Silent and Unseen

by Alfred McLaren

  We explained our plight to the boat coxswain, and to our relief he agreed to transport us out to Skipjack. We boarded the launch, pointed out the location of our boat, and were on our way. In less than ten minutes we were alongside and abreast the topside watch standing on deck. “See, George,” I said, “We made it! Everything is going to turn out all right.” George responded with an unhappy grunt.

  I spoke too soon. The only way we were going to get back was to stand on the rocking gunwale of the launch and jump to the top of the rounded hull of our submarine. This would only work if the topside watch was poised to grab our hand and to pull us as high as possible up the side of the hull. If either of us miscalculated, we would slide down into the murky brown water.

  Offering to show George how easy it was, I jumped first. I caught the topside watch’s extended hand and made it safely on board. After considering the situation for several long minutes, George jumped too. However, he fell short, missing our extended hands, and slid slowly, crawling, scratching, and cursing, down Skipjack’s hull into the murky, brown waters.

  “Man overboard portside! Man overboard portside!” called the topside watch over the 1MC. I threw George a nearby life preserver. Crewmembers rushed topside to haul him, soaked from head to toe, with his new wool suit a wet, soon-to-shrink remnant of its former self.

  We scurried down midship’s hatch and into Skipjack’s warm interior. With a parting curse, George hurried off to remove his clothing and get into the nearest shower. The hospital corpsman followed him armed with a special cleansing soap and ear swabs, to make sure the microorganisms populating the water did not infect George. He bagged up George’s suit and took it away to be disinfected and dried.

  Skipjack got under way as scheduled next morning, on time and with all hands on board. By then news of his dunk in the bay had spread throughout the boat and become the source of much jollity at his expense. By noon, George had pretty much recovered his composure, but he avoided speaking to me except on official business for the remainder of the voyage home. The slightest smile on my part had the effect of pouring kerosene on a fire. Many months were to pass before he could begin to see the humorous side of our excellent adventure on shore.

  CHAPTER 16

  Home Port in New London

  Skipjack was detached from the Sixth Fleet in early December 1962. Upon exiting the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean, we descended smartly to test depth. We then increased speed to our maximum and set course for New London. The transit across the Atlantic was rapid and uneventful, with one notable exception. On surfacing in Long Island Sound it was determined that we had made the fastest transit ever across the Atlantic Ocean. This was a new record to add to Skipjack’s growing collection of laurels. The record still stands and remains classified information.

  We surfaced off Long Island Sound in early December and proceeded up the Thames River. By late morning we were safely moored at our usual berth at State Pier, New London, where we were met by our families and loved ones. Following a joyful reunion, all but the duty section departed for some well-deserved leave and relaxation.

  Skipjack remained in port and tied up at State Pier until late January 1963. Both boat and crew had been run hard since leaving Portsmouth Naval Shipyard the previous September, and we all needed a good rest.

  I took only a few days leave over Christmas, however, because Captain Kelly had recommended me for qualification for submarine command immediately upon our return home. I had much to accomplish in a short amount of time. I wanted very much, if possible, to complete my command thesis and all aspects of the in-port and at-sea examination by our squadron commander before Lt. Cdr. Shepherd M. Jenks relieved Captain Kelly toward the end of January.

  We settled into our normal in-port watch-standing routine with two officers at all times—one as engineering officer of the watch, the other assuming officer of the deck in-port duties. Since we were all qualified to do both, we altered between the two as we stood a normal one day on, two days off in-port routine.

  Swimmer in the Water

  The submarine force was a key factor and active player in U.S. Cold War strategy, and much effort and money was spent to heighten and strengthen its overall security while any boat was in port. USS Skipjack being a frontline nuclear attack submarine and the world’s fastest was considered a prime target for Soviet bloc espionage. All in-port topside watch standers were, as a consequence, qualified and armed with .45-caliber pistols and several clips of ammunition.

  Well into the holiday season, Skipjack was moored at State Pier, along with another half-dozen or so diesel and nuclear submarines. Some were also moored across the pier alongside the submarine tender Fulton, home of our immediate superior, Commander Submarine Squadron Ten. Both submarines and the tender were thus much more accessible from the Thames River and its shore than they would have been if moored farther upriver at the submarine base in Groton. All Squadron Ten commanding officers were constantly cautioned to ensure that their duty officers and in-port watch standers exercised special vigilance. They were to be hyper-alert for underwater swimmers and overland intruders both day and night.

  Skipjack was a beautifully streamlined, almost football-shaped submarine. Centered on the top of her hull was the large fin-like, hollow structure called the sail. The sail was some eighteen to twenty feet in height, approximately six feet wide, and was free-flooding while submerged. Its main purpose was to provide a rigid, protective housing in which to position a vertical bridge access trunk from the control room, two periscopes, the snorkel mast and head valve, and all electronics masts and radio antennas. Each of these was quite lengthy and penetrated the pressure hull at a point at its base. The sail enabled Skipjack to position her hull at a depth well below the sea surface when using these periscopes and masts. This lessened the boat’s susceptibility to heavy wave motion from rough seas and high winds and significantly decreased the possibility of her being sucked to the surface and broaching under such conditions.

  Skipjack’s bridge, from where she was maneuvered while on the surface, was located within a small cockpit located in the upper forward portion of the sail. The bridge was accessed from the control room via the bridge access trunk. This trunk was in fact a cylindrically shaped pressure vessel that was sealed at each end by watertight upper- and lower-access hatches when the boat was submerged.

  The forwardmost of the two sets of the boat’s diving control planes, or sail planes that replaced the older type bow planes, and that projected from each side of the sail, were like short, stubby wings. The interior of the sail could be entered from either the port or starboard side by doors or from the control room by a watertight hatch located on the main deck, or top of the pressure hull, within the sail. This latter hatch was the usual point of personnel entrance to and from the submarine’s interior while in port.

  Armed topside security watch standers normally stood their watch out on the main deck, amidships, near the egress from the brow, or gangway. In the event of inclement weather they could also stand their watch within the sail itself. The best and most reliable topside watch standers always remained on deck near the brow. It was from this position that they could best keep an eye on what was going on around the boat. Those less conscientious, however, never missed an opportunity to sneak within the sail’s warmer and more protective interior.

  After Christmas on a clear, cold evening, Lt. Bud Kauderer and I were sharing duty that night and for the moment were sitting in the wardroom drinking coffee. Both of us were qualified veterans of many years of submarining by now, and we were discussing the sequence of the next morning’s reactor training startup. Suddenly we heard a loud, muffled roar from the direction of the control room, located above and forward of the wardroom. We raced out of the wardroom and up a stairway into the control room.

  A quick inspection revealed nothing amiss, but several crewmembers were peering up the bridge access trunk with surprised and inquiring looks on their faces. We quickly climbed u
p the ladder and into the sail. Sprawled on the deck before us was the topside watch, Petty Officer C of earlier fame, with his .45-caliber pistol in hand. Also immediately noticeable were bright, waist-high metallic bands or streaks that circumnavigated the interior of the sail.

  I reached down and carefully removed the .45 from C’s hand. It was still warm from being recently fired. I checked its condition and unloaded it. Meanwhile, Bud Kauderer attempted to calm the visibly shaken sailor.

  “What on earth happened?” was our first question. When C calmed down, he told us he thought he had seen a swimmer in the water just below the open starboard access sail door. His clearly not-well-thought-out action was to retreat within the sail, load his pistol, and then fire a single .45-caliber bullet at the imagined intruder. Unfortunately, C missed the target, and the bullet hit the confined steel interior of the sail, producing the loud, muffled roar and the visible evidence of a high-velocity slug ricocheting around. It was an exceedingly dangerous thing to do. C was lucky not to have been seriously injured.

  He was immediately relieved as the topside watch and sent below. In the meantime, some degree of normalcy returned. There was no swimmer in the water. C was disqualified as topside watch stander. I later arranged to retrain him, particularly with regard to the proper handling and use of firearms. This and a number of earlier bizarre incidents involving C, some of which I have recounted, led Captain Kelly to detach him and send him to the Submarine Medical Center at the submarine base in Groton, the following morning. There he underwent an extended mental examination and evaluation.

  Petty Officer C returned to Skipjack a few weeks later, in mid-January with, to our consternation, a clean bill of health. He was on board no more than a few days when he was heard to announce at breakfast in the crews mess, “I am the only sane member of Skipjack’s crew, and I have the papers to prove it.”

  “Let’s Go Skiing”

  For almost a month, from just before Christmas until Captain Kelly’s change of command on 25 January 1963, I was to become the despair of the exec, Bob Chewning. Captain Kelly, a passionate downhill skier, learned that I too loved to ski. He took every opportunity during the in-port period to head out to the slopes. We both, in fact, to the disapproval of our superiors, had learned to ski while going through the six-month, land-based nuclear power plant prototype training and qualification period—Kelly learned at Arco, Idaho, and I learned at West Milton, New York.

  On my first run down a ski slope at Glens Falls, I injured my left ankle so badly that I had to be taken by ambulance to the naval hospital at St. Albans, New York. There doctors put my leg into a bulky cast. Making it worse for me was that a U.S. Naval Academy classmate and fellow submariner, Dennis J. “Denny” Sullivan, and I had been playing hooky that day during a period of mandatory training. I will never forget the reaction of Cdr. Jeffrey C. Metzel Jr., our officer in charge at West Milton, the next day. He waved his fist at me saying, “Go ahead McLaren, ski all you want, but you better never miss another day of training.” I took that to heart, sort of. As soon as my ankle began to feel better, I began purposely stomping around in wet snow until my cast was covered with dirt and debris. As I’d hoped, I was sent down to a naval clinic at Poughkeepsie to have my cast replaced. Once there, I convinced the doctor that my ankle felt so good I was sure I no longer needed a cast. The doctor agreed and, telling me to be very careful with it for another three weeks, sent me back to West Milton with only an ace bandage. I was back on skis by the following weekend. Utterly stupid and unprofessional, but fun. By the time I finished my prototype training and qualified as a chief operator on the S-3-G land-based nuclear power plant, I was a pretty good skier.

  So it was that, while in port, I always brought my skis to work with me. Several days a week, not more than a half hour after I had come on board about 7:00 a.m., Captain Kelly would wander out of his stateroom looking for me. “Let’s go skiing,” he would say as soon as he found me. This was especially true on rainy days, because, as he put it, “If it’s raining here in New London, it’s bound to be snowing farther north.” I would then go find the exec and sheepishly request permission to leave the boat to go skiing for the day with the captain. Bob Chewning used to groan every time he saw me coming toward him with a big grin on my face, which was always just about the time the workday officially started.

  The captain and I would secure our skis and poles on the back of his VW bug, and off we’d go, driving through rain, sleet, and eventually snow to reach our destination. By late morning we would be skiing somewhere in northern Connecticut or Massachusetts, or by mid- to late-afternoon in southern Vermont. On many occasions his wife Nancy joined us.

  One day it rained and continued to rain, no matter how far north we drove, but Captain Kelly was not to be deterred. By the time we found good skiing conditions, we had driven all the way up into the Green Mountains of Vermont, almost halfway up the state. We arrived at the ski area about 5:00 p.m., skied for three hours, and then headed home, stopping to eat on the way back. Little did we suspect that if we had not returned home by 10:00 p.m., our families and all those on board Skipjack would be up in arms. Shortly after midnight, a Connecticut state trooper waved us down asking if we were the missing skiers. We produced our ID cards, telling him we didn’t know we were missing. He advised us to call our families and the duty officer on board Skipjack. We did so after finding a telephone booth at a gas station and then resumed our journey south. We each drove to our respective homes to be met by outraged spouses. They were certain we had been in a serious accident of some sort. We never traveled that far afield again but probably got in at least ten days of skiing in just one month.

  Captain Kelly and I were never to ski together again, following his forthcoming change of command. He went to Washington, DC, for his next tour of duty as the submarine officer detailer at the U.S. Navy Bureau of Personnel, and Skipjack began a rigorous at-sea period during the months that followed that precluded any skiing.

  Qualification for Command

  It is hard to believe, in retrospect, that I managed to complete my qualification for submarine command thesis and my in-port written examination questions and go to sea for three days during the December–January upkeep period. My lengthy command thesis, in which I developed and explained a method for repairing a seawater-flooded periscope while at sea, was completed in early January 1963. The three in-port examination questions, covering a tactical situation, a disciplinary problem, and an operational planning problem, were provided to me in early January 1963 upon Captain Kelly’s recommending me to Commander Submarine Squadron Ten for qualification for submarine command. After completing the thesis and written questions, the at-sea qualification for examination was scheduled. The exam required me to make three successful and undetected attacks, firing at least two dummy torpedoes against an auxiliary ship escorted by two active-echo-ranging destroyers. The submarine division commander (DivCom), Cdr. Shannon D. Cramer Jr., was my examiner. He was a top-notch professional in every sense. Relaxed and friendly, he put me at ease, but made it clear from the outset that he expected a high standard of performance.

  Since Skipjack was still in upkeep, I went to sea for my examination on another nuclear attack boat within the division, USS Seawolf (SSN 575), whose layout and operational characteristics were somewhat different from those of Skipjack. Commander Cramer also spot-checked my ship-handling skills, getting the boat under way from State Pier, New London, and making the landing upon Seawolf’s return several days later. Accomplishing both was not without hazard in view of the strong currents and tides that were typical for the Thames River. He closely observed as I acted as commanding officer during all diving and surfacing operations. In between operational evolutions and emergency drills, he engaged me in intensive discussion on the various cold war and hot war submarine-versus-submarine tactical situations I might find myself in one day, and on the best manner in which to handle them.1 For example, he asked, “Your submarine has just slowed
from a high-speed transit and detects a hostile submarine close aboard. What should be your immediate action?” Or, “You detect a torpedo coming your way. How do you best avoid being hit?” The at-sea examination included lengthy tours of Seawolf’s engineering spaces and torpedo rooms as Commander Cramer probed the depths of my knowledge and experience. It was clear from the start he would have to be completely satisfied that I was truly ready in all respects to take command of an attack submarine before he would give me his certification.

  I passed with flying colors in all areas. Each of my minimum aspect approaches and attacks was completely undetected until the torpedoes I launched at a range of approximately three thousand yards from the target were actually in the water. “Minimum aspect” meant that my technique during the course of the submerged approach and attack was essentially to point the nearest escort ASW vessel as I closed the target’s track to within firing range of the torpedoes I was using, which were two steam-driven Mk-14–5 “fish.” I was equally successful in avoiding acquisition and counterattack by either of the escort vessels. This was because I ordered the boat to go deep following torpedo launch, increase speed, pass directly beneath the nearest escort, and clear the area in a direction directly astern of the target vessel. This tactic plus very poor winter underwater acoustic conditions ensured that any brief contact that had been gained by one or both escort vessels could be quickly broken.