The signs were ominous as the Nautilus (SSN-571) edged north in search of a route into the Arctic Ocean from the Pacific. The nuclear-powered submarine's upwardly scanning fathometer detected ice stabbing 30 feet into the depths of the shallow Chukchi Sea between Alaska and Siberia. Through the periscope, Navy Commander William R. Anderson could make out an undulating roof of solid ice, cloudlike and menacing, as the Nautilus slid by in the gray current. The skipper ordered the boat down to 140 feet to avoid collision.
The sub continued bearing north into the unknown, skimming just 20 feet off the smooth sea bottom. Ahead, conditions worsened. Sonar reported a mile-wide block of ice descending to a depth of 63 feet—deep enough to threaten the sub's sail. "I stared in disbelief at its picture on sonar. The books said this couldn't happen!" noted the 37-year-old skipper. The consequences of his 4,000-ton sub smashing into the obstruction and causing severe damage crossed his mind—"slow death for those on board," he mused. In fact, that was in the realm of possibility for the 15 officers, 103 enlisted men, and four civilians on board.
Longer than a football field, the Nautilus began a slow turn back toward the Pacific. "I waited for and honestly expected the shudder and jar of steel against solid ice," said Anderson. "In pure agony we stood rigidly at our stations. No man moved or spoke."
In fact, the mission, so critical to the U.S. Navy and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, was on the verge of failure. For Ike, it was not good news. He needed success, in a hurry.
Just eight months earlier, the Soviets had launched the world's first earth-orbiting satellite. Sputnik seemed to presage Russian technological superiority and an ability to launch intercontinental missiles that could reach the United States. American efforts to catch up had ended disastrously in much-publicized explosions of Vanguard missiles on launch pads in Florida. President Eisenhower yearned for something to restore national prestige. That quick fix rested with the Nautilus, near the bottom of the Chukchi Sea, and her hunt for a route across the top of the world long imagined by Arctic explorers.
Bottomless Sea
With the advent of diesel-driven submarines, explorers envisioned transiting the ocean from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But could they actually succeed when the ice, spanning nearly 2,000 miles, was constantly shifting? It was a chancy proposition, maybe impossible. None of the world's submarines could stay down long enough; openings in the ice would have to be found to allow any who tried to surface for fresh air and to recharge storage batteries for undersea propulsion.
Other obstacles presented challenges as well. No one knew what perils lay beneath the ice, and there was no way to navigate without benefit of star sightings. In addition, magnetic compasses were erratic near the pole.
In 1956, after a visit to the Arctic, U.S. Senator Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA) suggested nuclear-powered submarines might be the answer. If they could operate under the ice cap, it would be a technological triumph and open up the entire 3,000 miles of Russia's northern coast to U.S. subs. After Sputnik, President Eisenhower was eager for the Nautilus to try.
From her launch in 1954, the world's first atomic-powered submarine had surpassed all expectations. Her revolutionary nuclear reactor required no air supply and produced previously unheard-of acceleration. In her shakedown cruise in 1955, she dazzled a Navy convoy.
"It was just a farce," said Captain Slade Cutter, assigned to the Nautilus to assess her Fleet worthiness. "There was no way that our ASW [antisubmarine warfare] forces at that time could do anything to a nuclear submarine. They never were able to attack us. It was clear to us and it was just funny—and pitiful."
The advantages of the Nautilus were numerous. She could stay submerged indefinitely, limited only by food for her crew. She could dive to incredible depths. She was equipped with mechanical scrubbers that removed carbon dioxide from stale air and huge oxygen tanks to refresh it and make it breathable. Air conditioning kept temperatures between 68 and 72 degrees. Creature comforts included a nickle-a-play jukebox with high-fidelity sound, a soda fountain, and movies shown daily in the crew's mess.
To many, it seemed appropriate the Nautilus attempt a transpolar crossing. In 1931, another ship by the same name failed to do so. That vessel was the Navy's antiquated O-12, leased to Australian explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins. Mechanical failures and suspected sabotage foiled the expedition from the start. Now, a submarine more akin to the futuristic vessel envisioned by author Jules Verne in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea—the SSN-571—was poised to undertake the challenge.
First Attempt
The Nautilus made an exploratory attempt from the Atlantic in 1957. Though the Arctic sea basin was easily attained between Greenland and Spitsbergen, the sub's periscope was damaged in an ice collision, and the gyrocompass became erratic, forcing the boat to turn back 180 miles from the Pole. The voyage, however, demonstrated that missile-carrying nuclear-powered subs then under development could hide beneath polar ice.
The idea of an undersea passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific, however, was left to the imagination. When asked by the White House whether it was possible, Commander Anderson thought it could be done the following year. But he wanted to attack the hardest part of the mission first—the shallow Bering Strait and Chukchi Sea. If the sub could find a north-running deep sea valley, he reasoned, the Nautilus could use it to sail under the ice into the Arctic Ocean and complete a transpolar voyage.
Rounding North America through the Panama Canal, the submarine encountered bad omens. Initially, crewmen contained a fire in oil-soaked insulation around a high-pressure steam turbine. Then, a leak developed in the boat's condenser system. Unable to locate the cause, Anderson sent crewmen dressed in civilian clothes into Seattle to buy 130 quarts of Barr's Leak at gasoline stations. The radiator fixative plugged the leak, allowing "Operation Sunshine" to get under way.
The Pacific gambit began in highest secrecy in June 1958. To avoid "another Vanguard fiasco," as the skipper put it, the Navy decided there would be no public disclosure of what the Nautilus was attempting until she succeeded. Also, since the Navy was worried the boat might enter Soviet territorial limits, the sub's identifying numerals were painted over.
Anderson was confident, however. Dr. Waldo Lyon, the Navy's leading Arctic expert, was on board with his newly developed upward-scanning fathometer to chart overhead ice. The Nautilus also was equipped with an inertial navigator, the N6A, taken from a Navajo missile. Its nose cone with the guidance system was situated behind the control room. Two technicians from North American Aviation, its builder, came with it to maintain the device, a relic from a failed supersonic intercontinental cruise missile project. On board the Nautilus, it provided pinpoint submerged navigation, unaffected by magnetic anomalies near the pole.
After casting off in Puget Sound, the skipper announced the purpose of the mission: "All hands. This is the captain speaking. Our destination for this trip is Portland, England, via the North Pole." Yet it was not to be. Not yet.
Ridges of subsurface ice blocked the Nautilus at every turn as she maneuvered east and west in the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea. At one point, the submarine seemed to be hemmed in by massive ice floes as she moved forward at 5 knots. Her crew breathless, the submarine wiggled her way past, clearing one curtain of ice by a bare five feet while skimming the sand-mush ocean floor. Chief sonar operator Al Charette recalled the moment from his home in Mystic, Connecticut. "We were stooped over, hunching our shoulders, giving it body English that the sail would not hit the ice."
It didn't. But the skipper was unwilling to go farther. Said Charette, "We just didn't have a good solid picture of what was ahead of us." Reluctantly, Anderson gave the order for the Nautilus to head south to Pearl Harbor. From there, he flew to the Pentagon, where he persuaded senior officers that a second attempt should be made later in the summer when there would be less ice.
Nautilus 90 North
SSN-571 returned in late July. Again, her crew could not locate a deep-water passage to the Arctic. The Nautilus surfaced and headed east along the shallow north coast of Alaska to the only known subsurface valley off Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of the United States. On 1 August, the submarine reached the trough and executed a dive into deepening seas that led straight to the Arctic Basin. Nothing then stood in the way as the sub accelerated. The North Pole was 1,094 miles distant. Another 800 miles beyond, and the Nautilus would exit the ice mantle near Greenland and make history.
The boat's sensors were on high alert for unknown peaks rising from the Arctic seafloor (two were detected) and any other anomaly in this uncharted frontier. For two days, the vessel sped due north without incident, "boring a hole in the ocean," as the men put it, far below the ice. "As we got closer and closer to the pole, tension throughout the boat increased," recalled John Yuill, the boat's quartermaster. "We were at 400 feet making over 20 knots. The crew's mess was crowded with just about everyone off watch."
Finally, after 62 hours under the ice, the sub was within a mile of her goal. The skipper addressed the crew. "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.
"Stand by," he went on after a brief pause.
"10-8-6-4-3-2-1. Mark!
"3 August 1958. Time 2315.
"For the United States and the United States Navy, the North Pole."
Wild cheers swept the boat as the Nautilus bisected the pole in seas more than 13,000 feet deep. A North Pole party broke out in the crew's mess. Before 70 off-duty crewmen, the captain signed commemorative letters to President Eisenhower and the First Lady, who had christened the submarine. They were hand-stamped with a cachet, PANOPO—an acronym for Pacific to the Atlantic via the North Pole.
Postcards were disseminated to all on board. Electrician's Mate First Class James Sordelet raised his right hand to become the first man to re-enlist at the Pole. As the sub headed south on the opposite side of the world, Engineman First Class William J. McNally, dressed as Santa Claus, strolled into the mess from the forward torpedo room, looking furious. He reproached the mild-mannered commander for violating his domain at the vacation season. Bemused, Anderson apologized while vowing to observe all Santa's rules. An extra edition of the shipboard newspaper proclaimed: Nautilus Express—North Pole Edition.
Without changing course, the submarine emerged from the ice pack northeast of Greenland on the morning of 4 August. The Nautilus had completed her crossing in 96 hours, covering 1,830 miles. When she surfaced, the skipper radioed Navy headquarters in Washington: "Nautilus 90 North"—the Nautilus had reached the North Pole. Near Iceland a helicopter met the sub and airlifted Commander Anderson to Reykajavik, where a Navy transport whisked him to Washington for a meeting at the White House. An ecstatic President Eisenhower presented the skipper with the Legion of Merit.
On a quick return to the sub, Anderson proceeded to Portland, England, to a high-spirited reception where Ambassador John Hay Whitney presented the officers and crew the first Presidential Unit Citation ever issued in peacetime. The Nautilus then sailed to New York City for a ticker-tape parade amid worldwide acclaim.
Post-Script
In her 25-year career, SSN-571 made 2,507 dives and sailed 513,550 miles. Following her decommissioning on 3 March 1980, the Nautilus joined the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut, in 1986. There she remains, open to the public as a National Historical Landmark drawing 250,000 visitors annually.
Commander Anderson, after his retirement as captain, served four terms in Congress as the Democratic representative for the Sixth District of Tennessee. In 1997, the Explorers Club presented him with its Lowell Thomas Medal for his North Pole expedition. Prior to his death in 2007, he attended a special ceremony of the American Geographical Society where he signed the famed globe bearing the signatures of the world's great explorers.
Today, nuclear-powered submarines regularly traverse the Arctic. They are vastly superior in their digital electronics, touchier exterior skins, and a nuclear core that can propel a modern Virginia-class submarine for 33 years as opposed to the Nautilus, whose reactor core was good for two years. The Arctic basin and routes to the Pacific have been mapped and studied.
In late September, veterans of the pioneering Nautilus will gather in Groton to mark the 50th anniversary of their historic voyage. Retired Electrician's Mate Roland Cave of Seattle and Al Charette of Mystic, Connecticut, will attend the reunion.
Recently, both put their polar run into perspective. "It gave the entire country a shot in the arm when we really needed it after Sputnik," Cave said. "It proved we could get under the ice."
Indeed, said Charette: "We out-Sputniked the Russians."
Sources:
Commander William R. Anderson and Clay Blair Jr., Nautilus 90 North (New York: Signet Key Book, 1959).
Arthur Widder, Action in Submarines (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). Chapter 26 devoted to SSN-571.
Frank Wicks, "Nuclear Navy," Mechanical Engineering, feature article on development of the Nautilus, January 2004.
Nautilus Alumni Association, Inc., http://users.gotsky.com/rcave/
Roland Cave, president, Nautilus Association, and Alfred "Al" Charette, 2008 reunion chairman, interviews with the author.
Biography of Captain Anderson, Submarine Force Library & Museum, "Klaxon online."
Brian Handwerk, "Beyond Polar Express: Fast Facts on the Real North Pole", National Geographic News, 8 November 2004.
Sir Hubert Wilkins' polar exploits at www.amphilsoc.org.