Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

2

At 4:22 A.M. on the morning of October 1, 1958, we faced our first trial. The nuclear fuel had not been loaded in the ship, but many of the steam-generating components were installed and were being tested. Steam from an Electric Boat boiler was being led into number two reactor compartment to test a stand-by condenser. Lieutenant Commander Leslie B. Kelly, prospective Engineer Officer, was on board and supervising. Engineman First Class John R. Thomas was in immediate operational control, assisted by Engineman First Class James T. Lightner. As is common with ships under construction, the compartment was haphazardly strewn with heavy timbers and other working gear.

In the corner of the compartment, Ralph Harris, Engineman Second Class, Kelly’s telephone talker, wore a telephone headset with earphones. In the center of the compartment stood one or two civilian employees of the Electric Boat testing gang. At this juncture, Thomas instructed Lightner to open one of the valves to the stand-by condenser. After he had done so, Lightner bent over to inspect the indicator at the side of the valve to see whether it was fully open, thus, by great good fortune, removing himself from the direct line of die valve stem. The very moment he did so, without any warning, stem and valve wheel shot out of the valve body and hit the steel overhead of the compartment with such force that the steel valve wheel was bent. Great vapor clouds whistled from what was now a direct opening into the steam line, and within seconds the compartment was full of scalding steam; visibility was zero.

Les Kelly immediately assumed charge of the situation. “Secure the steam!” he bellowed, his voice rising above the noise. The main valve was promptly shut, but high-pressure steam continued to spew from the hole in the line until the trapped vapor had been reduced to atmospheric pressure. Kelly quickly ordered that necessary action be taken to safeguard the plant and machinery. Then he directed the compartment to be evacuated and the watertight doors shut. The two Electric Boat workers dived out the forward hatch. Thomas, half-supporting Lightner, who had been scalded about the face and hands, came out aft. Kelly, quickly checking the compartment to see that it was clear, also proceeded aft, and was the last man out—or so he thought.

Calling a muster of all hands, checking by telephone with the forward compartment to see who had left by that exit, Kelly was dismayed to find one man not accounted for. Harris was evidently still inside the steam-filled compartment. Without hesitation, Les dived back through the watertight doorway, calling and groping for Harris in the blinding vapor. Feeling his way back to the spot where he had last seen him, Kelly discovered Harris crawling on the floor, scalded and temporarily blind, groping his way toward the exit. In a moment, the two men were back outside.

Both Harris and Lightner were hospitalized. Neither was seriously injured, fortunately, and both returned to duty within a few days. Les Kelly’s dive into the steam-filled compartment was the act of a brave man. A few more minutes of steam inhalation would have seriously injured or killed Harris, and of course Les ran the same risk. It was a pleasure to recommend him for a life-saving medal.

As a result of an investigation to discover why the valve stem blew out under pressure, a new valve was designed to make this mishap impossible in the future; all submarines with similar installations made similar changes.

In April, we experienced an accident which might have had even more serious consequences. A fire broke out in the ship’s galley from an improperly installed deep-fat fryer, and within minutes flames, sucked by fans, broke out in the ship’s ventilation lines in the immediate vicinity. Most of the Electric Boat civilian personnel rushed out immediately to notify the fire department, but one man, A. B. Evans, remained behind, aiming smothering streams of carbon-dioxide from a fire extinguisher at the base of the flame. The men from Triton’s below-deck watch, George W. McDaniel, Sonarman First Class, and D. R. Quick, Engineman Second, swung rapidly into action. The ship’s Duty Officer, Lieutenant George A. Sawyer, Jr., had just completed his midnight inspection of the ship and had returned to our temporary headquarters on a barge moored nearby. Aroused by telephone, he mobilized all the temporarily off-watch people in the duty section and had them aboard Triton within a few minutes.

Lieutenant Tom Thamm, Engineering Duty Officer aft, ran forward to see what help he could give, calling up all the men he could spare from his test program. (It was impossible to leave this entirely untended.) Seizing fire axes, the Triton crew chopped away at the ventilation line, where the fire now was blazing furiously. Quick had stopped the ventilation fans, thus reducing the oxygen supply to the flames, and duty-section electricians cut off all electricity in the area, thus removing the basic source of the fire. Others set up temporary ventilation ducts to remove the acrid fumes and smoke from the space.

Firemen arrived within minutes, but the fire was already out. Estimated cost of the repair to the ruined galley was fifty thousand dollars. Had the fire been allowed to rage unchecked even five minutes longer, the loss might have been nearer a million dollars.

These two incidents, the faulty steam valve and the galley fire, illustrated the kind of thing that can happen to a ship going into commission. In each case, had our ship’s company not been present, the damage would have been much more severe; serious injury or even loss of life could have resulted.

But naval ships, building or already built, are not supposed to have fires. Proper checking of the deep fat fryer before the test should have turned up the faulty wiring. For two days I worried over the barbs I could expect from the “Kindly Old Gentleman,” Admiral Rickover. But when he finally telephoned, he was friendly and understanding, asking whether there would be any delay in our testing program or in meeting our date for sea trials. When I assured him there would be no delay, he enjoined me only to investigate the causes of the accident and be sure they were eliminated. I told him this was already being done, and he hung up the phone.

Some time in February our first reactor received its load of precious nuclear fuel. As “Officer-in-Charge,” I signed the inspection report and somewhat nervously acknowledged responsibility for a reactor core worth several million dollars. As soon as it was received, the uranium fuel was stored beneath a headplate weighing twenty tons, and, though it has been partially used up, I am very sure it is still there.

Every man in the ship was anxious to be free of the building yard when the construction work and test program were finally finished. Triton’s hatches were then shut, the gangways connecting our ship to the docks were removed, and we warped her bodily out into the slip between our dock and the next. In this position we spent the next four days, secured tightly by seven heavy cables to the docks on either side, yet to all intents and purposes at sea.

We called this long drill period a “fast cruise,” and it deserved its name in more ways than one. We were fast to the dock, but the series of drills that were performed during those ninety-six hours were also fast—and very serious. Our day started at about 6:00 A.M. and ended roughly at 0200 the following morning. We stood watches around the clock as though actually under way—and an inherent submarine advantage immediately became apparent. The only time we consciously realized that we were still alongside the dock was when we held periscope drill.

I planned one of these drills to coincide with the moment the Patrick Henry, second of our Polaris-type submarines, slid down the ways into the Thames River. Her skipper, Commander (now Captain) H. E. Shear, USN, had been executive officer in Trigger II years ago, and this moment, when his great new ship was launched, was one I wanted to share with him. Patrick Henry hit the water two hundred yards forward of our bow, and I watched it all through the periscope.

The “fast cruise” over, a day to catch our breath and to load a few provisions aboard, and then the day of Triton’s first under-way test, scheduled for Sunday, the twenty-sixth of September, 1959, was at hand.

Both Electric Boat Division and the Office of the Chief of Information, Navy Department, were anxious to get photographs. Someone, somewhere, had apparently decided that a blimp might be a better platform for photographs than the helicopters and airplanes usually used. I paid no attention; this was someone else’s affair. My job was to run the ship, and if proper authority wanted a blimp to join Triton at sea and photograph us as we put our ship through her paces, that was all right with me. But it was at this point and over this issue, at about eleven o’clock the night before we were to get under way, that it seemed for a time the trials would be delayed.

It had been a long, hard day, starting about 0500 when I had been called from my bunk in Triton. We had attempted to cover so much territory with our drills during the “fast cruise” that no one had had adequate sleep. Completing the “cruise” and making preparation for the next day’s excursion, we had been fighting our way through detail on detail. Hundreds of problems, apparently, still remained to be taken care of. I finally got home about 10:00 P.M., and was slowly unwinding before getting a restful sleep in anticipation of the morrow’s crucial trials. We were scheduled to get under way at 0630, which meant no more than six hours sleep; so my reaction to the telephone call that night was not a happy one.

On the other end of the wire an instantly recognized, irate voice demanded to know why I was having a blimp join Sunday’s operation. Vainly I protested that I knew nothing about the blimp, that my only interest was in carrying out the tests successfully. Admiral Rickover held that the blimp might crash at sea and that in this case we would waste valuable time fishing half-drowned sailors out of the water instead of carrying out the necessary trials. My arguments, that the safety record of the Navy’s lighter-than-air arm was better than that of aircraft, got nowhere. Although I wasn’t even sure who had ordered it, the discussion, if such it might be called, ended with my promise to cancel operations for the blimp—somehow.

Several phone calls later, this was successfully accomplished; no one seemed upset at the sudden change, except me—and possibly the people who had already journeyed to Lakehurst to board the airship. But the tension of the days and weeks just past suddenly gripped me. The last-minute “flap” over, I tossed and turned in my bed for hours, unable to sleep, unable to quiet my whirling brain, thinking out every detail, previewing every move I was to make with Triton in the morning.

A few months later, the very blimp that had been assigned to photograph us crashed at sea while searching for a lost sailboat, losing seventeen out of a crew of twenty.

Sunday morning, shortly before six, I arrived at the dock where Triton lay moored, bow pointing to sea. Dawn was showing to the east and a dull haze hung over the Electric Boat docks.

The special observers going to sea with us on this first day were already coming aboard. All was in readiness; I directed that lines to the dock be singled up and that a crane be hooked on to the remaining gangway to lift it off as soon as the last passengers were aboard. Finally, only Admiral Rickover, due to arrive at 6:30 A.M., was missing.

At precisely 6:30 A.M., accompanied by Carl Shugg, General Manager of Electric Boat Division, and Captain A. C. Smith, USN, Supervisor of Shipbuilding, the Admiral appeared at the head of the dock and marched rapidly toward us. Rickover, per his usual custom, was in civilian clothes and hatless.

Saluting, I said, “We are ready to get under way, sir!” I followed him up the gangway, gave the signal to the crane, and mounted to the bridge.

The Officer of the Deck was Lieutenant Robert Brodie, a tall, slender carbon copy of the Admiral Brodie I had met a few weeks earlier. He saluted me and formally reported, “Captain, the ship is ready to get under way in all respects.”

“Very well,” I responded, “I’ll take her. Stand by to relay orders for me.”

I stood on the bridge step alongside the rail. From this vantage point, I could see the entire forecastle and part of our afterdeck. Two more steps up brought me to the upper level of the bridge, the so-called “flying bridge” from which the entire length of the ship could be seen. There was no protection on this upper level, and the morning fog clung to my heavy woolens as I took a long look forward and aft. All was in readiness.

“Stand by to answer bells,” I called to Brodie on the bridge below me. He relayed the order via the bridge announcing system to the maneuvering room spaces. In a moment the bridge speaker squawked: “Bridge—maneuvering. Ready to answer all bells!”

I leaned forward. “Take in lines two, three, and four!” Then, “Slack one and five port, heave in one and five starboard.”

Triton slowly and steadily moved away from her dock. Moored stern-to in the slip for torpedo-tube tests, she had only to go ahead and angle right to clear some pilings which were dead ahead.

The moment of decisive test was at hand. Rudder, engines, and propellers had been thoroughly tested. We knew the turbines would work; we knew that everything would work. Yet this was the first time we were to try it. I felt a thrill of anticipation as I gave the next few commands.

“Rudder amidships!” I ordered. “All ahead one-third!”

I turned aft. In a moment, I could see the disturbed water turned up by the two propellers as they rotated slowly in response to my order. Both were moving in the right direction. Water was being pushed aft.

“Take in all lines!”

This was the climactic command, intentionally given late in order to retain our hold on the dock until the last possible moment. I heaved an involuntary sigh as our willing deck hands heaved the nylon cables swiftly aboard. Triton gathered way, moving slowly out of the slip where she had lain for so many months.

“Right ten degrees rudder!” I ordered. When you use rudder on a ship, you swing your stern away from the direction you wish to head. Too much rudder would send our port propeller crashing into the dock, but we had to come right because dead ahead were pilings indicating shallow water.

My initial estimate had been approximately right, I saw with pleasure, and the ship was answering her helm like the lady we hoped she was. As a matter of fact, she was coming around somewhat more rapidly than necessary.

“Ease the rudder to five right,” I ordered.

Conning her carefully, we eased Triton out into the stream and pointed her fair down the Thames River. Once clear, I gave the order “all ahead two-thirds,” and our great ship increased speed as she progressed down the river into Long Island Sound.

It was just after daybreak as we passed New London Light at the mouth of the river, and I beckoned to Floyd W. Honeysette, who had the quartermaster watch on the bridge. “Keep a sharp lookout to starboard on the first white house on the point,” I told him. “Let me know if they flash a light or make a signal.”

In a few moments, Honeysette reported that there was no light, but that someone leaning out of a second-story window was waving a red cloth. I directed him to return the compliment by flashing the ship’s searchlight, and this is how Dr. and Mrs. Tage M. Nielsen of New London, friends of many years, became the first persons with whom Triton exchanged signals. Later, I learned the red fabric was a new nylon petticoat belonging to Claudia Nielsen, and that she had made a special reveille in our honor.

There is something about going to sea for the first time in a ship on which you have labored long and hard that is like no other experience. Triton was already quick with life, but when we got her past Race Rock and rang for flank speed for the first time, our spirits soared with her tremendous response.

Trigger had been a good ship, outstandingly effective in her business, and Tirante a ruthlessly efficient one, with spirit and stamina besides. Piper’s qualities had remained largely unknown because she had had no chance to win her spurs in combat, but Amberjack had originality and dash. Trigger II, the first of an entirely new class of submarines to enter service, had been a failure because of bad engines. Only recently, approximately eight years after construction and at last fitted with brand new engines, she was showing her mettle as one of the finest diesel submarines in the force. Salamonie, my previous ship, oldest of them all except the never-forgotten Lea, though still a “producer” was nearly worn out from years of strenuous operation.

But none of these, I knew instantly, had the heart and drive of Triton. The way she leaped ahead when the power was applied made my heart leap, too; we could actually feel the acceleration as we gave her the gun. Water streamed by us on both sides; spray pelted our faces on the bridge and more splashed against its forward edge into thousands of flying, multicolored droplets in the early morning sunshine.

We headed her southeast into Block Island Sound and toward Montauk Point, aiming her foaming bow directly toward the morning sun.

In an unbelievably short time we had roared past Cerberus Shoals. Shortly afterward, as we changed course to due south, Montauk Point came up to starboard, and soon we were free on the ocean where two years ago I had steamed with Salamonie and where fifteen years ago German submarines were on the prowl. I kept calling down below for reports of our speed, must have grinned like a small boy each time I heard the figures.

Once clear of the shoal water, I turned the deck over to Brodie and went below to see for myself how things were going. Everywhere about me was an air of relaxed, delighted intensity. Triton was handling almost unbelievably well. There were nothing but smiles in the control room, torpedo rooms, and galley. In the machinery spaces, men were doing their routine tasks with a light in their eyes and a lilt in their voices I had never seen before. One might have imagined we were an orchestra, playing on a new and greater instrument. This air of confident optimism pervaded the ship, and as I listened to the reports coming and going, the watch reliefs turning over, the reports of log entries and the various other minutiae that go into operating a ship, I knew that we had a crew and a ship equal to the best anyone had ever had the good fortune to command. Except for a handful of “boot seamen,” we were all veterans; our first hours under way had been going so smoothly one might have surmised our crew had been working together for years.

Even taciturn Admiral Rickover, who rarely expressed pleasure with anything (holding, I suspect that to do so might cause his underlings to relax when they should be working harder than ever), was forced to admit that he had never witnessed a more successful beginning to a set of trials. I caught a hint of a smile on his face as I sought him out in the forward engine room.

“Admiral, the water will be deep enough to dive very shortly, and with your permission we’ll go ahead and take her down as originally scheduled.”

Admiral Rickover nodded. While not exactly deafening, the roar of machinery was a high-pitched symphony composed of many different sounds from hundreds of pieces of machinery, all operating in a well-ordered cacophony of rhythm. To me, it was sheer music. Music it must have been to him, too, even though I could detect no visible sign.

I left the engine room and proceeded aft through the remaining engineering spaces, finally reaching the after torpedo room. There, all was calm except for the noise of two huge propellers whirling away just outside. I listened to them carefully. It was hard to realize that they were only a few feet from me, spinning with violent energy, driving water aft at an unprecedented speed and putting more horsepower into the ocean than any submarine had ever done. I could feel the induced vibration shaking the entire after structure of the ship. The noise of the propellers and the roar of the water as it raced past our hull were almost as loud as the machinery a few compartments forward.

“Do you think you could sleep through this, Rowlands?” I asked the husky First Class Torpedoman’s Mate in charge of the after torpedo room.

Rowlands grinned. “You can sleep through anything if you’re tired enough, sir, but it sure is noisy.”

“She’ll quiet down a lot when we dive,” I pointed out.

Rowlands agreed. “But we’ll have to go pretty deep, Captain, to quiet down them spinning wheels with all that power.”

He was right. The deeper you go, the less noise your propellers make, but the bigger they are and the faster they spin, the more noise they make. Triton’s propellers, eleven feet in diameter, turning far faster than any other submarine’s, could not avoid making noise at their present shallow depth. But, of course, no other submarine could go as fast on the surface as Triton; when we slowed down to comparable speeds or when we submerged, the chances were that our ship would be as quiet as the others—perhaps quieter.

It was nearly time to dive. I hurried forward. Lieutenant Tom Thamm, Triton’s Diving Officer, was already at his station with his number one diving crew. This entire group had trained together for several months at the submarine dive simulator at Electric Boat and at another, fancier, one in the Submarine Base; but, of course, this was the first opportunity for them actually to dive the ship.

They were, naturally, somewhat keyed up. The weights in a submarine must be so balanced that when she fills her main ballast tanks the ship will be in precisely neutral buoyancy. Otherwise, she would not be controllable. Naturally, as stores or torpedoes are put aboard, consumed, fired, or unloaded, there are changes in internal weights. These are compensated for by the bow and stern trimming tanks, and by two auxiliary tanks located amidships. These four tanks are known as “variable tanks,” because the amount of water they contain may be varied. This can be done without danger of rupture due to internal or external pressure. The “ballast tanks,” by contrast, are always open at the bottom, are empty for buoyancy when the ship is surfaced, and must be fully flooded to dive her. One of the trickiest problems in designing a submarine is to calculate the weights and the volumes so that, with all conceivable weights out of the ship, it is still possible to put enough water into the variable tanks to achieve neutral buoyancy. Conversely, she must be designed so that with maximum weight on board, enough water can be pumped out to restore her to neutral buoyancy. (Ballast tanks cannot be used for this, despite the misleading name, for they must always be fully flooded when submerged. Since they are never under any pressure differential, they are lightly constructed, unlike the extremely rugged variable tanks.)

As Diving Officer, Tom’s job was to work out the compensation under the load condition that existed at any given time, and to calculate exactly how much water was required in each variable tank to insure that when Triton’s main ballast tanks were flooded, the ship would be both in neutral buoyancy and balanced fore and aft. When the right amounts of water are thus in her variable tanks, the ship, in submarine parlance, is in “diving trim” or “compensated.”

“The ship is rigged for dive and compensated, Captain,” Tom reported.

A submarine cannot submerge until it is “rigged for dive,” by which is meant that all the proper equipment for diving is in correct position, either open or shut, in power or set for hand operation as designated, and that every compartment has been inspected, both by the crew members responsible for rigging it and by an officer detailed to check it. There have been cases when a submarine was lost, seriously damaged, or suffered loss of life because of an improper rig somewhere.

“How is your trim?” I asked.

“I’ve pumped it all in,” Thamm said. He added, “I guess we’ll find out how good the trim is as soon as we pull the plug.”

The indicator lights on the Ballast Control Panel showed that we were ready to dive, except that our main air inlet pipe and the bridge hatch were still open.

“Shut the induction, Tom,” I said.

At Thamm’s signaled order, Fitzjarrald, hovering over the Ballast Control Panel, moved the control toggle switch to the shut position.

I picked up the microphone controlling the speaker on the bridge, told Brodie to reduce speed and shift his watch to the conning tower. There was a “clink” of annunciators, a clatter of feet on ladder rungs, a thump as the bridge hatch slammed shut. The Ballast Control Panel indicated that the last important hull opening was now closed.

“All clear topside!” Brodie’s voice came from the conning tower, where, according to plan, he would be manning the periscope.

“Bleed air, Tom,” I said.

Thamm picked up a microphone in his turn. “Engine room, this is control. Bleed high-pressure air into the ship!”

For our first dive, we were using the so-called “safe-diving procedure.” For the moment, we were driving along on the surface, entirely sealed, with no one topside. In the meantime, high-pressure air was being released from a connection in the engine room to increase the air pressure slightly within Triton’s hull. If air could not leak out of the ship, then presumably water could not leak in. At the Diving Control Panel was a barometer which would indicate the pressure inside the ship. If this pressure rose and did not drop back after the air valve was shut, the ship had to be airtight.

Thamm, Fitzjarrald, and I inspected the barometer closely. The needle rose a short distance, then stopped rising and remained rock steady.

Tom took a long minute to watch it carefully. Finally satisfied, he nodded to me. “The ship is tight, sir.”

An interested group of observers had silently gathered in the control room. All experienced submariners, some of them tops in the field of submarine construction and design, every visitor aboard had a keen interest in Triton’s first dive. I gave Brodie the order to sound the diving alarm, and a raucous, automobilelike horn reverberated through the ship. Fitzjarrald, his hands on two of the control buttons on the Ballast Control Panel, was watching Thamm.

“Open the vents,” Tom ordered.

Swiftly, the Chief ran his fingers down the panel of switches opening Triton’s main vents to the sea. The rush of water into the tanks could be heard through the thick steel plating of the ship’s hull.

Thamm waited several seconds, then ordered, “Shut the vents.”

This also was by prearrangement. Our purpose on this first dive was to ease Triton down into the depths easily and gently. Should something be radically wrong with the compensation, or should the controls somehow fail to function properly, we wanted to be able to regulate things immediately. Eight thousand tons of insensate steel running out of control could be a frightening, possibly disastrous experience.

Another long moment went by while Thamm checked all his instruments. Though lower in the water by several feet, Triton was not yet submerged. Again Tom ordered the vents reopened, and again he shut them. The third time he opened them still longer, and as we felt Triton angling down at the bow, he opened them all. It had taken us several minutes to dive, but we were all well satisfied; our ship had performed exactly as we had predicted. Later, of course, we would strive for a faster diving time.

The submerged trials started out simply, but rapidly increased in severity. Soon we were running the entire gamut of submerged operations, and our feeling of pride and confidence in our ship grew steadily. Triton behaved beautifully, like the queen she was designed to be. Despite her huge bulk, she could turn around so fast that her gyrocompass indicator would spin like a top in front of the helmsmen. When up or down plane angles were used, she responded immediately—and the smallest angle on the planes was sufficient to bend her to our wishes. When “flank speed” was ordered, we were surprised and delighted; surfaced she was by design faster than any submarine, faster than most surface ships, in fact. Speed under water had been a secondary consideration; yet, submerged, only her immediate predecessor, the football-shaped Skipjack, could equal her. There was absolutely no sensation of passage through the water, nor any water noise. Much of the noise created by a speeding ship is a result of the mixture of air and water at the surface. Thus the water noise is largely a boundary effect. But when the ship is deeply submerged, there is no such boundary, no opportunity for air to mix with water. Our superstructure and hull were firm and solid; there was no rattling or vibration here either; no noise of any kind except for Triton’s propellers and internal machinery back aft.

Whenever I could absent myself from the control room, which was not very often on this first day under way, I took a turn through the machinery spaces. There, everyone was smiling. Assistant Engineer Don Fears, part of the time Engineering Officer of the Watch in number two engine room and later occupying himself by a continuous working check of all operating equipment, reflected joy and pride every time I saw him. So did Les Kelly, who, as Triton’s Chief Engineer, had overall responsibility for the entire plant. Pat McDonald, our Reactor Control Officer, responsible for theory and practice insofar as the reactors were concerned, was positively ebullient.

“How’s it going, Pat?” I asked him, cornering him in the reactor monitoring area which someone—Pat himself, I had always suspected—had nicknamed “Idiot’s Alley.”

“Just fine, Captain, just fine!” answered Pat. “She’s humming away like a big watch. I wouldn’t be afraid to take her clean across the Atlantic this very minute—just look at this!”

Pat pointed with his slide rule to one of the hundred or so “read-out” indicator dials which lined both sides of “Idiot’s Alley.” I looked. The Power Output dial was approaching the edge of the full power mark.

“We crept up on it slowly,” said Pat, “but we’ve been running just below full power now for the past hour and a half. The Admiral sure believes in working out the machinery!”

“You can say that again,” I told him. “When the Nautilus prototype out in Idaho was first fired up, he made them take it on a simulated voyage at full power all the way to Europe. Regular watches, course charted, daily positions, and all that. There weren’t many who said it wouldn’t work after that.”

“Where does the standard Navy four-hour full-power trial come into this picture?” Pat asked.

“Sometime when we’ve got nothing else to do we’ll run one off just to get it on the record,” I said. “You don’t suppose Admiral Rickover will let Les cut this initial run short of full power, do you—or that four measly hours will satisfy him? Any more than it would satisfy you, if you had to be on board this ship in combat?”

Pat grinned. Then, as we watched the Power Output dial, the needle slowly climbed until it was exactly centered on the full power mark.

“There’s part of the answer, Pat,” I said. “Excuse me, but this I want to see,” and I started aft through the watertight door into the engine room, leaving a Reactor Control Officer staring with delight at the evidence his monitoring instruments were presenting.

In number one engine room, George Troffer had the EOOW watch. Les Kelly was standing right behind him, and Admiral Rickover was seated on a tool chest a few feet away, absorbed in a red-covered book which I took to be a power plant testing manual of some sort. With a side glance at the Admiral, who showed no sign that he had noticed my appearance, I addressed myself to Kelly. “Les, how much power are you indicating back here?” I asked. I had to shout to be heard above the powerful roar of the engine.

Kelly put his mouth to my ear and shouted back, “We’ve just gone to a hundred percent power! She’s running like a million bucks! No trouble at all!”

I decided against asking why I had not been consulted before the speed change was made. No doubt a messenger was off looking for me at that very minute. This was Vice-Admiral Rickover’s plant and his test. My duties, clearly stated for these first trials, were to operate the ship in accordance with his directives. Besides, I, too, wanted to find out what were the actual limitations of our engines.

Les had something more to say, which he did with a broad smile. “One more thing. That’s no power plant manual the Old Man’s got his nose into. Take a good look at the name on the cover, if you get a chance.”

Casting a quick glance at Rickover, who appeared still engrossed in the book with the red cover, I decided to get a better look at it soon, nodded my thanks to Kelly, and began a tour of the remaining engineering spaces.

In number two plant, all was serene. The port engine and reduction gears were spinning away with the greatest aplomb, and every bearing was cool, every critical point reading well within the specified limits.

Lieutenant Curtis Shellman, Machinery Division Officer and presently in charge of the port engine-room watch, must have been born with the sallow complexion and dark circles under his eyes which made his normal everyday appearance that of a man under severe strain; recently he had had every right to look this way, for the main brunt of getting Triton’s engines ready for her first engineering trials had fallen upon him. Practically all of the operating machinery of the ship was under his surveillance, and the toll of many sleepless hours showed in the veritable death’s head smile he gave me by way of salutation. But there was nothing beaten down or tired about the pure and happy sense of accomplishment which showed there too, as he called my attention to the pounds of steam flow per hour, the throttle setting, the steam pressure, and the effortless RPM of the port main shaft.

Not ordinarily given to use of the superlative, Curt essayed one this time. “She’s just wonderful, Captain!” he yelled. “I’ve never seen an engine run as smoothly as this one. Why, we could take her anywhere, anytime!” His enthusiasm was contagious, and there were corroborating nods from Chief Electrician’s Mates “L” “E” Poe (another old shipmate) and Walter O’Dell, members of the watch section.

It was not hard to believe. What was difficult to appreciate was that Triton at this moment was driving through the water at a speed which no member of her crew had ever experienced, which we would have dismissed as insane had anyone suggested it but a few years ago, which, had this ship but come a few years sooner, might have won the war in the Pacific for us in a matter of months, instead of the years it took.

During this time, Admiral Rickover seemed completely engrossed in his book. He rarely looked up, never changed his position, acknowledged with a brief nod Les Kelly’s shouted reports of the progress of the various tests which were being runoff.

One of the axioms of building a power plant is that all its components must be designed with a large safety factor, for one never knows just which component, or combination of components, will prove to be the weakest element in the chain, and thus limit the power. In the Navy, Admiral Rickover’s nuclear plants were already famous for exceptional dependability. It was soon evident that the Admiral was of a mind to maintain that reputation insofar as Triton’s two-reactor plant was concerned. This was, at least, the only interpretation I could place upon his reaction to the trouble which shortly afterward developed in our starboard spring bearing.

Since Triton’s starboard propeller is driven by the forward engine, it follows that the starboard propeller shaft must be much the longer of the two. About midway in its length, its great weight had necessitated installation of a “spring bearing”—merely a line or support bearing to keep it turning true—and it was here, in the most ordinary of standard mechanisms, that the evil little god of misfortune had decreed that difficulty should develop. The first sign of trouble was a rise in the lubricating oil temperature.

Ordinarily, when in receipt of such a report, the immediate thing to do is slow down; but since the initial sea trials were being run by Admiral Rickover, I first sought him out to see what he desired. His red-bound book lay closed on the tool box by the de-aerating feed tank, and I found him down in the lower level of number two auxiliary machinery compartment, where the offending spring bearing was located high in the starboard after corner. When I arrived, the entire group of designers and engineers aboard for the trials were already present; and the gray-haired birdlike Admiral had climbed up into the corner for a close inspection, squeezing his wiry frame into the cramped space between the swiftly rotating propeller shaft and the curved hull of the ship, alongside the huge steel box containing the bearing.

“We’re going to have to cut the power, Ned,” said one of the bystanders, an Electric Boat supervisor. “It’s too bad, but we can’t take a chance on wiping this bearing.”

This was the evaluation I sensed from everyone present. The decision, however, was Rickover’s, as the officer responsible for the initial sea trials. He had evidently been listening to the bearing with a large screwdriver held against his head, and I got there just as Les Kelly handed up a stethoscope taken from one of our repair kits.

Long minutes passed while Rickover listened at various spots on the bearing housing. There was a grim set to his jaw when he descended at last from his perch alongside the housing. “There’s not a thing wrong with the bearing,” he said shortly. “It’s working exactly as designed, but it’s not designed right.”

“We’ve already proved the designed power of the ship, Admiral,” said the Electric Boat representative who had spoken with me. “We’ll get right on the bearing as soon as we get back to the Boat Division. I’m sure our designers can figure out what’s wrong….”

“The only thing wrong is that it needs more cooling. Any fool can see that,” cut in Rickover. “Besides, we’re not going back. Not yet—Kelly!” Abruptly he shifted his attention to Triton’s Chief Engineer. “Rig a hose. Get a constant spray of water going on the bearing housing. Set a special watch on the lube oil temperature!”

“But Admiral,” protested the EB man, “there’s no need to subject the bearing to additional stress. We’ve already satisfied the design specs, and there’s no point to going further …”

Admiral Rickover’s voice held a curiously flat, monotonous tone, which I had heard before. “We’re here to find out if this ship is satisfactory for war. I’ll not let this piece of lousy designing stop the trial, and I’ll take the responsibility if it breaks down!” There was a singular lack of emphatic expression in the way Rickover spoke, effectively belied by the flinty look in his eyes.

Within minutes, Les Kelly had a squad of his men dragging a rubber hose to the vicinity, and a spray of salt water was played upon the steel box enclosing the defective bearing and its oil supply. A constant check of the oil temperature was set up, with results reported to Admiral Rickover and, upon my private instructions to Les, to me. In the meantime, Triton had not slowed her headlong dash through the water, and after a few more minutes, to our relief, the lube oil temperature from the starboard propeller shaft spring bearing stopped its steady rise.

We watched it carefully from this point on, and the design for a permanent “fix”—installation of the oil-cooling system which should have been there from the beginning—was complete in all essentials by the time Triton returned to the EB docks. Except for our natural concern that the temperatures continue to remain under control, the bearing gave us no further trouble, the all-out power test continued, and Admiral Rickover, with Les Kelly’s stethoscope forgotten in his pocket, went back to his tool chest and his book.

Both Les and I were greatly heartened by the outcome of the apparent breakdown, for, like all officers attached to Triton, we wanted more than anything else to know her real ability to respond when the chips were down. Should an emergency occur, we might have need of that extra little response—perhaps sooner than any of us could then anticipate.

As the trials progressed, the thrill of watching a magnificent engineering plant out-perform the highest expectations worked its heady magic on even Admiral Rickover. We kept every critical bearing and every mechanism under special surveillance, and maintained power, running hundreds of miles south in the process. With the over-steam-demand alarms sounding their piercing, ringing, hornlike noise throughout the vast engineering spaces, every indicator on the reactor and electric control panels touching—but not exceeding—its maximum-allowed value, the great reduction gears and turbines shrilling their joyful song of superhuman strength and dependability, Triton, deeply submerged, roared through the water with the speed of an express train.

It is, unfortunately, not within the province of this narrative to state the speed actually achieved by our ship, nor any of the specific parameters of her power plant, but I don’t suppose there can be any objection to revealing the title of the book Vice-Admiral Rickover was reading. I had snatched a glimpse of the name on the cover when it lay temporarily unguarded on the tool box. It was The Memoirs of a Renaissance Pope.

There are those who have claimed that the faster Triton went, the more slowly the Admiral read, and that toward the end he turned the pages very slowly indeed, if at all. As to this, I cannot testify, for I could not remain in the engine room; but my memory does record the impression, after the many hours and so very many miles, that the blank look he wore could only be a mask for his true delight.

The trials, an unqualified success in every way, became difficult only once, as a result of my own failure to appreciate fully the forces with which we were dealing. One of the tests required that the ship be operated submerged in the astern direction. I had done this before with Piper, Amberjack, and Trigger II, but I knew very well that it might be considerably more difficult with Triton, since she was much longer and bigger, and proportionately even more slender than they. She was also infinitely more powerful, a factor which I felt would tend to equalize the situation.

Some time after the completion of the main power trials, after a number of other evolutions had been successfully demonstrated, I directed Thamm, who was now OOD as well as Diving Officer of the Watch (the ship, deeply submerged, had no need for an officer at the periscope station in the conning tower), to reverse the engines and operate the ship astern.

“All stop,” barked Thamm. “All back two-thirds.”

We could feel the great bronze propellers swinging to a stop and picking up speed in the reverse direction. Our speed indicator began to slow rapidly, reached zero, where, unable to indicate reverse speeds, it stayed. Slowly we felt Triton gathering sternway, and Tom reversed the direction of action of his bow and stern planes in order to maintain correct depth. For a time all went very well, but then the ship began to oscillate with a great, slow seesaw motion, and at the same time she slowly increased depth. At first this was of no particular concern, but soon I realized that we were getting close to the ocean floor, and that a submarine of our great length could not be allowed to oscillate through very much of an angle before there might be danger of her striking bottom.

“Sounding!” I ordered.

The answer came back quickly. “Three hundred feet!”

Tom looked at me but said nothing. I knew what he was thinking.

“All stop!” I said. “All ahead two-thirds.”

But still our speed indicator remained fixed on zero, and still our depth increased. Inexorably, we were approaching the bottom of the ocean.

Our speed was so low that touching bottom would hardly bother Triton’s strong hull, but there was always the danger of our hitting a rock with our vulnerable propellers or the delicate sonar equipment in the bow.

I ordered another sounding. The answer this time was two hundred feet.

“Tom,” I said urgently, “blow all main ballast!”

All of us watched the Ballast Control Panel, and it seemed as if everyone in the control room was also watching me. Fitzjarrald opened the blow valves on the Diving Control Panel, blew the main ballast tanks for a long minute, then stopped on Thamm’s order.

“Blow them again,” I ordered.

But the depth gauges continued to revolve, though more slowly. Triton had not yet reached an even keel and was now down some ten degrees by the bow. If we gathered headway in this attitude, she might ram her nose against the ocean floor.

“All stop!” I snapped a second time, “Sounding!” And for the third time, “Blow main ballast tanks! Again!”

“Forty feet,” called the sailor at the fathometer.

Triton’s angle of inclination reduced, approached zero, and the depth gauge showed that the ship was rising.

“All ahead two-thirds,” I ordered again, and heaved a sigh of relief.

It had been a thrilling moment, one which had come upon us by surprise and which could have done damage to our new ship. Mentally, I kicked myself for not having recognized the signs earlier; we should not have allowed the ship to back for so long or the oscillations to become so severe. But all that really mattered was that damage had been averted, and as we were proceeding back to port on completion of the trials, Admiral Rickover announced to the crew that our tests were among the most successful under-way trials of a nuclear ship yet carried out.

Altogether, there were about five days of initial sea trials before the Bureau of Ships and the Navy Department expressed themselves as satisfied. As always, a number of minor deficiencies were discovered, none of them serious. We went to sea several times more to check out one item or another until, finally, on the thirtieth of October, came what is called the Preliminary Acceptance Trials (PAT). On such occasions, a regularly constituted board of officers comes from Washington, D.C., to see whether the ship conforms to the operational standards specified when the contract was signed. The report of the trial board would decide whether General Dynamics would receive its entire fee for construction, whether any deductions for nonfulfilment of the contract were to be invoked, and whether Triton would be accepted for “unlimited service” or under some temporary restriction.

Naturally, these trials were of considerable concern to Electric Boat, for although it was hardly likely that a ship for which all this labor and expense had been incurred would not be accepted for service, it was quite possible that some inadequacy in its construction might cost the company a great deal to correct or result in a reduction in fee.

The PAT provided us with a welcome opportunity. Triton’s only major fault was that under certain sea conditions, in running on the surface at top speed, she took a perverse delight in driving her bow under. After a great deal of thought and careful perusal of photographs, I was sure I knew what her trouble was. Her extremely slim bow had most of its buoyant volume well aft, at precisely the point where the maximum hollow of her bow wave occurred at high speed. Thus, she lacked buoyancy exactly where needed. This was a serious deficiency, we argued. If we could add a little more buoyancy to the bow, especially in the forward part, we could greatly improve this condition. All we had to do was convince the officers from Washington that the modification was necessary.

The trial board happened to be headed by the tallest Admiral in the Navy, known to his contemporaries and close friends as “Tiny” McCorkle. When I mentioned the problem to him, he agreed that if the situation was as I represented, something indeed should be done. I promised an adequate demonstration.

Several hours later, with Triton making full speed through long seas sweeping from the Atlantic Ocean, I asked Admiral McCorkle if he would care to step up to the bridge. For good measure, I also invited Van Leonard, the highly competent young EB design boss who—in my estimate—could use a practical lesson in how ships behave at sea.

Up to the bridge we went, the six-foot, six-inch Admiral awkwardly ducking his head and hunching his shoulders as he maneuvered between pipes and fittings.

Once there, I told Dick Harris, Officer of the Deck, of my intentions. Both he and the lookouts were already heavily clothed in foul-weather gear—by design I suspect, for Dick, at least, knew what was up—and I noticed that the Quartermaster of the Watch quickly finished his business topside and headed below.

I nodded to Dick. He reached for the bridge microphone and gave the order. “Maneuvering—bridge! Make all available speed!”

Already at “full” speed—about half-power—Triton was riding with her bow still a foot or two out of water. Occasionally, a roll would break over the deck and sweep aft, bursting in a cascade of spray against the bottom of the sail. With the increased power, we would soon be taking considerably more water than before, and it suddenly struck me that perhaps I had not fully briefed Admiral McCorkle on what to expect. Harris and both lookouts were tightening up their parkas as I turned to him.

“Admiral, when she drives under we’re liable to get pretty wet up here.”

McCorkle laughed genially. “You can’t scare me, Ned,” he said. “I had my fanny wet long before you even got in the Navy.”

The Admiral’s belt line was in the approximate vicinity of my chest, and it would have to be a pretty big wave to reach that high, but I resolved that if he could take it, I could, too. The increased drive of the engines began to be noticeable, and in a moment the first really big sea hit us. The bow spray spouted above our heads. Water dashed high over the bridge, pelting down on top of the lookouts and completely inundating Dick Harris, who stood just behind us.

The forward part of Triton’s bridge was fitted with a transparent plastic bubble, and under this Leonard, Admiral McCorkle and I huddled for protection. There was no room for a fourth person, and the Admiral grinned at Dick’s discomfort, as he stood only a foot away. I grinned, too. There was more to come.

The spray increased; soon there was a steady stream of white water squirting high above our heads. Then, with a swoosh, green water swelled up over the sides of the bridge coaming, rising in its bathtublike confines to envelop Admiral McCorkle’s fanny and higher parts of my anatomy. Simultaneously, solid water poured over the top of the bubble like Niagara Falls. I was relieved that Dick had stationed a man to protect the bridge hatch; he now ordered it shut. The lookouts had given up, turning their backs, while Harris gasped for breath, cupping his hands over his eyes in an effort to maintain a lookout ahead. Sputtering, Admiral McCorkle shouted something which I interpreted as indicating that he was satisfied, that the demonstration had been successful, and Dick gratefully relayed the order to slow down. The spouting water ceased, Triton’s bow came up once more, and the world became drier for six thoroughly wet people on the bridge.

About this time I began to feel some trepidation that my august guest’s sense of humor might have been strained farther than the occasion demanded. But the Admiral was game.

“Beach,” he shouted, mopping the salt out of his eyes, “that was one hell of a demonstration!”

I started to apologize for getting the Admiral’s fanny wet, but he would have none of it.

“Sorry, hell!” he roared. “You’ve been planning to wet me down for a week! Anyway, you can’t hurt me; I’ve been dunked in salt water for years!”

As McCorkle bellowed his laughter, Van Leonard, his civilian suit bagging with salt water, could only shrug helplessly.

Needless to say, the repair work was done on Triton’s bow, but poor Van was later heard to grumble that he had already conceded the point and had ordered the work, that no “demonstration” had actually been required, but that Triton’s sadistic skipper, having laid on the “demonstration,” was not to be deprived of his fun.

The next event on Triton’s program was the commissioning, scheduled for the tenth of November. This ceremony is full of meaning for all naval vessels. From this moment, Triton would bear the initials “USS” before her name, become a part of the fleet, and be ready for any kind of service required of her.

The commissioning address was delivered by Vice-Admiral Bernard L. (Count) Austin, and Mrs. Louise Will presented us with a water color painted by the President of the American Water Color Society, Mr. Hans Walleen of New York. It shows a full-length silhouette of the ship, submerged at speed, and superimposed is a lithe, idealized Greek Triton holding in one hand a long trumpet made of a triton shell and in the other the trident of sea power.

When it came time to hoist the national colors on Triton, we used the biggest set we could borrow, and the whole crew together sang the national anthem, as our flag rose to the peak of Triton’s highest periscope.

In keeping with a tradition started at the end of World War II our ship had been named in honor of an older Triton long-buried beneath the waters of the South Pacific, a victim of Japanese depth charges after an outstandingly successful career. But before she experienced that ultimate misfortune, her ship’s bell had been removed. Her first skipper had laid claim to it and had kept it for years after the war. Now he, too, was gone; and so it was that Mrs. W. A. Lent, his widow, was present at the commissioning ceremony to bequeath the first Triton’s old bell to the namesake of that valiant ship.

Following commissioning, we made a trip to Newport, Rhode Island, for torpedo trials and to Norfolk, Virginia, for certain special tests. Early in December, we returned to our birthplace at Electric Boat. The Navy Department wished to put some new communications equipment aboard.

The layover was most welcome, for it was Christmas and we might have been at sea as many other ships were, but when January came and we were still tied to the dock at Electric Boat, we grew restless. We were scheduled to get under way on February sixteenth for a shakedown cruise to northern European waters, in company with the flagship of the Second Fleet, USS Northampton. Time was passing, the sixteenth of February was approaching rapidly, and our impatience mounted.

When the new equipment was finally installed, late in January, we got under way immediately, vowing to work twenty-four hours a day, if necessary, to make up for lost time. Tests scheduled to take three weeks or longer were telescoped to twelve days. Late in the evening of the first of February, we returned to New London, all tests and evaluation complete, hoping there would be nothing further asked of us and that our projected cruise with Northampton was still on the docket.

On my desk, as I came down from the bridge after Triton had been safely moored, was a soiled envelope addressed to me, slightly crumpled as though it might have been carried some distance by hand.