Around the World Submerged

by Edward L. Beach

  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.

  One of the curses of the modern Navy is paperwork. Early in their careers, therefore, all officers develop the technique of determining in the shortest possible time which papers require immediate attention and which can be postponed. Consequently, I had no difficulty recognizing that the handwritten note which somehow appeared upon my desk that day was more important than the sacks of carefully mimeographed official mail our “Mail Petty Officer” had laboriously dragged from the dock a few moments before.

  The note simply said, “CSL wants to know if you can be in Washington on 4 Feb. Please phone ASAP.”

  CSL stood for ComSubLant, the operational boss of all Atlantic Fleet submarines, and ASAP was good old Navy jargon for “as soon as possible.”

  Next day, the second of February, I met with Rear Admiral L. R. Daspit, ComSubLant, in his office at the Submarine base. He revealed nothing about the purpose of my trip to Washington, but hinted that it probably involved the shakedown cruise we had been planning for so long, and that there could be some questions relating to how long a cruise we might be able to make.

  The following day and a half were full of suspense. Early on the morning of the fourth, I appeared, as directed, in the office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Fleet Operations. I was wearing a civilian suit, as requested, and was ushered immediately into an inner office. />
  Conferences with a Deputy Chief of Naval Operations are hardly ever ordinary; but this one, I immediately realized, would be absolutely extraordinary. Maps were spread out on a large table, and besides Admiral Wallace M. Beakley, the Deputy Chief, there were two other admirals and a number of captains and commanders whom I recognized, plus a few whom I did not. Seated at the center of the table, Admiral Beakley was studying one of the charts. He looked up, waiting until the door had closed behind me.

  “Beach,” he said, as soon as the door had swung to, “what kind of shape is your ship in?”

  I assured him that Triton was in excellent condition and ready to carry out any mission she might be given. The Admiral nodded as though it was what he had expected.

  “Sit down,” he said, indicating a chair at the table opposite him. “Beach,” he said again, “you’re about due to start your shakedown cruise. Can Triton go around the world—submerged—instead?”

  The room swayed. Since my talk with Admiral Daspit I had tried to imagine the reason for this Washington conference, and I must truthfully admit that the possibility that Triton might be asked to try a round-the-world mission had crossed my mind. I had even considered several full-of-confidence responses with which to answer such a request. But the actual situation hardly seemed appropriate to any of the replies I had thought of, and after a sudden, nervous cough, I said, “Yes, Sir!” That was all I could say.

  “When can you get under way?”

  Admiral Taussig’s famous response, when asked a similar question in World War I: “We will be ready when fueled,” flashed across my mind, but of course Triton’s dual reactors would not need fuel for two or more years. Mindful that work already in progress was scheduled to be completed on the sixteenth of February, and aware that any change in schedule, even to prepare for a longer trip, would be upsetting, I answered, “We are scheduled to get under way for shakedown on the sixteenth of February, and we will still meet that date!”

  The next thing we discussed, as I recall, was the matter of a nonclassified name for the expedition. I was told that henceforth the Triton’s voyage would be called “Operation Sandblast.”

  The code name was a logical choice. Our trip was in the nature of a tour de force and would “take a lot of sand” on our part. Hence, “Sandblast.” Hence, also, my own personal code name: Sand, instead of Beach. Most beaches were full of sand, I was informed.

  By this time I didn’t care what anyone wanted to call me. Our long and diligently prepared trip to the North Atlantic was being replaced by one infinitely more exciting. But I did have a twinge of regret. The Navy’s need for crews to man still-newer ships had already claimed members of the wonderful crew which first took Triton to sea. Her Chief Engineer, Les Kelly, had received detachment orders which were ultimately to lead him to his own nuclear command. Several other of the ship’s stalwarts—some of them sporting newly won commissions—were about to leave her or had already left. Having given so much to bring Triton this far, what wouldn’t they give to go along on this trip, I thought. But, of course, they could not even be informed of it.

  There were other things to think about. One purpose of our trip was to collect oceanographic and gravitational data in one continuous circuit around the world, bringing all our original instrumentation and recorded data back to the starting point and thus establishing a base line. A submerged submarine was the most satisfactory platform for such a survey, and it turned out the Navy Hydrographer, Captain Hank Munson, a submariner of great reputation, had been looking for just such an opportunity.

  It was apparent that we would almost automatically follow the track of Magellan’s famous circumnavigation of 1519, but passing through the Strait of Magellan, which we studied carefully on the charts, did not appear feasible. This was not so much a navigational problem as one of security. To pass through the Strait of Magellan, we would need permission from the Republic of Chile. And though our relations with Chile were such that we would undoubtedly be granted this favor, the request itself would violate the Top Secret classification of our cruise. Time was too short to allow the more complicated negotiations which might possibly have been undertaken; so it was decided to side-step the issue by going around Cape Horn.

  Considerable discussion arose regarding the site in the Philippines where Magellan met his death, and I advocated Triton should visit it, if only to photograph the area. It was apparent that the length of the voyage would create a morale problem which could be partially solved by adding elements of interest. Psychologically, we needed some halfway objective during the cruise, much as visits to foreign ports are permitted to crews of ordinary ships during long voyages. Since we were to be permitted no visits to any ports, a pilgrimage to the place where Magellan died, I argued, would provide a welcome break to monotony. Permission was finally granted.

  Several hours later, as I was leaving the Pentagon, my head was buzzing with the thousands of details. But most of all, churning over and over in my brain was an almost off-hand remark made just as the conference broke up. “There’s a lot more riding on this than what you’ve heard today, Ned. We’re depending on you to get back on the tenth of May!” The speaker’s remarks continued to puzzle me. Apparently there was much more to this voyage than even I was to know.

  Questions and problems were tumbling through my mind like an avalanche, and try as I might to concentrate on the important details of the planning, the most prominent thought in my mind, the one I could not cast aside, was “what in the world will I tell my wife?” Ingrid was not even in New London, having been called suddenly to California, where her father was again seriously ill. How, in fact, could I even ask her to come home without revealing that something special was going on?

  At the conference it had been decided that the voyage would be classified; nothing was to be made known about it until its completion. If we failed for any reason, considerable thought would have to be given to precisely what sort of announcement would be released, if any. Obviously, in this event, our location and the circumstances would influence the decision. As everyone was quite aware, if we were to have an embarrassing failure, the effect would be a serious disservice to our national interests and to the prestige of the Navy. Again I could hear those portentous words: “We’re depending on you!”

  “We’ll not fail!” I had told them determinedly. “We will get under way on the sixteenth of February, and return on the tenth of May, as scheduled.” No one volunteered an explanation as to why the timing—and secrecy—were so vital, and I did not ask.

  Yet there was so much that my wife—and the other Triton wives—would have to be prepared for, and so little time.

  Every man in our crew would have his problems, too, without the consolation of knowing what I knew. Their personal lives, thus, became my responsibility. How could I inform them before departure that we would be away much longer than expected, that no mail could be sent or received during the entire cruise, that they would have to make personal preparations for an unusually long absence, attending to income tax, automobile-license tags, insurance policies, payment of rent, arrangement for financial support—a thousand details?

  It was more than a matter of crew morale; all but about forty of our crew were married, and all the officers but one. I had additionally been informed that about half-a-dozen civilian scientists with various specialties would be placed aboard to help us accumulate the desired data. None of them was to be informed of the basic purpose of the cruise or its duration. This was to be left to me, after we had gotten under way. Providing for these men (whom I didn’t know and hadn’t met, and would not meet until the day before we left) and their families was to be my responsibility also.

  As the train rattled north toward New York and New London, I mentally discarded one scheme after another. With some misgiving, I finally resolved to announce that an unknown bureaucrat in Washington had so fouled up our shakedown cruise schedule that we would have to proceed directly from the North Atlantic into the Car
ibbean for special tests requested by the Bureau of Ships. “Unknown bureaucrats” for years have been blamed for things that have gone wrong, especially when the complaining parties do not care to be too specific about placing the blame. For years I had seen this happen and had defended the unknown bureaucrat whenever I had an opportunity. Now, I was about to add to the ridicule heaped on the Washington civil servant, despite the fact that he works harder and gets less thanks than perhaps anyone else in the country.

  As a result of this nameless bureaucrat’s inefficiency, we would not be able to send or receive mail at any time, I would tell my people, and hence (here was the kicker) a list of “things to do” (which included all preparations for a long voyage) would be given to all hands. In the name of efficiency, each man would be required to return a signed copy of the list, attesting to his having carried out all the various instructions.

  This was, of course, far from my only problem. The idea of diverting slightly from our cruise to visit the place where Magellan died had met with approval, and someone had proposed, in addition, that as Triton passed near Spain she should pause momentarily to render homage to that famous and unfortunate navigator. This, too, had met with favor, as did the idea of a commemorative gift to Spain in his honor.

  The Navy, however, has no budget for such commemorations, but I had told the conference that Triton herself would somehow design and finance the casting of an appropriate plaque. It had to be big, as befits a gift from one nation to another, but small enough to fit through our hatches; it had to be memorial in nature, in keeping with the intent; and it had to be something that both Spaniards and Americans could henceforth look at with pride.

  Another problem was to obtain adequate charts, in secrecy, and to lay out our course in meticulous detail in advance, so that the Navy would always know precisely where we were. Our track was to be some thirty-four thousand nautical miles, in itself a fantastic plotting job, and this, too, had to be done surreptitiously!