Early in 1999, the Hawkbill (SSN-666) set out for the Arctic on her final cruise—and the Navy's final submarine science expedition with the National Science Foundation.
Thursday, 18 March 1999, was a beautiful, warm day in Pearl Harbor, and I knew I had better enjoy it. The USS Hawkbill (SSN-666) was preparing to depart for her final trip to the Arctic, where "unusually warm" means anything above -20 deg F. It would be a bittersweet trip. After more than 28 years in service, my submarine was going to be decommissioned at the end of this run, and we carried with us to the North Pole the ashes of Dr. Waldo Lyon, the father of Arctic submarining, who had died from cardiac arrest in May 1998.
Dive! Dive!
The Hawkbill departed her home port a mere six months after returning from our last Arctic mission. My crew of Arctic veterans was ready for anything! We dove just west of Oahu and headed north at 19 knots at a depth of 600 feet. Our next fresh air would be three weeks hence, when we surfaced in the Arctic. Between us and the Arctic Ocean, however, stood an enormous challenge-transiting the ice-covered Bering Strait, the small gap between Russia and Alaska.
What made this transit especially difficult was the season. As winter progresses, the sea water freezes farther and farther south, until by late March it has expanded well below the strait and into the Bering Sea. As the ice grows in the Chukchi Sea, sheets of ice moved by wind and current from the Arctic Ocean tend to raft up on one another, because the land masses on either side of the Bering Strait create a bottleneck. As the sheets pile up, ridges form above and below the surface. Submarines attempting to navigate this 1,000-mile stretch must compete with a "roof" overhead and ice keels reaching all the way to the bottom. Further aggravating the situation is the area's extremely shallow water. Average water depth in this body of water is just 160 feet. During the eight-day transit through the Bering Sea, Bering Strait, and Chukchi Sea, the crew would have to maneuver the 4,700-ton, 52-foot tall, 292-foot long Hawkbill in very shallow water, covered entirely by a thick canopy of ice.
Dodging ice keels kept our watch teams on their toes. For the crew, it would be the greatest challenge of our naval careers. We went under the ice edge after dinner on 25 March. Sailors in the control room watched our upward-looking television awestruck as the ice passed overhead. Within a day, we were in shallow water just southwest of St. Lawrence Island. Then the "fun" really started.
The ice became extremely hostile, with massive ridges forcing us to maneuver frequently—at times almost one helm order every two minutes. The control room parties worked well as a team. The conning officer would analyze the ice avoidance sonar display to pick his path through the keels and would give the helm a rudder order to effect a course change. Meanwhile, the navigation supervisor would call out the depth beneath the keel: "23 feet, 22 feet, . . . !" The diving officer of the watch would coach the helm on his fairwater planes use to maintain ordered depth within one foot. The chief of the watch would pump or flood water into our variable ballast tanks to keep the ship exactly neutrally buoyant. The stern planesman concentrated on the precision bubble and operated his planes to maintain the ship's angle at plus or minus 1/8th of a degree. Zero angle on the ship is critical for proper ice avoidance sonar operation. The ice avoidance sonar operator would operate the bearing cursor, searching for the "hole" in the ice we could go through, while talking constantly to the conning officer. The polynya plot would mark the surfaceable features that went by, as well as man the phones with the throttleman, to relay what the helmsman was doing with the rudder, as the rudder has a dramatic effect on ship's speed. This conversation was necessary so that the throttleman could maintain five knots by log, which is vital to maintain depth and angle. When a keel passed by the ship, the officer of the deck would start a stopwatch as it faded off the bow to time when we could next turn. The topsounder watch would call out the depth of the keels as they passed overhead. All of this went on for an entire week.
Needless to say, it was extremely stressful. We watched the ice avoidance sonar display as keels passed from the bow down the beams on either side of the ship without ever fading in intensity. This meant that those keels extended down to the bottom. On several occasions, we encountered a "wall of ice," which we had to turn and parallel to find our way around. Once we had to go six miles off our track to find a hole in the wall and then squeeze through. At times, we held our breath as the ship hugged the bottom, maintaining a scant 20 feet of water under hull while ducking under ice keels, sometimes missing the sail by just 15 feet.
In my 18 years in the Navy, I have never experienced an operation as risky and dangerous. One slip-up and the ship could have smashed into the ice pack overhead or burrowed into the mud on the bottom—but never did I hear a complaint or a whine from my men. They went methodically about their business as professional as ever.
In the Name of Science
In 1992, members of the nation's scientific community approached the Navy about using a U.S. attack submarine to conduct scientific research in the Arctic. Nuclear-powered submarines, because of their ability to submerge to depths greater than 800 feet and travel at speeds in excess of 25 knots without having to surface other than for food, offer unmatched flexibility with respect to maneuvering and sampling in the frozen Arctic. The Navy agreed to a "proof of concept" cruise, and in 1993, the Pargo (SSN-650) was deployed with a small group of scientists and their equipment for a 21-day cruise. The Pargo demonstrated that the submarine not only is capable of performing such missions but also is the platform of choice, and in 1994 the Navy signed a memorandum of agreement with the National Science Foundation to conduct one submarine science expedition (SCICEX) per year starting in 1995. The Hawkbill had the privilege of conducting the final two expeditions.
Prior to SCICEX 98, the Hawkbill was fitted with a large geophysics system called Seafloor Characterization and Mapping Pods (SCAMP). SCAMP consists of two big sonar pods mounted on the keel of the ship. Using active sonar, the sub-bottom profiling pod is capable of penetrating the bottom sediment up to 200 meters, allowing researchers to determine the composition of the layers of sediments making up the ocean floor. In addition, the swath mapping pod provides a graphic representation of the sea floor for a swath of up to five miles on either side of the submarine. Researchers on board actually can see images of the sea floor as the ship travels over it using this advanced sonar technology. High-quality bathymetric data also can be gathered, enabling needed updates to the Arctic nautical charts.
For SCICEX 99, the Hawkbill enjoyed the luxury of working with an ice camp. Ice Camp Lyon—named in honor of Dr. Waldo Lyon, father of Arctic submarining and founder of the Navy's Arctic Submarine Laboratory—served as a logistical home base to which we could surface to conduct some science, replenish supplies, and embark passengers. The temperature there averaged about -20 deg F, with wind chill driving it to as low as -70 deg F.
Once clear of the perilous Bering Strait, we headed directly for the ice camp, about 150 miles northwest of Barrow, Alaska. The team awaiting us there was headed by Captain Jeff Fischbeck, Director of the Arctic Submarine Laboratory in San Diego, California, and ice camp officer in tactical command. The Hawkbill first surfaced at the camp on the morning of 3 April and picked up several scientists, a two-person Cable News Network crew, a writer and a photographer from National Geographic magazine (some of whose wonderful photos accompany this article), and, to the delight of the crew, some fresh fruits and vegetables. Rear Admiral Al Konetzni, Pacific Submarine Force Commander, also embarked for this leg of the journey, as did a team of scientists headed by Dr. Margo Edwards from the University of Hawaii. She and the other scientists would spend the first week surveying the Chukchi Cap region with the SCAMP geophysics sensors, collecting water samples, and measuring properties of the Arctic waters. Although maneuvering was not as challenging as during our Bering Strait transit, we spent most of the week operating in shallow waters, the majority of which were previously uncharted.
The primary goal of the Chukchi Cap survey was to search for evidence that large sheets of ice had scoured the bottom in shallow areas during the Ice Age. We discovered that most of the shallow sea floor on the Chukchi Cap had been plowed by iceberg keels. In slightly deeper regions, however, we mapped features with shapes similar to those produced by glaciers.
After completing our mission on the Chukchi Cap we transited east to the Northwind Rise, where we mapped dramatic cliffs and more iceberg scours. We also collected water samples from the northern, southern, and eastern extremes of the Chukchi Cap for analysis by researchers from the United States and Canada. The water over the cap is clear, and using our upward-looking video camera we were able to see large schools of jellyfish passing overhead. The data collected during this phase will be studied for years to come to help improve our understanding of the geological evolution of the Arctic basin.
We again surfaced at the ice camp on 10 April, dropping off the media and picking up about a dozen distinguished visitors for a brief overnight ride. The Hawkbill returned a little before 0600 the next morning and dropped off the dignitaries. We then embarked a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor and a film crew preparing a PBS documentary.
Submerged a few hours later, we began the next phase of data collection and exploration: the survey of the Alaskan Shelf. The Hawkbill sampled the water frequently during this phase. We adhered painstakingly to a sawtooth track, drawing water samples at predetermined depths and locations. For five days the submarine darted back and forth along the Alaskan Shelf, an area also lacking reliable soundings. We sampled along the northern Alaskan coastline to better define the makeup of the water and the current there. Measurements of the water were made using the sail-mounted oceanographic sensors, expendable oceanographic sensors, and the Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler. These measurements will be used to determine the structure of the current and how it mixes with surrounding waters. In addition, water samples were collected for other investigators who will analyze them to estimate the biological growth in these near-shelf waters and, hopefully, trace their origins. Ultimately, all of this data will be combined to help define the various water masses that intermingle along the continental slope.
During the water-sampling program we continued to map the ocean bottom, discovering large canyon systems that formed during glacial times. These complex channel systems now have been mapped in greater detail than ever before and undoubtedly will provide new information to help oceanographers explain the water currents.
Interestingly, to draw the samples along a vertical column of water, the Hawkbill would start at a predetermined depth, deploy a Conductivity Temperature and Depth (CTD) probe to acquire preliminary data, and then spiral down using full rudder, taking water samples at various depths throughout the water column. We would end up leaning to the left for three hours with the full rudder on while slowly spiraling toward the bottom. These evolutions, called submerged hydrocasts, required a great deal of coordination between the navigation team, the ship control team, and the scientists collecting data. The CTD probes measure the ocean's conductivity and temperature at depths from 40 feet to 3,300 feet, and the data is relayed back to the ship via a very thin wire.
The ship surfaced one last time at the ice camp on the morning of 16 April. In addition to picking up a new team of researchers, we entertained a few more reporters at the camp and loaded out more than 100 CTDs and enough food stores to last us through our next port visit, which would be Portsmouth, England, in May. The ship also embarked our last team of scientists, led by Dr. Bernie Coakley of Tulane University.
After saying a sad good-bye to Ice Camp Lyon, we submerged and set sail across the Arctic Ocean. In this phase of the research, we would cross the Arctic from the Alaska coast to a point near the Spitzbergen Islands off northern Norway. We would sample the water frequently using submerged hydrocasts as well as launch expendable oceanographic probes approximately every 25 miles. We would not complete the transect at once but would make several side trips on the way.
The first side trip was to conduct a detailed survey of the Lomonosov Ridge. This survey took more than 12 days, as we went back and forth across the ridge, mapping the entire feature with SCAMP. Scientists believe this ridge is where the Pacific and Atlantic waters meet, and its topography is thought to effect this boundary dramatically. In addition, scientists want to better define the ancient plate boundaries of this ridge. For the crew, this phase was very monotonous. We fondly called these ridge surveys "mowing the grass," because the pattern we traveled went back and forth like someone would when mowing his lawn.
After the Lomonosov Ridge survey, our next stop was the North Pole! Although not needed for our science mission, this North Pole surfacing was very important to me and my crew. We all worked hard for this and wanted to relish the moment.
At the Top of the World
For the second time in less than a year, on 3 May 1999 at 1005Z, the Hawkbill reached the North Pole—the last time that a ship would visit the Pole in the 20th century. I wanted to surface right at the Pole, but the ice was very thick. We observed a 98-foot-deep ice keel right near the Pole, as well as numerous 80 footers. We needed a patch of ice about 1-3 feet thick that we could fit the entire ship in. This was going to be a challenge.
For hours, my men and I sat glued to our topsounder, side scan sonar, and upward-looking television displays searching for just that right spot. After several hours, we found a suitable polynya to survey. It was about 800 yards long and 300 yards wide and approximately three miles from the Pole, but the ice was very thin—less than a foot according to our topsounder. If the ice were too thin, the crew would not be able to go on the ice for liberty. I already had made up my mind that if that were to happen, we would dive again and find a better place to enjoy liberty at the Pole. My crew certainly had earned it.
We mapped the feature in detail and positioned the ship directly under the thickest portion of the thin ice overhead. Vertically surfacing a 292-foot submarine is a challenging evolution, but we had performed this procedure numerous times over the past year. My conning officer supervised the diving officer as he established all the needed conditions: 150-foot keel depth to begin hovering with a 2 up angle. The diving officer ordered the fairwater planes rotated to the under ice position—perpendicular to the sail. We were in position and ready to surface at the North Pole.
I gave the order to start our slow vertical ascent and the hovering panel operator took manual control of the hovering system and blew some water out of depth control tanks. We started to rise slowly. We needed to maintain a 1-3 deg up angle on the ship, so we would strike the ice with the crown of our sail, keeping our propeller away from the ice. If we get a down angle, we risk hitting the screw against the ice, which would severely damage our only means of propulsion. Our diving officer was doing a great job keeping the up angle, so I ordered, "Vertical surface the ship. Achieve a 30-foot-per-minute ascent rate." We blew more water out and our ascent rate increased. This is the only time a submarine captain can hit something with his ship and escape with his career intact!
We smacked the underside of the ice at exactly 30 feet per minute. I ordered the chief of the watch to conduct a short, three-second normal blow of our forward ballast tanks with high-pressure air. We heard crunching and scraping as our massive sail pushed its way through the ice. I ordered one more blow of the forward group to ensure we stayed surfaced and then I ordered a two-second blow of the after group to slowly bring our stern in contact with the ice. We settled out nicely and held on the surface. After a second of quiet, a cheer broke out—we were surfaced at the North Pole! I congratulated everyone on the ship's announcing system for their superb effort.
After removing what ice was left on our sail, we raised our periscope to view the icescape around us—a spectacular sight. We were in an ice lake surrounded by large chunks of ice called hummocks, some of which reached almost 20 feet in the air. There was no telling how far down the pressure ridges underneath them went. And the ice went for as far as one could see. The sky was very blue, with not a cloud in it, and the sun shone brightly. The air temperature was 10 deg F and there was a light breeze. And the best news was that the ice was thick enough to put people on it for liberty.
We spent eight hours surfaced at the Pole and enjoyed every minute. Thousands of pictures were taken, some of the crew played touch football, and several men took the opportunity to whack a couple of golf balls. Two crew members reenlisted at this special place. Everyone had a great time, but no one forgot what they were standing on—ten inches of ice, below which lay 12,000 feet of water!
I was able to call Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson via satellite cell phone to send greetings from the North Pole. He was delighted, and told me how proud he was of the Hawkbill and her crew. Needless to say, this was one of the highlights of my naval career.
More Science
Our time at the Pole passed quickly, and before we knew it we were back beneath the ice sheet. We had ten more days of science to complete before beginning our transit to a well-deserved port visit in Portsmouth, England.
First, we completed our cross-Arctic transects, shooting expendable CTD probes periodically from our aft signal ejector. During SCICEX 99, we shot more than 150 of these probes. The data they provide are used to construct salinity and temperature profiles across the Arctic, which are vital to ongoing global climate-change studies. Comparison of the data over the six years of the program reveals that the Arctic is warming, but further analysis is needed before any conclusions can be drawn.
Following completion of the transect, we again "mowed grass," completing a detailed SCAMP survey of the Arctic Mid Ocean Ridge. Scientists are extremely interested in this ridge—the slowest moving ridge on earth—as they believe it holds clues to how the earth was formed millions of years ago. The SCAMP pictures of this ridge are phenomenal. It looks like an underwater mountain range with numerous high peaks and deep valleys.
We completed our science by surveying a portion of the Yermak Plateau, just north of Spitsbergen Islands. At the invitation of the government of Norway, the Hawkbill entered the Norwegian exclusive economic zone and surveyed this plateau, looking for iceberg scours and other interesting phenomena.
Aloha Hawkbill
The ship returned to Hawaii on 1 July, after port visits in Portsmouth, England, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Our trip through the Atlantic was a first for the Hawkbill. We transited the Panama Canal—enjoying the warm weather by having a barbecue topside—and later dipped below the equator, making everyone on board Shellbacks as well as Bluenoses.
This was the last cruise for this mighty ship, and a series of science expeditions also had come to a close. Sailors and scientists alike praise the tremendous data collection and the valuable military and scientific understanding gained in the Arctic during SCICEX, but the program has come to an end for the foreseeable future because of a lack of available submarines. We have gone from 96 submarines in 1990 to a projected 50 boats by 2003. Planners already are being asked which missions the remaining submarines can perform and which will go unfulfilled. I'm concerned that the remaining force simply will not be able to complete key missions like this in our national interests—missions our submarines are uniquely capable of carrying out.
This journey to the Arctic was very special for me. In a small ceremony at the North Pole, the crew had the honor of scattering the ashes of Dr. Lyon, who died from cardiac arrest in May of 1998. His work since the late 1940s helped make Arctic submarine operations a reality. He personally made nearly two dozen trips to the Arctic on board Navy submarines. Dr. Lyon rode the Hawkbill for the first Sturgeon-class submarine submerged winter transit of the Bering Strait in 1973, and I suppose it was fitting that he was on board for the last. I think he would have been pretty proud of my crew. I know I am.
Commander Perry is commanding officer of the Hawkbill (SSN-666).