Spy Sub: A Top Secret Mission to the Bottom of the Pacific

by Roger C. Dunham

  In the engine room, I sat next to Donald Svedlow, both of us watching our panels and monitoring the various conditions that could shut down the nuclear plant or electrical systems. We didn't talk much about Brian Lane, and we didn't discuss the uncertain future of Paul Mathews. During the first few minutes of each four-hour watch, like a ritual, I lit up a cigar and Svedlow broke out a small can of chewing tobacco. As I filled the area with a cloud of smoke, he took a pinch of the stuff and jammed it into the corner of his mouth. We then sat back in our chairs and quietly watched the meters. To my considerable surprise, the reactor performed flawlessly week after week. We settled into a routine while we waited for an indication from the hangar compartment that something worthwhile was being accomplished. Between watches, I tried to read one of my several books, studied my cursed French lessons again, and, in the privacy of my rack, slowly thumbed through my stack of honeymoon pictures.

  Every once in awhile, I downed a can of Coca-Cola and thought about circuit breakers.

  After almost four weeks of searching, as our uranium fuel became further depleted, a new problem with the Fish equipment interrupted the flow of information from the bottom of the ocean. It was a fundamental design flaw in the winching system that prevented proper movement of the cable, a flaw that nobody could correct and one flaw that created a new level of frustration in the men working on the Fish. We could feel the contained rage of their failure. During meals, they talked little and poked at their food. Eventually, they dragged themselves back to the hangar to study the problem again and again.

  By the fifth week, when the searching operation had come to a complete halt, morale dropped to the lowest level that I had seen since reporting on board.

  At this point, Captain Harris turned the situation around for us in the form of a loudspeaker announcement, one of his rare broadcasts throughout the boat to all of us. I was calibrating a nuclear control circuit board at the far corner of the engine room when the speaker above my head came to life. I put down the equipment to listen.

  "This is the captain speaking," the deep voice said, the words flowing with the authority of the commanding officer. "We have become hampered by equipment that was designed without benefit of practical experience. The Fish is now back inside the boat, and our search operation has been temporarily suspended. The flaws in this equipment must be corrected for us to complete our job."

  I glanced down the passageway and noticed that the other men had also stopped their work to listen.

  "We have come a long way during these past months," the captain continued, "but we have a considerable distance to go. The Viperfish has enough fuel for another four weeks, and we are going to remain here for that time as we work to find a solution. The equipment will not give us the answer. It is going to be up to the crew to find the answer." After outlining the details of our dilemma, he concluded the announcement by urging each of us to give our best effort.

  Six hours later, as the captain sat in his stateroom and reviewed the design parameters of the winching system, a knock came at his door. Petty Officer Timothy Brown, one of the enlisted men working with the civilians in the hangar, was carrying several pieces of paper covered with penciled drawings. Brown was a big man with a gentle manner. His background was more mechanical than scientific, and he was known by the crew to be more of a worker than an innovator.

  "Captain, I'm sorry to interrupt you," Brown said politely as he opened the door, "but I believe I have the solution to our problem."

  Harris and Brown hunched over the tiny stateroom table for hours as they reviewed the sketches, criticized and analyzed the new concepts, and bounced fresh ideas back and forth within the cramped quarters.

  "We drill a hole here," Brown said, his pencil racing across the drawing. "We insert a pin here; this will stabilize the bearing and prevent the movement of the shaft. And then we bolt this clamp here, like so."

  The captain looked up at Brown, his bushy eyebrows drawn together with concern. "There are some pretty strong assumptions, here," he said.

  "Yes, sir, there are," Brown answered, simply. "I did have to make some guesses, but I think it can work."

  "It could conceivably stabilize the whole assembly," the captain agreed.

  "It would take only a couple of days to do this, sir, all of us working together on this thing. There'll still be plenty of time left for the search."

  Brown's design was accepted by the civilian scientists and incorporated into the winching system in less than two days. Soon after, everybody began the complex process of lowering the Fish through the hole. The cable moved freely with the revised winching mechanism, and the Fish again disappeared into the black ocean and moved along on its journey to the bottom nearly twenty thousand feet down.

  Several days later, Robbie league prepared for another session in his darkroom on the port side of the hangar. During the time the Fish had been out of commission, his work had been minimal, with no pictures to analyze and nothing much to do but wait. When the Fish was brought back inside the Viperfish after the first run, Robbie finally had work to do.

  Isolated within the confined darkroom on the port side of the hangar, he pulled film out of Fish canisters and applied chemicals until the 8 x 10 photographs provided testimony about the ocean floor. He kept the door tightly shut behind him as the glow of red light cast shadows over the trays filled with pictures. Bitter fumes from developer and fixer solutions burned his throat and lungs, flared his nostrils, and teared his eyes. The process of producing the stacks of photographs was tedious, and Robbie struggled to maintain a creative interest in the glossy pictures of mud.

  Picture after picture looked the same. Each showed the flat expanse of sludge that had been only rarely interrupted by the drab outline of a sea cucumber. The strobe light on the Fish provided remarkably clear pictures, he noticed with some pride, and the stack of photos from this run was substantial.

  Nobody had come around to tell Robbie what the pictures were supposed to show. His job was to take the pictures and review the results for clarity, focus, depth of field, and contrast. There was no reason for him to have any understanding about what might be at the bottom of the ocean. As the ship's photographer, he had no need to be included in the exclusive club of scientists and technicians involved in the operation of the Fish.

  To Robbie, the past twelve hours had been just another routine photo session. Flipping through the stack of photographs, he saw mud in this one, more mud in the next one, and — look at that — a boulder here, and a little rock there. He reacted slightly at the next picture-a fish, a strange creature with wires coming out of its forehead, its huge eyes undoubtedly blinded from the power of the underwater strobe. He smiled at the thought of his job, studying mud and blinding creatures at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. The Fish was about twenty feet above the floor, he guessed, as he turned to the next photograph.

  Spanning the full length of the 8x10 glossy was the conning tower of a submarine.

  Robbie froze, his hand tightening its grasp on the picture under. the red light, his eyes scanning the details of the rough steel, his heart beginning an incessant pounding within his chest. He was immediately sure that it was not an American submarine. It resembled a Soviet boat. There were no sailplanes protruding from the side of the vessel, and it had four different periscope-like devices protruding from the top. The main section of the submarine, lying on its side, showed up in stark relief from the surrounding mud, and Robbie saw the fragmented edges of broken steel at the corner of the picture. The submarine's numbers had been painted over, and the superstructure appeared to have buckled from the stresses of its final descent.

  Reaching for the telephone, he simultaneously grabbed the next picture. As he dialed the captain's stateroom, he saw the skeleton lying on the mud, thirty feet from the main structure.

  "Captain here," the voice crackled into his ear.

  "Captain Harris?" Robbie asked, his voice sounding strange.

  "This is Captain Harr
is," the voice answered.

  "Captain, this is Robbie Teague, up in the hangar-in the photo shack."

  "Yes, go ahead."

  "We have found what we are looking for."

  The Viperfish's trip back to Pearl Harbor, three weeks later, was filled with an atmosphere of celebration. It was a matter of continuous amazement that nobody but the captain, the executive officer, and the ship's photographer knew what we were celebrating. A single announcement from the captain about our success had come over the loudspeakers. His voice was audibly shaky as he reported that we had found the object of our search. There were some further words of congratulations to every man of the Viperfish crew, and that was it.

  A feast was served, banquet style, in the mess, and punchbowls were filled with juices having a special tang. The entire dining area displayed exceptional touches of culinary expertise that said "thank you" to all of us from the captain. I wandered back into the engine room, popped open a can of Coca-Cola in front of the circuit breakers, smiled, and felt good.

  Long before we raised our periscope off the island of Kauai, channel fever struck and adrenaline surged through us as we moved closer to home. We had been at sea for two months, and the thought of getting back to the real world came to me with a blast of raw energy. Sleep was out of the question, watching movies or reading novels was impossible, and when I finally lined up the cross hairs of our periscope on the waterfalls, twenty miles away, I relished the beauty of the deep blue sky and the green mountains. Later that night, I crowded into the top of the sail with the lookouts and Lieutenant Pintard, where we all silently watched the soft beauty of our fluorescent wake and the distant lights of Honolulu under a spray of stars.

  The next morning, the wives and other loved ones of the Viperfish's crew stood clustered together at the edge of the submarine pier and strained to see the first sign of the approaching boat. The day was warm and beautiful, with no signs of the quick squalls that were typical of the area. The past two months had been very long for all of them, and they were talking excitedly as they waited. Keiko wore a summer print dress and a wide-brimmed white hat. The other women displayed the full spectrum of colorful Hawaiian clothes.

  Keiko had been called by Chief Linaweaver's wife the night before about the Viperfish's arrival time. This was part of an informal but extensive network system to notify all families of the boat's imminent arrival. Keiko had chased around to the supermarkets and bought enough food for a royal feast to prepare for my homecoming.

  "There it is!" Betty Linaweaver exclaimed, pointing across Pearl Harbor at the black shape of the Viperfish rounding the bend and heading toward the submarine base.

  "Beautiful!" several women called at the same time as they admired the full Hawaiian lei, wrapped around the sail, that extended almost all the way to the deck.

  "What is that thing at the top of its periscope?" one of the children asked as the Viperfish glided across the water and moved closer to the submarine pier.

  "It's a lei," the child's mother said. "A welcoming boat carries it out to them as they're coming up the channel-"

  "Not that," the child said. "That other thing, sticking straight up."

  "I don't know," another woman called out, peering at the periscope. "It looks like a stick or something is attached-"

  "It's a broom!" another woman exclaimed.

  Keiko turned, puzzled, to the woman standing next to her. "A broom?" she asked.

  The chief of the boat ordered the Viperfish's crew to secure from the maneuvering watch after our lines were attached to the pier. I deactivated the circuit breakers and handed an astounded Chief Linaweaver an official supply request for a new Mod 1, Mark 2, strip of metal. Finally, climbing up the ladder leading out of the engine room, I blinked at the brilliant tropical sunlight that I hadn't seen for two months and turned toward the pier. I immediately spotted Keiko waving frantically to me, her face lit up with happiness.

  About five enthusiastic minutes later, she diplomatically mentioned that I smelled sort of…funny.

  "Funny?" I asked. "I showered twice, I even took an extra long shower so I'd really smell good. I used a lot of soap, too."

  She smiled. "Maybe it just doesn't come off"

  "Maybe what doesn't come off?"

  "That smell, whatever it is." She smiled and kissed me again. "It's not a bad smell," she said, "it's kind of a…submarine smell. Like diesel oil or machinery, or something."

  "Well, I'll shower again when-"

  She touched her finger against my lips. "No," she said softly, "we'll shower when we get home. And don't plan on much sleep tonight."

  Holding her tightly against me, I felt her warmth and the final relief from the aching separation that we had both experienced.

  Thirty feet from where we stood, three naval officers with more gold on their uniforms than I had ever seen climbed out of an official black U.S. Navy limousine. They stood near the side of the car and quietly watched the men walking across the brow. Captain Harris and Lieutenant Dobkin were the last to come through the control room hatch and appear on the deck of the boat. They were immediately joined by two armed guards from the submarine base. As the guards escorted the men across the brow toward the pier, I noticed that Dobkin was carrying a black briefcase with heavy locks attached to the top. The case was big enough to hold hundreds of glossy photographs, and a large pair of steel handcuffs secured the handle of the briefcase to his left wrist. The men climbed into the limousine, and it sped away.

  Keiko and I walked down the pier to our car, hand in hand. She told me that she had seen the broom and knew that we had been successful.

  "I can't say anything-" I started to say, when she interrupted me.

  "You don't have to say anything at all, honey," she said softly as our hands tightened. "I'm proud of you, I'm glad you're back safely, and I love you."

  We drove away from the pier and the Viperfish, turned left on Kamehameha Highway, and rushed past the vast fields of sugar cane to the quiet little apartment waiting for us in the hills of Oahu.

  Epilogue

  SEPTEMBER 1968. At a secret ceremony on the Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, Capt. Thomas Harris received the Distinguished Service Medal, one of the highest honors awarded by the U.S. Navy. This was the first time since 1914 that an officer of his rank had received such a commendation, and an appropriate notation was made in his service record.

  At a remote corner of Pearl Harbor Submarine Base, on the deck of the USS Viperfish, a high-ranking entourage, on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson, sequestered the crew for a special ceremony. Unlike all other such ceremonies, there was no announcement of the event, and the uniform of the day was dungarees. Ribbons were handed to each man, and an admiral read a quick message:

  The President of the United States takes pleasure in presenting the Presidential Unit Citation to the crew of the USS [Viperfish (SSN-655)], for service as set forth in the following citation:

  For exceptionally meritorious service in support of National Research and Development efforts while serving as a unit of the Submarine Force, United States Pacific Fleet. Conducting highly technical submarine operations, over an extended period of time, the USS [Viperfish (SSN-655)] successfully concluded several missions of significant scientific value to the Government of the United States. The professional, military, and technical competence, and the inspiring devotion to duty of [Viperfish] officers and men, reflect great credit upon themselves and the United States Naval Service.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  JANUARY 1969. The official black Navy limousine approached the Marine guard gate at the end of the long bridge connecting the city of Vallejo to the nuclear submarine shipyard on Mare Island, California. Slowing near the guard, the driver rolled down his window and briskly returned the Marine's salute.

  "May I see your identification, sir?" the guard asked the white-haired man in the back seat.

  "This is Admiral Hyman G. Rickover," the driver said authoritatively.

  "Th
ank you, sir," the guard answered the driver, looking again at the man in the back seat. "May I see your identification, sir?"

  The guard knew exactly who the man was; all the guards had known he was coming for days. And if there ever was a time to follow orders precisely to the letter, this was it.

  The back door opened. Looking furious, the white-haired man jumped out. He moved around the guard and started marching down the street in the direction of Mare Island.

  "Sir, you must show your identification!" the guard called, his right hand nervously fingering the top of his pistol.

  The man continued walking as the driver and the other passenger in the limousine flashed their identification cards and moved forward to pick up the man. The Marine guard raced to the nearby Marine Corps office, ordered a relief guard in his place, and mustered five more men. They all jumped into a military pickup truck and chased behind the limousine, across the bridge and across Mare Island in the direction of the USS Viperfish.

  While Captain Harris waited in the wardroom, I stood the reactor shutdown watch in the engine room of the boat. We were both awaiting Admiral Rickover's arrival. We had known he was coming, and everybody had worked to ensure that the engine room was in perfect condition for his inspection. Alone in the maneuvering area, I paced back and forth and watched the meters while waiting for the baggy pants to show at the top of the engine-room hatch.

  "He's coming!" Seaman Gerard Snyder called down from his station on the topside deck of the Viperfish. "A black limousine and a pickup truck filled with Marines!"

  Pacing more vigorously, I wondered if the admiral was going to bring some of his NR men and suddenly remembered the Rickover-inspired purges on other boats.

  The limousine, still followed by the Marines, screeched to a halt at the pier next to the Viperfish, and everybody climbed out. On board the Viperfish, Snyder quickly checked his uniform and nervously patted his.45-caliber pistol at his side.