nuclear and conventional submarines in four major flotillas around the world, and they agreed to continue building their submarine fleet by 10 percent each year. The Pacific Fleet, second in size only to the massive Northern Fleet, contained 105 Soviet submarines. Many of these were of the lethal nuclear missile-carrying 'E' (Echo) class that regularly patrolled the ocean waters east of Kamchatka Peninsula.
In contrast to this massive Soviet armada of submarine military power, the United States Navy possessed only 70 nuclear submarines; 41 of these vessels were designed to fire nuclear missiles and most of the others were fast-attack hunter/killer submarines. One of them, however, differed from all other submarines throughout the world.
In the spring of 1966 at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard near Honolulu, Hawaii, civilian shipyard workers finished a year of intense refitting on board the nuclear submarine USS
The code name of this special mission was Operation Hammerclaw.
There was no way for me to know that the nuclear submarine
The terse sentences on the order sheet arrived on a miserable day, a New London kind of day. Freezing winter winds blasted across the Connecticut submarine base, and the driving rain brought torture to anyone who dared to go outside. The drab buildings of the civilian city across the gray Thames River looked like dirty blocks of clay stacked along the water's edge. They seemed to fit perfectly with the dismal weather and the depressing area that must have been filled with people wanting to escape somewhere-anywhere. As a native Southern Californian who had just completed three years of submarine and nuclear reactor training, I not only craved a warmer world but I was also eager to begin the real work of running a reactor on a submarine at sea.
I had turned in my 'dream sheet' weeks before. Created to give direction to the complex process of assigning personnel to duty stations, the dream sheet at least gives the illusion that the Navy tries to match each sailor's desired location with the available slots throughout the world. I had 'wished' for the USS
I paced back and forth within the protective interior of the musty barracks and studied the printed sheet of orders before me. The words were tiny, and I found it remarkable that such small words contained information that defined my future for the next three years: 'You will report to the commanding officer of the USS
'The
Studying the orders, I searched for any kind of clue to define the vessel. She was a fast-attack nuclear submarine; the SSN (submersible ship, nuclear) before her hull number 655 left no doubt about that. Clearly, however, the Polaris option was out. The
To my delight, my bespectacled machinist mate friend in submarine school, Jim McGinn, was also assigned to the
'I heard we're the only guys from our class to get this boat[1].
It must be some kind of a fast-attack,' I said, offering my best educated guess. We had just completed hundreds of lectures in submarine school, and we knew there were two primary types of nuclear submarines. The majority were the SSNs, the sleek, high-performance fast-attack submarines that engaged in war games of seeking and tracking enemy submarines on the high seas. The others were the 'boomers,' big, slow submarines, such as the
'But why doesn't anybody know anything about the boat?' Jim asked. 'They know about all the other fast- attacks. I've asked everybody… The
'Probably because she's one of the newer ones,' I said, 'and her home port is at Pearl Harbor, on the other side of the world.'
Jim smiled and looked at the cold world outside the barracks window. 'Thank God for that, in warm and beautiful Hawaii.'
Cursing the bone-chilling wind and rain, we crossed the base to the military library and pulled out the most recent edition of
Jim continued to study
We both looked at the picture of the submarine and scanned the story. The
McGinn continued to read the description. 'The
'So they thought it might run better on nukie power,' I said, 'not having to run to the surface to pull in air for charging the batteries or running the diesel engine. Since I am a reactor operator, it is good that she has a nuclear reactor. Now what does she do?'
We hunched over the book. 'Nothing else here,' Jim said. 'Whatever she does, the
I looked back at my orders. A tiny box at the corner of the sheet was labeled: 'Purpose of Transfer.' Within the box were the cryptic words, 'For duty (sea).'
What we did not know at the time was that the
I was becoming confused. 'So she's a slow-attack submersible ship, nuclear-'
'Called the