on the ship to come to the conning tower for a look. It is not a usual thing for a sailor to round the Horn these days. Many spend a lifetime and never do. By far the majority of US Navy sailors have never done it. Quite obviously, if you ever brag about having been around the Horn, the next question will either be, “Did you see it?” or “What does it look like?”

We intend to take a picture and I think it will be possible to make enough copies for all hands. But more than this, I want every man aboard to be able to say he’s seen it. Note: there will be no muster taken. If you don’t want to see the Horn, no one will force you. But you’ll wish you did later, because you’ll probably never get the chance again.

And then, that morning, I let it be known that in the old days, when a sailor went around the Horn, he hoped not to see the fabled Cape. If anyone aboard an old sailing ship, bucking wind and tide to double the Cape, sighted the forbidding promontory looming through the haze, it was considered that bad luck would follow very soon in the form of shipwreck on one of the most inhospitable coasts in the world.

More modern traditions, I announced, were different. A sailor who gazed upon Cape Horn deliberately would experience good luck for the rest of his seafaring career. Not only that, but all sailors who rounded the Horn automatically attained certain privileges denied ordinary mortals (one I did not recommend was that we might all have a pig tattooed on the calf of the right leg). Tradition has it also that sailors who have rounded the Horn may with impunity throw trash and slops to windward, and because of their great victory over the forces of the wind, none of it will ever be blown back into their faces. They also have the traditional right to wear their hats on the side of their heads instead of square above the eyebrows, as is required by Navy regulations (no one may wear it on the back of his head).

We made no muster, but we did keep an unofficial count of the persons coming into the conning tower for a look, in some cases to photograph the famous landmark with their own cameras (which they had been permitted to bring provided all film was turned in for checking). Every man wanted a look, and it was necessary to go back and forth five times in front of the Cape before all hands had had their view.

Triton’s Log for the passage may give some idea of the conditions the old-timers faced in the days of sail.

Our observations of the conditions make it quite clear why it was such a tremendously difficult thing for old-time seafarers to weather this famous Cape. In the first place, though we are safely submerged and comfortable, Triton is rolling rather heavily. There is an unusually rough sea topside. Lt. James C. Hay, recently reported aboard from West Milton, has already established himself as a most competent diving officer—but he is having difficulty in maintaining ordered depth today. Good practice for young officers, and planesmen, too. We estimate the waves as 10 to 12 feet high and the wind about 25 knots from the west.

There are occasional rain squalls and the cloud coverage is rather low to the water. It is also noticed, after a few navigational cuts, that we are being set backwards, to the east, by a current of some 3 knots. Under such conditions it is easy to see how an old wind-jammer, trying to beat her way around the Cape, might find it almost impossible. Heavy winds and a strong current were both dead against her. Even a steamer would have her troubles at a time like this.

Although the conditions we have observed could hardly be called a storm, there is no doubt that any ship riding around Cape Horn on the surface today would be having a rough and uncomfortable trip. By contrast we are comfortable and snug.

Joe Roberts had spent practically his entire life as a photographer, and was one of the National Geographie’s best. He also happened to be endowed with a genial personality which generated real affection on the part of officers and crew alike. An illustration of this was an incident that occurred in the conning tower as we passed Cape Horn. After taking his National Geographic pictures with half-a-dozen expensive cameras which he had slung around his neck, Joe had been about to make room for others by going below, when a sailor with a box camera appeared in the conning tower. Photographing through the periscope is by no means a simple procedure and Joe put down his cameras and other paraphernalia and turned back to help.

Sailor after sailor—and some officers, too—came to the conning tower with cameras, and to each one Commander Roberts patiently showed the tricks of the game, helped calculate and adjust the periscope diopter setting for the particular camera, plus the camera settings for the type of film and the outside light. Money could not have purchased the instruction and assistance these men were getting for nothing, and I wished I had had the sense to bring my own camera.

We had hoped the passage to Easter Island would be uneventful, after the rather strenuous navigation around the Falkland Islands and Cape Horn. I looked forward to a twenty-five-hundred-mile run through deep water, few problems, and a chance to read Thor Heyerdahl’s book, Aku-Aku, in which he describes his search for the origin of the Easter Islanders and his re-erection of one of the stone monoliths. It was, unfortunately, not to be so.

The tremendous capability of the nuclear power plant and the many changes in submarine operating procedures which it requires were brought firmly home the day after we passed Cape Horn, when we held a “loss of all main power” drill. All naval ships are required to carry out such exercises, for the obvious reasons that they develop the crew’s ability to cope with the problem should it occur in battle or as a result of some mishap.

Triton had, however, traveled some two thousand miles at great speed since she had last “gotten a good trim,” as submariners say. She had, moreover, changed from Atlantic waters off the River Plate to Pacific waters on the far side of Cape Horn, and was well on her way toward Easter Island. Our instruments, and those of Nick Mabry from the Hydro-graphic Office in Washington, gave us some idea of the change in salinity of the sea water—generally speaking, the Atlantic side of South America was saltier. We had taken aboard a good deal of water for various purposes, including running our evaporators and keeping our fresh water tanks full, and we had pumped varying amounts of water overboard to compensate for our computed decreased buoyancy.

Prior to the test, Tom Thamm sought me out.

“Captain,” he said, “my calculations show us to be pretty heavy by the time you consider the reduced salinity and the changes which have taken place in our internal weights.”

“Yes?” I said.

“According to these figures we ought to pump out about seventy thousand pounds before we have the drill …”

“Tom,” I interrupted, “aren’t your Diving Officers and Diving Chiefs keeping up with the trim as we go along?”

“Yes, sir, but I made a special computation because of this drill coming off, and that is what the figures show.”

This would be an opportunity for a good lesson, I thought. “Permission not granted, Tom,” I said. “The sort of casualty that we’re simulating might happen at any time, and we would have to face it with the conditions existing at that time. Suppose we really were to lose all power right now, rather than an hour from now after you get all this water pumped out?”

I had Tom there and he knew it, though I could see that he did not fully approve. “Aye aye, sir,” he said. “I’ll stand by in the control room just in case.”

I grinned at him. Tom was a perfectionist who didn’t want to have anything go wrong in his department. If the ship were too badly out of trim, a short blast of high-pressure air in the main ballast tanks was the quickest way of expelling a lot of water and stopping her descent. Then, the air in the tanks would have to be vented off—partly, at least—as we came up. Otherwise, with reduced external pressure as the ship rose to shallower depths, the air in the tanks would expand even more, thus still further lightening her. Blowing precisely the right amount to balance exactly could not be guaranteed, and several blowings and ventings would undoubtedly be required before the trim pump could get rid of enough water. And later, Curt Shellman’s carefully tended air compressors would have to perform considerable extra work to recharge the air banks.

In the unlikely event that Tom was wrong, that the ship was light instead of heavy, water would have to be taken in rapidly in order to keep her from broaching surface; but with the aid of sea pressure, this is always a much easier thing to do than to pump it out.

The particular problem that faced us had almost never been experienced in battery-driven submarines, for these normally operate at minimum speed while submerged in order to conserve their vitally important batteries, and any divergence from a perfect submerged trim is instantly evident. As a consequence, all old-fashioned submarines automatically stay in perfect trim, practically as a reflex action, whenever they operate submerged. Being even slightly out of trim causes difficulty in maintaining depth at slow speed. But at our sustained high speed, a few hundred tons of extra weight, or buoyancy, would be unnoticeable—until we slowed down.

Everyone in the ship was up and around during the drill period, late-sleepers among the off-watch section having been jolted into consciousness by the daily test of the ship’s various alarm systems, which had been programmed for fifteen minutes prior to the beginning of the exercise.

At the agreed-upon time, I, too, was in the control room, as were Will Adams and Tom Thamm. At my signal, Will picked up the telephone and spoke briefly to Don Fears, who, naturally enough, just happened to be in number one engine room.

Immediately, a strident voice bellowed on the ship’s general announcing system. “Control, this is Maneuvering One. We’ve lost all power, both shafts.”

I watched the engine-order telegraph indicators on the Diving Control Panel shift swiftly from “ahead full” to “stop.”

For a moment, nothing else happened, though I knew our propellers were now only pinwheeling with the ship’s motion through the water. Dick Harris, who had the Diving Officer’s watch, stepped a few inches closer to his planesman; all three were intently scanning the instruments in front of them. Seated on the padded tool box in front of the fathometer, Tom Thamm was doing the same, while two feet farther aft, Chief Engineman E. C. Rauch had squared himself away in front of his Diving Panel and crushed out his half-smoked cigarette.

Elsewhere in the ship, wherever there was a critical station, I knew that the men on watch were standing by to take whatever action might be necessary, and because this was a scheduled drill, at every station there also stood, as observers, the off-watch personnel, the senior petty officer in charge, and the officer responsible.

We had been making just under twenty knots. As the ship slowed, I knew that both Dick and Tom were watching the depth gauges and the plane-angle indications for the first sign that we were, as everyone suspected, considerably heavier than the water we displaced. We waited a long minute, as Triton slowed and her bow and stern planes gradually lost effect. Suddenly, Harris reached his hand out behind him, motioned toward Rauch. “Pump auxiliaries to sea!” he snapped.

I had not seen yet any indications of the ship’s being heavy. “How do you figure we’re heavy, Dick?” I asked.

“Mostly intuition I guess, Captain,” he replied. “There’s really no sign here yet, but I know darned well she’s heavy.”

Another minute passed. We had slowed perceptibly and now it became evident that to hold the ordered depth, the planesmen were required to maintain up angle on both bow and stern planes.

“We are heavy, all right,” I said.

From Harris my response was a tight-lipped smile, but it was Third Class Quartermaster Roger A. Miller, standing watch on the bow planes, who put it into words with a deep-toned whisper which caromed off the deck and bulkheads and brought amused smiles to everyone within earshot.

“This old hog sure has lead in her ass!” said he, as he lifted the bow planes another five degrees.

As speed dropped off rapidly, bow and stern planes soon were at the maximum angles of elevation and then, inexorably, Triton began to sink. In the meantime, Rauch, checking the rate-of-flow meter, was monotonously calling out the amount of water we pumped overboard: “5,000 out—7,000 out—10,000 out, sir—12,000 out—15,000 out.”

Dick made no motion to stop him. Triton’s speed through water had by now dropped to only three or four knots; she was still on an even keel, but the depth gauges were showing a gradually increasing speed of descent.

It was apparent soon that we should not be able to get enough water out of the ship before she had exceeded the maximum depth to which we were allowed to submerge her. Deliberately I waited as long as possible, then finally nodded to Dick, “I guess we won’t be able to catch her, Dick. Blow tanks.”

“Blow forward group! Blow after group!” Dick had the orders ready.

So did Rauch, whose fingers were already on the main ballast blow valve switches. With two quick motions, high-pressure air was roaring into Triton’s main ballast tanks. Dick waited until he saw our downward motion perceptibly reduced, then gave the clenched fist signal to Rauch at the same time as the order, “Secure the air!”

The noise of air blowing stopped. We had lightened the ship by several hundred tons, and Triton’s involuntary dive stopped well above the allowed limit. But this was not the end of the episode.

The depth gauges now started going in the other direction. Triton was rising to the surface, slowly at first and then with increasing speed. We had placed a large air bubble in our main ballast tanks which, like uncorked bottles inverted in the water, were open at the bottom and closed at the top. It was impossible to gauge the amount of air that had to be blown into the tanks so as to put the ship precisely and exactly in equilibrium at a given depth.

Having put enough air into the tanks to stop the descent, it was apparent that the ship would now rise. As she rose, however, the size of the air bubble increased as the sea pressure reduced; and as the air bubble increased in size, it pushed even more water out through the bottom of the ballast tanks, thus making Triton still lighter. In this condition, we would continue to lighten and rise faster until we reached the surface.

Once, during the war, with the old Trigger leaking badly and surrounded by Japanese destroyers listening for us to start our pumps, we had survived just such a situation by putting an air bubble in one of our tanks and then either venting it slowly into the ship (we dared not use the main vents, which would have loosed a betraying bubble of air to the surface) or blowing it carefully. With the desperate skill of emergency, for fifteen hours Johnny Shepherd maintained precise control of our depth, as the accumulated leakage of water gradually made us heavier and heavier, until finally we outlasted the enemy. We had not dared to relieve Johnny.

The situation here was far less tense. There was no enemy; we could afford to let air bubbles come to the surface. Our only problem was to control the size of the bubble in our tanks to keep from broaching surface on the one hand or going too deep on the other.

As Triton ballooned upward, I watched silently for signs of the required action. It is for situations like this that men are qualified in submarines. With approval, I saw Rauch keeping his eyes on Harris, his hand already resting lightly on the controls for the main vents. Thamm was watching, too. Triton rose at an ever-increasing pace and finally Dick gave the order: “Open main vents.”

I could hear the vent mechanism operating and all of us heard the rush of the entrapped air as it escaped from the tank. But Dick was still watching the depth gauges, “Shut main vents,” he ordered. His objective was to catch some of the air still inside the tanks in order to retain some of the resulting buoyancy. In the meantime, with approval, I noted that he had not ordered Rauch to stop the trim pump, that we were still pumping water from the midships auxiliary tanks to sea.

Triton’s rise toward the surface ceased rather abruptly. By this time, we had no forward motion through the water at all. With the ship badly out of trim, she was controllable in depth only by the constant buoyancy of her great hull, plus the variable buoyancy of the expanding and contracting volume of air in the ballast tanks. Undersea ballooning was an apt simile.

But Dick had let out too much air, for Triton was now heavy and began to sink once more; as she sank, the air bubble remaining in the ballast tanks would be further and further compressed, with the result that the ship’s buoyancy would continue to reduce and she would now progressively descend faster and faster—though slower than the first time. Dick was ready for this, however, and after we had sunk some little distance, he again ordered that tanks be blown, but for a considerably shorter time than before. Again, Triton halted her descent and began to rise; and, as she neared the surface, Dick opened the ballast tank vents and allowed most of the air to escape.

In the meantime, we had continued pumping water out of the ship. Gradually, our wild gyrations lessened as we got her correctly trimmed. With ballast tanks again full of water, no air trapped in them, Triton finally hovered, motionless, balanced precariously with her internal weight exactly equal to that of the water displaced.

It might be well to explain at this point a fact that submariners know well, but which may not be so well known to others: it is impossible for a submerged body to be so delicately trimmed or balanced that it will remain indefinitely static, neither rising nor falling. Despite fanciful tales written by people who do not know their physics, things cannot just sink part way. A submerged submarine has no reserve buoyancy; that is to say, she gains no additional buoyancy by sinking a little deeper in the water (a surface ship, passing from more-dense to less-dense water, increases imperceptibly in draft). If an eight-thousand-ton submarine is one pound heavier than the water she displaces, she will slowly sink. The deeper she goes, the greater the pressure; even the strongest hull will be slightly compressed, thus reducing the volume of displaced water and increasing the disparity between her weight and that of the water displaced. She will go all the way down until she reaches the bottom. Conversely, a submerged submarine one ounce light will ultimately broach the surface. The only exception to this rule occurs when there is a layer, or stratum, of heavier water underlying a lighter layer. In this case, the submarine can “balance” on the boundary between the two, as long as the dissimilarity continues to exist. This is known as “riding a layer.”

It is true that a submarine almost in perfect trim—as near to perfect trim as it can possibly get—might very very slowly sink in water of a certain density until it reaches a layer of water considerably cooler or more saline than the one for which trimmed, and there she will stay for a while. Ships have been known to ride thus, suspended between two layers of water of dissimilar densities, for many hours. There have even been stories about balancing a submarine so skillfully that the slight increase in displacement gained by raising a periscope would cause her slowly to drift toward the surface, and sink slowly when the periscope is withdrawn inside its bearings, but, practically speaking, such situations are rare and highly temporary.

The submarine riding on a layer will maintain depth so long as all the factors affecting her equilibrium remain exactly the same. But they never do. Considering the many changes constantly taking place in the weight of the submarine, due to leakage through propeller shaft glands, to name one unstoppable source, or water taken in by the evaporators, for instance, it is certain that within a short time the sub’s trim will change. In all cases, the change is in the direction of becoming heavier and, without the intelligent hand of man, she will shortly resume her descent. Nothing, in other words, can float without control between the surface of the sea and the bottom.

Davy Jones might have been perturbed had he observed Triton, the world’s greatest submarine, slither to a halt and commence a series of astonishing gyrations in depth, accompanied by a frenetic blowing and venting of air and grinding of pumps. He would indeed have been justified in suspecting something to have gone seriously wrong. Such was, however, far from the fact. We were well pleased with the results of our drill, which showed that we had more than adequate control of our huge ship, even under the hazardous conditions which result from a complete loss of power; and after a short time, the mock-casualty restored, Triton’s great propellers began to turn purposefully once more and she settled down on her course to the northwest at a speed faster than any submarine had ever traversed these waters.

According to Triton’s Log, it was next day, at about ten-thirty at night, when a calamity of very real proportions confronted us. Intimation of the problem came when Don Fears called me on the ship’s service telephone in my room. For a few days we had had a severe leak around the starboard propeller shaft, which had been growing steadily worse. Now, as Don put it, it was no longer incidental, but of some magnitude. Fears and Curt Shellman were both in the lower level of the engine room, and I got there as soon as possible.

Spotting the leak was easy. Great sheets of water were spurting out around the periphery of the flange and gland through which the propeller shaft passed into the sea, driving a solid white spray perpendicularly outward from the shaft itself around 360° of its circumference, soaking the overhead of the platform deck above, the curved side of the ship outboard of the shaft, and the tiny walk deck. A heavy canvas dropcloth had already been rigged to protect the machinery near the leak, while Curt Shellman and three of his engineers, all of them drenched, were struggling perilously close to the rapidly revolving propeller shaft in their effort to stem the flow of water.

The tremendous racket produced by the hydrantlike force of water striking deck plates and other structures in the engine room made it almost impossible to talk. I put my mouth next to Don Fear’s ear and shouted, “Good Lord, Don, how long has it been this bad?”

Fears looked serious and shouted into my ear in turn. “This is why I called you, Captain. The leak we had before was getting slowly worse and I was thinking of calling you anyway, then suddenly she broke loose.”

“What is the trouble?” I yelled.

Don shook his head. “Don’t know for sure, sir. Curt and his people have been right on it, though. Maybe we’ll have an answer pretty soon.”

“You can’t handle this with the drain pump, Don,” I shouted, enunciating slowly and carefully above the din. “We can’t let these bilges get too full!”

Don nodded understandingly. “We have the drain pump on the line already, Captain, but I think you’re right. The pump won’t be able to keep up with this flood!”

Quite apart from the ultimate safety of the ship herself, if this huge leak could not be stopped, there was a lot of electrical equipment and other delicate machinery in the engine room which would be damaged if the water level rose too high.

“Don,” I said, “we’ll have to stop the starboard shaft. That will help some. At least it will let Curt get closer to the problem. I don’t like him working around the shaft like that while it’s turning.”

Don nodded, shouting in my ear. “Maybe we could come to a shallower depth, too, Captain. That would reduce the pressure and cut down the leak some.”

I assented. It took but a second to dash up the ladder to the upper level, find a telephone, and call the Officer of the Deck. In a moment, the starboard propeller shaft began to slow down, and at the same time the ship angled gently upward. In deference to the amount of water already in the bilges, which would all be concentrated in the after end if too steep an angle were assumed, I had told the Officer of the Deck to bring her up handsomely—that is, slowly and steadily, with good control.

As the outside water pressure was reduced, the leak correspondingly decreased. Shellman cast me a grateful look. I beckoned to him. “Curt,” I said, “we are locking the shaft so that it can’t turn. This will let you get closer to it, at least.”

Shellman was mopping his face with a rag. “Thanks, Captain. I was about to ask if we might do that. I’m afraid to put somebody outboard of the propeller shaft because there’s not much clearance between it and the skin of the ship.”

He did not need to say more. There was perhaps a foot-and-a-half clearance between the propeller shaft and the curve of Triton’s pressure hull or skin. As I watched the propeller shaft come to a complete stop, there came into view a great bolted coupling by which two sections of the shaft had been joined together. The huge coupling had been rotating previously in a sort of a blur, its machined edges a lethal hazard while the shaft was turning.

With the shaft at a complete halt, Curt and Chief Engine-man Fred Rotgers climbed on top, braving the reduced spray of water, while “Rabbit” Hathaway, a compactly built Engine-man, squirmed under the shaft and into the confined space.

Several minutes later we had the answer. The spit of anger in Rotgers’ voice as he reported the basic cause of the problem was not all due to the salt-water bath he had just experienced. “The _____ nuts on the far side of the gland are so loose you can turn them by hand,” he spluttered.

“How about the locking washers, Chief?” asked Shellman.

“I sure didn’t see any. That’s why they loosened up!” Rotgers glared as he spoke. It was evident that whoever had installed these bolts would have fared badly had the powerful Rotgers been able to get his hands on him at that moment.

“There are locking wires on the inboard side of the gland,” reported Shellman, after a brief inspection.

Further investigation showed that loose bolts were not the end of the trouble. The propeller shaft water seal had been improperly installed, that is, not made tight, either because of the difficulty in reaching some of the bolts or through lack of locking devices. Under the vibration and stress of continual high speed, complication had followed upon complication. Looseness of the bolts on the outboard side had permitted the packing gland to become partially cocked on its seat, and now, tighten the bolts as we would, it remained jammed in a cocked position and could not be straightened. We heaved on the nuts with the biggest wrenches aboard, to the point where Curt feared further pressure might distort or damage the parts even more, but there was no stemming the leak.

Not sure, in fact, whether or not some improvement might have been made, we eased Triton down again into the depths, and the resulting effect, with the greater pressure outside, was striking, to say the least.

We had obviously not solved the problem. The next step was to put an emergency clamp around the leak, utilizing three damage-control clamps which had been designed for small patches, not for anything as massive as this. Down we went for a test again, but the pressure of the water was so strong that it simply pushed the clamps apart.

Midnight had long given way to morning as Curt Shellman, Fred Rotgers, Clarence Hathaway, and others struggled with the leak in the confined space. The watch had changed at midnight and again at four o’clock, but Shellman, Rotgers, and company stayed on the job. Two solutions were decided on: first, we would try to reinforce the three damage-control clamps which had failed; second, we would design an entirely new clamp, sacrificing for the purpose a section of molding from the wardroom passageway, which happened to be made of corrosion-resisting steel and was, by good fortune, of sufficient size for our use.

By breakfast time the first try was in place, damage-control clamps with backing plate for reinforcement. It had been a long, back-breaking job, performed in tight quarters under the most unfavorable conditions, with water squirting in under pressure the whole time the men worked. When we unlocked the propeller shaft for a full-fledged test, Curt Shellman’s naturally haggard face assumed an even more worried expression, the deep circles under his eyes standing out almost as though the difficulty had caused him physical suffering. But all went well; the leak did not increase beyond manageable size, the drain pump was able to take care of the water leakage without difficulty, and Shellman permitted a half-smile to wrinkle the deep bags under his eyes. At noon, Fears reported that the modified clamp would hold, for the time at least, and that our newly manufactured one would be held in reserve.

Entry from the Log dated 12 March, 1960:

0020 Our fathometer is out of commission again. This is bad news. It has been giving us trouble off and on for the past several days. Each time, however, we have brought it back into operation. This time, as our electronics technicians and sonarmen check it over, they actually record the gradually decreasing installation resistance in the head. It appears to be flooded.

Ever since the initial difficulty with the fathometer, “Whitey” Rubb and Dick Harris had been giving me daily reports as to its condition, and I was well aware of their increasing fears as to its performance. All the instruction books we had on board for the fathometer had been pored over, and in anticipation, we had checked over the stock of electronic spares on board the ship, the back-up for all the complicated electronic-control equipment with which Triton was fitted. All spare parts which could conceivably be used in the fathometer—tubes, resistors, crystals, power amplifiers—all, no matter what type of equipment they were originally designed for, had been located, so that we could substitute as necessary.

As the careful watch over the fathometer continued, our worries increased. The receiver crystals had again burned out, and our new transformer had gone, too. Both were abnormal casualties, and it appeared that the basic trouble was not in the electronic hookup of the fathometer, but in the installation of the fathometer head itself. This, unfortunately, was something with which we could not cope, even were the ship on the surface. We could, and did, take resistance and capacitance readings of various components through the electrical connections inside the ship to which we had access. But so far as inspecting the head, possibly eliminating a leak or replacing a bad component with a good one, we were completely helpless.

By 0200, complete loss of the fathometer was confirmed. Another set of crystals, just replaced in the receiver, had immediately burned out, and there was no question that the fathometer head itself was the cause. Chief Sonarman George McDaniel reported that while he was measuring the resistance to ground he recorded a rapidly reducing resistance to the point where the sonar head was completely grounded out.

All submarines are plagued with inability to maintain topside wiring free of water. A great number of cables must come through the pressure hull and therefore, over some percentage of their length, must be exposed to full sea pressure. Despite great care in installation, there are always some that flood, either through an unsuspected fault in the pressure sealing of the cable itself or because of improper installation. New ships, because of their miles of cabling, always have the greatest difficulty keeping their wiring dry.

Realizing that we would have to complete the rest of our cruise without a fathometer, a serious period of self-analysis faced me. Could we safely finish the trip without danger of running aground on some uncharted shoal or damaging the ship by striking bottom in one of the restricted passages we would later be required to navigate?

It was not as though this had suddenly become a consideration at four o’clock on the morning of the twelfth of March. I had been thinking it over ever since the first difficulty with the fathometer had arisen, and had generated some experiments with our search sonar and Mike Smalet’s “monkey in a cage”—our name for his gravity-metering gadget.

Even before it finally broke down, I had become convinced that despite the loss of the fathometer we could still proceed along our way. Our search sonar reliably detected shallow water ahead and on either side, and particularly gave us immediate warning of sudden changes in the depth of the ocean bottom. Smalet, who was as anxious as anyone that the trip proceed successfully, had advanced the theory that although unexplained anomalies in the earth’s crust had an effect on gravity, it was also true that gravity was fundamentally a function of mass and distance. A perceptible increase in gravity should therefore coincide with a reduction in the depth of the ocean, and vice versa. We had been trying out his theory whenever there was an opportunity, and to our delight found that there was indeed some such correlation.

However, a more subtle question had to be answered: should I report our trouble?

By this time, we had passed into the operational control of ComSubPac, whose headquarters were in Pearl Harbor. What would be his reaction upon receiving a message from the Triton stating that her fathometer was out of commission? What indeed would be the reaction in the Pentagon? It was in a sense my duty to report our problem, but would I not, in so doing, be passing on responsibility I should assume myself? How could any admiral in Pearl Harbor or Washington or New London evaluate the situation as well as I could? Unable to see the situation at first hand, might they not be obliged to adopt the cautious course?

In short, if I simply reported the loss of the fathometer without all the amplifying considerations we had so laboriously developed in the past week and a half, was there not a good chance that we should be ordered to cancel the remainder of our trip and proceed directly to Pearl Harbor for repairs?

This question, with all its nuances, was the big one. In final analysis, I felt continuation of our expedition depended as much upon my decision at this point as on anything we had done to date. Well I knew the Navy tradition; on the Captain rests the responsibility for the right decision. And well I remembered what had happened to Father after the Memphis had gone aground in Santo Domingo harbor. The cause had been a tidal wave—unpredictable, therefore something against which one could not have been prepared. Pacing the deck of his ship on a warm, pleasant afternoon, at anchor with awnings rigged, gangways down, and liberty parties ashore, he had been the first to see danger. Within forty minutes, mast-high breakers swept in from the peaceful sea and Memphis was cast ashore on a coral reef, a total wreck. Father was exonerated of all blame for the catastrophe, except the impossible responsibility for not having anticipated a tidal wave. (Technically, “not having been ready to get underway immediately.”)

This was, in fact, the major contention upon which his court martial eventually turned. In the crux of the decision, which the court, true to Navy tradition, could not but render against him, was the statement that nothing could divest the Commanding Officer of the ultimate responsibility for the safety of his ship. A comparable responsibility now burdened me.

Breakfast was served as I wrestled with the problem. This was not something that anyone else on board the Triton should be concerned with, but the more I thought of it the more certain I became that here, even more surely than off Montevideo, success or failure of our voyage lay in the balance.

Much has been written about the so-called “calculated risk,” but one of the considerations or calculations which cannot be neglected is that if failure is encountered, the penalty is no less severe than if the risk had been assumed without forethought.

All the training the Navy had given me, all the background of the Naval Academy and my years at sea, could lead to only one conclusion. As in Father’s case and in every similar case, the final responsibility is on the Commanding Officer. I had to make the crucial decision, and it had better be the right one.

I resolved not to report our difficulty. Come what might, we would carry on and complete the voyage. Furthermore, I could not permit our situation to be fully appreciated by anyone else aboard. This load, like that of our special mission, could not be shared with anyone.

At 0105 on the morning of March thirteenth, our search sonar made contact with a submerged peak. Without the fathometer or the precision-depth recorder—which received its data from the fathometer—we were unable to determine the minimum depth of water over this peak.

We could not, consequently, predict how much water we had to maneuver in. In accordance with instructions, the Officer of the Deck slowed and changed course to avoid. We did so with ease, passing the shallow area well abeam and continuing on our way. Probably our caution was excessive, but my confidence in our ability to detect and avoid shallow water was confirmed.

At five o’clock in the morning, we brought Triton to periscope depth. Easter Island should be dead ahead.

From the Log:

0512 Radar contact on Easter Island at bearing and range predicted.

As we approached land, to my gratification our search sonar indicated a gradual shoaling of water as we moved steadily toward the island. Because of loss of depth of water information and in deference to the three-mile limit, we had decided to stay well clear of land.

From the Log:

0706 Commenced photographic reconnaissance of northeastern coast of Easter Island. About 0930, after careful search of the area, Thor Heyerdahl’s statue is located, right where he said it was. Several other old stone heads have been sighted, none clearly identifiable from a distance, but there is no doubt about this one. The word is passed throughout the ship that anyone wishing to see a stone statue had better come to the conning tower.

In no time at all there is a regular procession of men coming up for periscope liberty, as was the case off Cape Horn. The statue faces inland and not much can be made out of its features, but the morning sun glints in orange and crimson upon the angular granite—and many details are filled in by our imaginations, reinforced by Heyerdahl’s book.

In the meantime we have been carefully searching the shore and slopes of Easter Island to detect any movement of people or any possibility of our periscope being spotted. The possibilities are remote; not many island people spend much time gazing at the unchanging landscape of the South Pacific ocean. Nevertheless it is a possibility—but search as we may, not a single moving creature is seen on the island. A number of habitations are seen, one, not far from the statue, consisting of a small but attractive pink stucco house surrounded by well-tended foliage and an apparently nicely graded dirt road.

1116 Took departure from Easter Island enroute Guam, 6734 miles distant.

This was Sunday, and it was my turn to be the leader at the Protestant church services. I had never led any type of religious meeting before this, and put in a considerable amount of preparation. I called my “lesson” “Shipmate means sharing,” and tried to describe in simple terms the duty I felt was owing from one shipmate to another.

My little talk appeared to be well received; under the circumstances it could hardly have been otherwise, but I could not help feeling that the events of the last few days had proved not all things could be shared.