We discovered other phenomena, too. For example, increasing the pressure of the ship’s internal atmosphere had no effect upon the percentage of oxygen it contained, but it did have an effect upon the total amount of oxygen in each cubic foot of atmosphere. Thus, deliberately increasing the air pressure in the ship by a pound or so per square inch greatly improved the ability of our laboring lungs to draw in oxygen, and consequently everyone felt better. The difficulty with this scheme was that as soon as we began ventilating to the atmosphere, the pressure would reduce to normal. If we luxuriated in hyper-pressure atmosphere for too long a period, some of us might temporarily be exposed to an atmosphere below the minimum allowed oxygen content before our ventilation blowers had managed to sweep out the bad air.
It is remarkable how much stability the human body requires within the wide range of the possible conditions of nature. Ideally, man should be in a temperature of around 70°; by various stratagems, he is able to exist over a temperature range of perhaps 120°, centered on the 70° midpoint. But temperatures in nature can go down to a minus 459° F—which it does in outer space—or up into the thousands of degrees.
Man is acclimated to twenty-one percent of oxygen in the air at normal pressure. He suffers acutely if the oxygen percentage drops only a few points, to seventeen percent, for example, or rises much above twenty-one percent. At the time that we in Triton began to feel distressed, we would have consumed only one-sixth of the available oxygen in the atmosphere of the ship. Were the oxygen percentage to rise above the norm of twenty-one, we should probably experience most of the effects of ordinary intoxication.
There was really nothing unusual in these “discoveries” which we were making; submariners have known and applied the principles for years. But there is no substitute for experience, which opens many new avenues of inquiry.
For example, there was the question whether gradual oxygen reduction each day for a prolonged period would have any damaging consequences on us. The effects of depriving the human body of oxygen all at once to an excessive degree are well known. But what about minor deprivation for many days? No observable deleterious effects have been noted, but many highly qualified medical people have recently been devoting considerable research to this question. The problem ranges from the physical to the psychological, from an environment of oxygen deficiency to one in which the entire atmosphere is mechanically controlled and stabilized at some optimum point.
From the Log:
The Medical Research Laboratory in New London has been pursuing this particular project for a long time, the first announced test being Operation Hideout in the mothballed submarine Haddock in 1953. Doctors Ben Weybrew and Jim Stark have been discussing the sealed-atmosphere test for several days, and finally have proposed a procedure. We will remain sealed for approximately 2 weeks, running various physical and psychological tests among selected volunteers from the crew. Somewhere during the mid-point of this period we will put out the smoking lamp for an extended time. Careful checking of all factors will continue for several more days before terminating the study.
The purpose of the no-smoking test was partly psychological, but there was a question of atmospheric research, too. Smoking, nuclear submariners had discovered, was their only source of carbon monoxide. In a completely sealed atmosphere, accumulation of carbon monoxide could not be permitted because of its deadly brain-damaging tendency. Expensive equipment had been devised and installed to convert it into carbon dioxide, so that it might be “scrubbed” from our atmosphere along with the carbon dioxide exhaled from our lungs.
One of the questions raised was whether or not this equipment was worth the cost; or whether it would be better to prohibit smoking in a completely sealed atmosphere, instead of going to the added expense and trouble of installing the carbon-monoxide removal apparatus purely because of the psychological satisfaction that some men got out of smoking. All this, of course, has a direct bearing on the endurance of submarines at sea—their ability to cope with the various problems they would undoubtedly encounter, and the efficiency with which they might be expected to operate under various severe conditions. The data that we were helping to gather would become available to our first space pioneers also.
Everyone on board was determined to go through with the test in good heart and spirit, but as the dread day for putting out the smoking lamp approached, various reactions were noticeable among crew members. The nonsmokers were lording it over the others, describing with great relish how the test would have no effect whatsoever on them, and there was an aura of apprehension among the habitual smokers. Even before we put the smoking lamp out, the witticisms had an edge to them, and some of the protestations that “smoking don’t mean that much to me” developed a noticeably defensive tinge.
One saving feature in the eyes of many was the fact that both doctors on board, Commander Jim Stark, who dabbled in psychology, and Dr. Ben Weybrew, professional psychologist attached to the Medical Research Laboratory, were themselves inveterate smokers. Weybrew created quite a stir, therefore, the evening before the test was scheduled to begin, when he casually tossed his pipe into the garbage ejection chute. He, at least, was ready to make his sacrifice for science, and it was said that he whistled happily as he prepared the charts and the graphs he would draw as a result of our sufferings.
One thing we did notice as soon as we sealed up the ship: maintaining our atmosphere at a common standard level of oxygen content was a far more comfortable way to exist. Among other things, the air conditioners had less work to do; once the humidity was brought to the optimum level, it was easy to maintain. Previously, and by contrast, the fresh air drawn in from just a foot or two above the surface of the tropical seas was extremely humid and salty, dampening the entire ship for a few hours until the air-conditioning machinery had caught up with it again. To illustrate a second advantage: perhaps I personally had become accustomed to the daily deprivation of oxygen, or perhaps I had simply been unaware of my reduced efficiency. At any rate, I found myself more alert, more alive, and less tired when breathing the artificial atmosphere than when we were taking daily snorts of fresh air.
Everyone on board, I believe, had a somewhat similar reaction. We settled down quickly to the pleasantest period of the entire trip and, deeply submerged, crossed the Indian Ocean without physical contact with the outside in any way.
The Indian Ocean, by the way, is to the US sailor one of the least-known oceans. Yet it was one of the better-known waters of Renaissance days. According to the chart, it is uniformly deep, its bottom scarred by relatively few of the peaks and valleys familiar to the Atlantic and Pacific. In color, the water seems somewhat bluer, more transparent, with less marine life and less natural or artificial flotsam and jetsam.
During the war, the southern part of the Indian Ocean was especially active with German surface raiders and the British task forces set out to intercept them; and there were German, Japanese, British, and Dutch submarines on patrol in the area as well. So far as America is concerned, however, it is one of the oceans we still have to discover. Now that knowledge of the sea is of greater importance to our country than ever before, it is probably time we learned some of the intimate details of this great and unexplored body of water.
Monday, 11 April 1960 A message from ComSubPac relays information from ComSubLant announcing prospective promotion of Chief Petty Officers Bennett, Blair, Hampson, Hardman and Loveland to the rank of Ensign, and of the following First-Class Petty Officers to the rate of Chief Petty Officer: Hoke, Meaders, Lehman, Mather, Pion, Stott, Bloomingdale, Flasco, Fickel and Tambling. There is jubilation among the lucky advancement winners and good sportsmanship among the others. But this can’t be the entire promotion list, since examinations for all rates down to Third Class were held before departure. More information should be forthcoming soon. Five Ensigns and ten Chief Petty Officers is a tremendous haul for any single ship, particularly one with a crew of only 159 enlisted men. It is a tribute to the overall ca
pability of our crew, and to the hard effort of the men themselves. The fact that their tests were taken during an extremely heavy watch-standing schedule, to which was added strenuous overtime preparation for an unusual cruise, adds to the accomplishment.
The opportunity for hazing some of the lucky ones is too good to be missed. One by one they are called before me to be asked, in a grave voice, “What have you done to cause ComSubLant to send a message to us about your actions?” The look of incredulity on the faces of the first ones to arrive was real enough, but all ships have a sort of extra-sensory communication among the crew, and I doubt if the last few were particularly perturbed by my feigned severity.
Tuesday, 12 April 1960 Seventh babygram—sixth girl, 9 1bs., born 8 April; father, Bruce F. Gaudet, IC3. Both mother and baby fine. Poor Gaudet had been getting a little worried, but he feels fine now.
Six days a week all during our cruise, the Triton Eagle had faithfully come out in the early morning hours, composed directly on the duplicating machine paper by editor in chief Harold J. Marley and laboriously run off on the printing machine, with the ship’s office swept up afterward, by Audley R. Wilson, Radarman First Class, who comprised the entire staff of the paper outside of the editor. Except for one memorable day when Editor Marley took all his news from a three-year-old edition of the New York Times (detected by very few people, surprisingly), we had managed to get up-to-date news. Every day or so I managed to come up with a column of some kind for the paper—either “The Skipper’s Corner” or another, which I fondly hoped was a humor column, supposedly written by an unidentified person named Buck. Buck was an unregenerated sailor, butt of all jokes, apt only in hiding from work and the “OM” (myself, the “Old Man”). Theoretically, nobody knew that Buck was the “OM” himself.
There was a moment of concern early in the game when I realized that Lawrence W. Beckhaus might equate Triton’s Buck column with a similar one in Salamonie’s Bunker Gazette, but a sharp sally from Buck, in which Larry was admonished to keep his mouth shut, had, I supposed, the desired result.
Had one never experienced it before, the large share of our daily lives occupied by this little two-page newspaper might have appeared surprising. To me it was not, for I had seen the same thing before on long, uninterrupted cruises. The moment the ship gets to port, however, there is no further interest, and the ship’s newspaper may as well cease publication until you are once again at sea.
The highest point of the Triton Eagle’s journalistic achievement was probably reached during our traverse of the Indian Ocean, when it published daily reports on an extended controversy involving a mythical “two-gauge goose gun.” Tom Thamm and Chief Petty Officers Loveland and Blair were arraigned on opposite sides of the argument, which ran for several issues, and everyone had a lot of fun with it.
From the Log:
Friday, 15 April 1960 0000 Out goes the smoking lamp, eliciting many unfavorable comments from the smokers, a great air of superiority from the nonsmokers.
All hands have been carefully briefed for some time as to the purpose of the test and how it is supposed to be run, but we have avoided giving any indication as to the intended length, stating only that the operation order prescribes it shall not exceed 10 days. Ben Weybrew tells me privately that it will not have to be nearly that long, but that he wishes to avoid any complications from anticipation of an early “relight.” In preparation for it LCDR Bob Fisher (SC) USN, [the only supply corps officer attached to and serving on board a submarine] has laid in a stock of candy and chewing gum. It is shortly discovered that some of the men had apparently also brought along a supply of chewing tobacco, which introduces an unforeseen variable into the experiment. Some of the volunteer subjects had neglected to mention their intention to chew tobacco in place of smoking during this period. It was noted, too, that cigars are at a premium since they can be cut into short lengths and chewed also.
Saturday, 16 April 1960 The smoking lamp is still out and the psychological reaction building up is surprising. Although I had not felt repressed by the atmosphere in any way previously, there is to me an indefinable but definite improvement to it. It feels cleaner, somehow better, and so do I. Will Adams agrees, being also a nonsmoker, but nobody else does. Tom Thamm announces that the limits of human endurance had been reached in the first 3 hours, so far as the smokers of the ship were concerned, and the remaining time of the test is purely a sadistic torture invented by Weybrew, Stark and myself.
Thamm is a tall very blond type whose meticulous and precise approach to everything conceals a highly developed artistic nature. He is Auxiliary Division Officer and, as such, works for Don Fears, our Engineer. Tom is in charge of most of the auxiliary systems and appliances throughout the ship, such as hydraulics, air conditioning, carbon-dioxide removal equipment, auxiliary diesel engine, main vent mechanisms and the like.
We have nearly crossed the Indian Ocean. Tomorrow, we expect to arrive at the Cape of Good Hope. It has been a pleasant trip, unmarred by submerged peaks or other alarms. The water is as uniformly deep as anywhere we have seen, not too cold, but cool and beautiful through the periscope. It is one of the least known oceans, bounded on the north by the subcontinent of India, on the west by Africa and on the east by the Malay Archipelago and Australia. Its southern boundary is Antarctica. One of its noticeable characteristics, at least so far as we have observed, is a consistently heavy sea condition, and in this it resembles the Atlantic. Every time we are at periscope depth for observations, it appears that a state 3 to 4 sea is running [corresponding to wave heights from 5 to 10 feet], enough to make surface ships uncomfortable.
A matter of note: LCDR Adams, now relieved from navigational chores, is concentrating full time on administrative matters, with intent of having desk cleared for the avalanche of paper work we expect upon arrival in the United States. There has been a steady flow coming out of his desk anyway, but since Lombok Strait it has tripled. And all of us dread the blizzard of paper awaiting us in New London.
So far as the no-smoking test is concerned, Weybrew and Stark contend that they have enough now to fulfill the requirement laid upon them by Medical Research Laboratory. It is also apparent, according to them, and I must confess having noticed something of the same myself, that the test has gone on just about long enough. Overt feelings of hostility are coming to the fore, expressed in a number of small ways, and there have been instances of increasing irritability. Deprived of a normal intake of mild stimulant, there obviously have been mild withdrawal symptoms among the heavier smokers in the crew.
The same is evident in the officers. Most noticeable, to me, are signs of forced gaiety, frequently with a sharp edge to it. Jim Stark, himself a heavy smoker, enjoys egging his wardroom buddies on—and this, in my opinion, is his compensation.
One night during this period, I recall asking the cause of a large red welt across the top of Jim’s baldish head. The explanation, given with suppressed mirth by his wardroom mates, was that an hour before he had been demonstrating his complete freedom from any reaction to the enforced abstinence from smoking by showing that his physical co-ordination had been unimpaired. The test he chose, hopping on one leg, might have been a good one had he taken the trouble to check his surroundings first. Without thinking, he hopped through the wardroom doorway and attempted to ram his head through the heavy aluminum beam which forms the top of the door frame.
From the Log:
These were expected manifestations of adjustment and are cause for no particular notice, but there are also one or two cases where evidence of heightened nervous reaction is accompanied by relatively poor adjustment. In a ship’s company of 183 people, something of this sort is bound to turn up. But answering my question as to what the ultimate results might be in the most severe cases, if the smoking lamp could not be relighted, the savants spread their hands expressively, “Who knows?” they say. “Most likely, if the man recognizes that it is impossible to smoke, he will psychologically adjust to it with rela
tive ease. Symptoms will disappear or maladjustments will work themselves out.”
The point is that here in Triton the only reason for prohibiting smoking is for a test. Everyone knows it requires but one word, and the smoking lamp will be lighted. Were we in a dangerous situation where safety of the ship or life of personnel were involved, as for example in an explosive atmosphere, the entire situation would be different.
Easter Sunday, 17 April 1960 We are approaching the Cape of Good Hope. Many people will be surprised to learn that the Cape of Good Hope is not actually at the southernmost tip of Africa at all. This honor is reserved for Agulhas Point, a little more to the south. Agulhas is not, however, a prominent landmark like the Cape of Good Hope. The story goes that when a storm blew Bartholomew Diaz around the southern end of Africa, he saw nothing and actually went quite some distance northward on the east side of that continent. On his return voyage, he bestowed the name “Stormy Cape” on the most distinctive point of land in the area; it was King John of Portugal who thought of “Cape of Good Hope.”
Between Cape of Good Hope and the southern tip of Africa is a bay called “False Bay,” possibly so-named for some early maritime mishap, and a few miles to the east and south is Agulhas Point. The chart also indicates another reason why no ship is anxious to make landfall on Agulhas Point. Agulhas Bank, immediately to the south, is shallow and extends a good many miles to sea. There is also a strong prevailing current setting the sailor in toward land. In the old days, anyone sighting Agulhas Point was already in trouble, much as in the case of Cape Horn.
Around the World Submerged Page 25