by Commander William R. Anderson with Clay Blair, Jr.
Our next selection is distinguished by both of its authors having served aboard submarines. Commander William R. Anderson (1921–2007) set several records during his military ser-vice, and continued serving his country after retiring from the U.S. Navy. His time in World War II was distinguished, as he received the Bronze Star and several other combat decorations from his participation in eleven combat submarine patrols. He was selected by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover to be the skipper of the first working nuclear submarine to be placed into service, the USS Nautilus, and was its commander from 1957 to 1959. Anderson and his crew received international notice when the Nautilus became the first submarine to sail successfully under the polar ice cap surrounding the North Pole. He wrote his book about his experience, Nautilus 90 North, in 1959 with Clay Blair. Upon retiring from the Navy, Anderson entered politics, serving four terms as a U.S. congressman. After losing his fifth bid for reelection when the districts of Tennessee were redrawn following the 1970 census, Anderson retired from public life. He served as an officer with the Public Office Corporation, and lived in Alexandria, Virginia, until his death in February 2007.
Clay Blair, Jr. (1925–1998), grew up in Georgia, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C. During December 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Navy, volunteering for submarine duty. Blair served on the submarine USS Guardfish during his Navy career, on two long war patrols for which he was awarded the Submarine Combat Insignia. After the war he attended Tulane University and Columbia University’s School of Journalism. During the 1950s Blair was a correspondent for Time-Life before becoming a staff writer and Washington editor for The Saturday Evening Post. He served as managing editor and editor in chief of the Post during the early 1960s and also served as editor in chief of Curtis Publishing Company, which published the Post as well as Ladies’ Home Journal, American Home, and Jack and Jill magazines. In 1965, he left Curtis Publishing to become a freelance author, specializing in military history, including a number of books about submarines and the Korean War. He also wrote several novels and a biography of James Earl Ray. Along with his wife, Joan, he wrote a book about the early life of John F. Kennedy, and his most recent work was a two-volume study of German U-boats during World War II, Hitler’s U-Boat War.
When two great submarine sailors come together to write a book, the results are often amazing. Instead of the trials of World War II, Anderson chose to write about the new chapter in submarine history he had been a part of, the dawning of the nuclear age, and the ultimate adventure he played a part in as his boat and crew went after one of the ultimate prizes—reaching the North Pole underwater.
Peary describes the polar pack near the North Pole as a “trackless, colorless chaos of broken and heaved-up ice.” Sir John Ross had this to say: “But let them remember that sea ice is stone, a floating rock in the stream, a promontory or an island when aground, not less solid than if it were a land of granite.” They were right. But little did they dream of Nautilus, U.S. Navy, nuclear power, 1958.
Saturday morning, August 2, found 116 people running along at four hundred feet at cruising speed on course 000 true, just about forty-four hours short of culminating the most thrilling and adventurous cruise any sailor ever embarked upon. Overhead the ice was almost solid and incredibly rough, projecting downward as much as sixty-five feet from the surface, but averaging ten to fifteen feet thick. It would be less than honest to say that one can submarine under it with total abandon.
At first Frank Adams and I stood “watch and watch,” which meant that one of us was up and about at all times. When my co-skipper took over, I could turn in for a few hours of sleep, knowing that the ship was in experienced and capable hands.
As we plunged deeper under the pack, I thought: Where is the point of no return? Here? A hundred miles from here? A day’s journey away? At the Pole itself, perhaps? Frankly, I did not know. But I had computed it to be at the “Pole of Inaccessibility,” the geographic center of the ice pack, about four hundred miles below the true Pole. But who cared? We were safe, warm, and comfortable in our home beneath the sea.
Morale was high and excitement at fever pitch. Once we had reached deep water beneath the pack, all hands felt that from then on out it was a run for “home.” Although our ship’s log read eighteen knots, Chief Machinist’s Mate Stuart Nelson, who by then was nicknamed “Stop Leak,” scampered forward from the engine room to ask if the engineers couldn’t make “just a couple more going-home turns.” I ordered twenty knots. The whole ship seemed to purr along contentedly.
“Boy, this is the way to explore,” remarked Robert N. Jarvis, Hospitalman First Class. Pipe in hand, a cup of coffee beside him, he took his ease between atmosphere analyses. “Pinging up and down and all around at twenty knots, fresh air all day long, a warm boat, and good hot food—we sure have the situation in hand. I’d hate to walk across these ice fields up there to the Pole the way Admiral Peary did it.”
Though most of us considered the North Pole a desirable objective, our primary mission was to cross from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean, blazing a new northwest passage. Actually, from the standpoint of compass performance, it might have been preferable to avoid the Pole, to ease around it at lower latitude. However, the route across the Pole was the shortest and fastest. Besides, who could resist the temptation to cross the North Pole when it was so close at hand?
Dr. Lyon remained glued to his sonar equipment hour after hour, watching the recording pens trace the contour of the underside of the ice. His new instruments displayed the ice in far greater detail, and with much greater accuracy, than the machines we had used in 1957. In fact, it was at this point that we discovered that the ice pack was far thicker than we had estimated in 1957, and that pressure ridges (ice forced downward when two massive floes press against one another) projected down to 100 or 125 feet. As we sped along, Dr. Lyon’s instruments collected in each hour more precise data on the ice and the Arctic Basin floor than have been assembled in all history. When he finally left the ship, he had accumulated two trunkfuls of data.
And what of peaks rising abruptly from the uncharted ocean floor? Our detection equipment kept a sharp “eye” on these obstacles. We found several. At latitude 76 degrees 22 minutes north, in a region where there are no charted soundings, our fathometer, which had been running along fairly steadily at about 2,100 fathoms, suddenly spiked up to 1,500 fathoms, and then, to my concern, to less than 500.
I camped alongside the fathometer for several hours, intently watching the rugged terrain as it unfolded beneath us. I saw incredibly steep cliffs—undersea ranges—rise thousands of feet above the ocean floor. Several times I ordered speed slackened, then resumed, as a promontory leveled off or descended as rapidly as it had risen. The shape of these undersea mountains appeared phenomenally rugged, and as grotesque as the craters of the moon.
As I paced from instrument to instrument, Chief Hospitalman Aberle arrived with the latest atmosphere analysis. He reported our air vitalization machines were working well enough to maintain an atmosphere averaging 20 to 30 parts per million carbon monoxide, 1.0 to 1.5 per cent carbon dioxide, and between 20 and 21.5 per cent oxygen. These figures were all within, or below, safe limits.
At latitude 83 degrees 20 minutes north we passed abeam of the geo-graph i cal center of the ice pack, the “Ice Pole” or “Pole of Inaccessibility.” Before the day of nuclear-powered submarines, the name was probably fitting. It may now have to be changed.
It has been reported that for the crew Nautilus “hung motionless in time and space.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Every man aboard was acutely aware of our rapid and inexorable movement north. As the hours passed, each watch squad gasped at our astounding progress. Men remained transfixed at the electronic machines clocking our track mile by mile, or before the television set on which they could watch the ice passing overhead like beautiful moving clouds. A mixture of suspense, anticipation, and hope was discernible throughout the ship. Few could sleep. Many of us had been praying for the successful attainment of our goal, and now, God willing, it appeared within our reach. Our psychiatrist, Dr. Kinsey, went about his work methodically and mysteriously, probing for, I suppose, those men who were afraid. Each day, to a random group of volunteers, he distributed cards containing a series of questions, such as “Do you feel happy?” If a man did not feel happy, he was supposed to indicate by writing a single “V” on the card. If he felt slightly happy, he wrote “VV.” Three V’s meant that he was in fine spirits, and four V’s signified total enchantment. Personally, it made no sense to me. I was not one of the select volunteers.
The main fear within me was that which we all shared: a materiel failure, such as that which occurred in 1957, which would force us to turn back. Every man on board examined and reexamined his instruments and equipment. Vigilance, they all knew, would prevent a small fault from becoming a casualty that would terminate the voyage or leave us stranded beneath the ice.
I did not—could not—sleep. I wandered restlessly about the ship, occasionally taking a peek through the periscope. I was surprised on these observations to see phosphorescent streaks in the water. This is a phenomenon common in tropic waters. It seemed unusual to me to find these streaks in water so cold that the outside of our engine room sea-water pipes was covered with thick layers of rime ice.
As I walked about the ship, taking the measure of the crew, I listened as the men spun tales and cracked jokes.
One crewman, recalling the time when Nautilus paid a memorable visit to New Orleans, captivated his shipmates with this story:
“I was headed back for the ship early in the morning. We’d spent most of the evening in the Monkey Bar in the French Quarter. Well, it’s about dawn, and I’m walking down this deserted street. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a panhandler crossing the street headed full speed in my direction. He stopped me and asked for a quarter. I looked this bird in the eye and said, ‘Look, bud. I’m working this side of the street. You stay on your own side.’ Well, I wish you could have seen his face. He was really shook.”
In another compartment, two crewmen on watch were talking.
“Joe, do you know who man’s best friend is?” Bill asked.
“Well, I always heard it was a dog,” Joe said.
“That’s not so,” Bill said.
“Well, if the dog isn’t, then who is?” Joe asked.
“Lady alligators,” Bill explained. “You see, every year these lady alligators come up on the beach and they lay about 1,000 eggs. Then, they tell me, the lady alligator turns around and devours about 999 of the eggs she laid.”
“How does that make her man’s best friend?” asked Joe.
“Well, Joe, it’s like this. If that lady alligator didn’t eat those 999 eggs, we’d be up to our neck in alligators.”
In spite of this lighthearted talk, every man was alert for an emergency. The leads or polynyas were infrequent, but the position of each was carefully plotted, so that if it became necessary to surface, we would know where to find an opening. James H. Prater stood watch in the torpedo room, carefully bleeding just the right amount of oxygen into the hull. Nearby was Richard M. Jackman, prepared to make all torpedo tubes ready on an instant’s notice, if it became necessary to blast a hole through the ice. We were ready, but the possibility of a casualty seemed remote. Indeed, I had never seen the ship’s machinery function so perfectly. Our “out of commission” list reached a new low. It was as if Nautilus herself had found peace and contentment beneath the ice. If she could have filled out one of Dr. Kinsey’s cards, it would have contained four V’s, or five, or six, for every question.
Shortly after midnight, August 3, we passed latitude 84 degrees north. Since we had entered compass-baffling waters, we made preparations to guard against longitude roulette. At that time we placed our auxiliary gyrocompass in a directional gyro mode so that instead of seeking north, it would tend to seek the line we were following, a Great Circle course up the Western Hemisphere, across the Pole, and south again to the Eastern Hemi sphere. This was the track I intended to cruise. When our master gyrocompass began to lose its north-seeking ability, as it would when we approached the northernmost point on earth, then we intended to shift to the auxiliary. Thus we would have something to steer by in the darkness below—something to lead us out on our track south.
In order to insure that all of the gyrocompasses remained properly oriented, we made all course, speed, and depth changes extremely slowly. For example, when we came near the surface to decrease water pressure on the hull (this is desirable in operating the garbage ejector), we rose with an angle of one or two degrees, instead of the usual twenty to thirty degrees. Once we changed course twenty-two degrees. So gradual was the shift that six minutes elapsed before we had settled on the new heading. Some wag had suggested that when we neared the Pole we might put the rudder hard over and make twenty-five tight circles, thus becoming the first ship in history to circle the earth nonstop twenty-five times. Any such maneuver was, of course, out of the question.
As we rapidly closed in on the North Pole, Tom Curtis, manning the in-ertial navigator, which constantly plotted our position by electronics, made minute adjustments to insure that his complex instrument was operating properly. At 1000 we crossed latitude 87 degrees north, breaking our record of last year, and with the passing of each new mile we moved farther north than any other ship in history.
Two hours south of the Pole, a wave of unchecked excitement swept through Nautilus. Every man was up and about, and unabashedly proud to be aboard. Frank Adams, staring intently at the electronic gear, uttered a word often employed by Nautilus men who have exhausted all ordinary expressions to sum up their reaction to the never-ending Nautilus triumphs: “Fan-damn-tastic.”
When we crossed the Pole, of course, no bells would ring, nor would we feel a bump. Only our instruments could tell us how close we had come. Since we had made the decision to cross the Pole, we were determined to hit it precisely on the nose. Along with Navigator Shep Jenks and his assistant, Chief Petty Officer Lyle B. Rayl, I had stationed myself in the attack center, and although we were almost as far north as man can go on this planet, we were literally sweating over the charts and electronic position-indicators, making minute, half-degree adjustments at the helm. The hour by Nautilus clocks, which were still set on Seattle time, was 1900, or seven o’clock in the eve-ning. Our nuclear engine, which up to then had pushed Nautilus more than 124,000 miles, was purring smoothly. Our electronic log, or speedometer needle, was hovering above twenty knots, the depth gauge needle about four hundred feet. Our sensitive sonar indicated that the endless polar ice pack was running between eight and eighty feet thick. Above the ice, we imagined, the polar wind was howling across its trackless, barren stamping ground, grinding massive floes one upon the other.
By then we had been under ice for sixty-two hours. Obviously, it was not possible to take the usual fix on heavenly bodies to determine our position, so we were navigating primarily by dead reckoning. This means that we were spacing our speed and course on the chart and plotting our position every half-hour or so, accordingly. Our bottom soundings, sometimes useful in submerged navigating, did not help, of course, in this uncharted, unsounded area. Our precision fathometer had indicated differences of as much as eight thousand feet at those rare points where soundings were made, so we could not rely on it. Our only check on our navigating was the inertial navigator. At the exact moment we crossed the Pole, we knew, the instrument would give a positive indication. Tom Curtis moved closer to his dials and scopes as we drew near.
A mile south of the Pole, I told Jenks to inform me when we were four-tenths of a mile from the Pole as indicated by the electronic log. The mileage indicator was moving rapidly. It was only a matter of seconds. Nautilus crewmen had gathered in the attack center and the crew’s mess.
On Jenks’ mark, I stepped up to the mike of the ship’s public-address system:
“All hands—this is the captain speaking… In a few moments Nautilus will realize a goal long a dream of mankind—the attainment by ship of the North Geographic Pole. With continued Godspeed, in less than two days we will record an even more significant historic first: the completion of a rapid transpolar voyage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
“The distance to the Pole is now precisely four-tenths of a mile. As we approach, let us pause in silence dedicated with our thanks for the blessings that have been ours during this remarkable voyage—our prayers for lasting world peace, and in solemn tribute to those who have preceded us, whether in victory or defeat.”
The juke box was shut off, and at that moment a hush literally fell over the ship. The only sound to be heard was the steady staccato of pinging from our sonars steadily watching the bottom, the ice, and the dark waters ahead.
I glanced again at the distance indicator, and gave a brief countdown to the crew. “Stand by. Ten… eight… six… four… three… two… one. MARK! August 3, 1958. Time, 2315 (11:15 P.M. Eastern Daylight Saving Time). For the United States and the United States Navy, the North Pole.” I could hear cheers in the crew’s mess.
I looked anxiously at Tom Curtis. He was smiling. The inertial navigator had switched precisely as expected, positively confirming that we had crossed the exact North Pole. Curtis sang out: “As a matter of fact, Captain, you might say we came so close we pierced the Pole.”
I stood for a moment in silence, awestruck at what Nautilus had achieved. She had blazed a new submerged northwest passage, vastly decreasing the sea-travel time for nuclear submarines from the Pacific to the Atlantic, one that could be used even if the Panama Canal were closed. When and if nuclear-powered cargo submarines are built, the new route would cut 4,900 miles and thirteen days off the route from Japan to Europe. Nautilus had opened a new era, completely conquered the vast, inhospitable Arctic. Our instruments were, for the first time, compiling an accurate and broad picture of the Arctic Basin and its approaches. Nautilus’ achievement was dramatic proof of United States leadership in at least one important branch of science; and it would soon rank alongside or above the Russian Sputnik in the minds of millions. Lastly, for the first time in history a ship had actually reached the North Pole. And never had so many men—116—been gathered at the Pole at one time.
I was proud of what Nautilus had done, yet I felt no sense of personal triumph or achievement. That we had reached the Pole was due to the work and support of many people. My reaction, frankly, was an overwhelming feeling of relief that after months and months of preparation and two unsuccessful probes we had finally made it.
Precisely at the Pole, for the record, I made note of some statistics which may or may not prove useful. The water temperature was 32.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The depth of the sea was 13,410 feet, exactly 1,927 feet deeper than reported by Ivan Papanin, a Russian who landed there, he claims, in an airplane in 1937. (In 1909 Admiral Peary had found the depth “greater than 9,000 feet.”) At the exact Pole our ice detectors noted a pressure ridge extending twenty-five feet down.
After crossing the Pole, I made my way forward to join in the “North Pole Party” in the crew’s mess. My first act was to pay modest tribute to the man who, more than any other, had made our historic voyage possible: the President of the United States. A few minutes before, I had written him a message. It concluded: “I hope, sir, that you will accept this letter as a memento of a voyage of importance to the United States.” In the mess, before seventy crew members of Nautilus, I signed this letter, and one to Mrs. Eisenhower, who had christened the ship.
Other events followed. A “North Pole” cake, prepared especially by leading Commissaryman Jack L. Baird, was cut, distributed, and wolfed down. Electrician’s Mate First Class James Sordelet raised his right hand and became the first man in history to reenlist at the North Pole. In a special North Pole ceremony eleven other men, having passed the rigid written and oral examinations, were “qualified in nuclear submarines.” The prize-winning title to correspond to Shellbacks and Bluenoses was announced: Panopo, short for “Pacific to the Atlantic via the North Pole.” A “North Pole” postcard, stamped with the special North Pole cachet, was distributed to all hands. On the reverse side was a cartoon by McNally showing a sailor in a bathing suit standing on a small block of ice leaning against a striped “North Pole.” The card read: “Greetings from Sunny Panama.” All during these proceedings, movie and still cameras whirred and clicked.
Then a distinguished citizen “came aboard.” It was our talented McNally, dressed as Santa Claus. What a sight he made! Red vegetable coloring was splattered on his face. His whiskers were made of medical cotton, and a pillow was stuffed inside his Santa Claus suit, made of flag bunting.
Santa berated us for entering his private domain during the vacation season. He chided us particularly for our failure to abide by his restriction on the use of garbage disposal units by submerged transiting submarines! I pleaded ignorance and promised on behalf of all the ship’s company children to abide by all his rules henceforth.
That done, Santa Claus relaxed and became his usual jovial self. He listened very patiently as one of the fathers in the crew, Chief Engineman Hercules H. Nicholas, argued that the behavior of our children was absolutely beyond reproach. Santa promised, in light of our personal visit to the North Pole, that the coming Christmas season would be merry and lucrative for all our children.
Perspiring heavily, Santa finally said, “Well, I’ve got to go back to the Pole to make sure the elves are working.” And with that our extraordinary party ended. The juke box was turned back on; men drifted to their bunks for a little rest.
An “extra” edition of the ship’s newspaper was published that day, entitled “Nautilus Express—North Pole Edition.” It was unusually mild in tone and contained nothing libelous, which is an indication, I believe, that all hands were deeply moved by Nautilus’ triumph. The feeling of the crew was summed up in an article by the paper’s editor, John H. Michaud. He wrote:
The crew of the USS Nautilus (SS(N)571) have at this time accomplished one of the greatest feats that is possible for a peaceful nation composed of average citizens. We have reached a point that has never been attained before this time. Many courageous men have tried, few succeeded. Of all those men that have tried we humbly ask their forgiveness. They had courage and fortitude that many of us never had, never will have in our lifetime. To those men this is dedicated. We have arrived at the North Pole. The very last region of the earth that has never been explored. True we came to this region in a habitat that is not normal for man. We came with the best equipment, the best men, and a relative new form of power. Without this power we would have never attained the goal we set out for, now that we have reached that goal this same power will take us home to our loved ones, who have endured many hardships that will never be told to us. They bid us goodbye, some with tears, others with a strained look and always a question in their eyes. Is it this time? They know the goal that we have been striving for, since our return of last year, but the time and place we cannot say. We have left our loved ones not unlike the explorers of other times, with prayers to bring us Godspeed and a safe return. We are on that return now with much rejoicing and many happy thoughts for those we left behind. To my fellow shipmates this has been one of the most enjoyable trips I have ever been on, and without a doubt the most important. May God be with you on all other voyages that you make.