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

in his battle with Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on the matter of developing a new class of submarine that later became known as the Los Angeles class. Now, however, Rickover was focusing his attention on the Viperfish.

His questions to Captain Harris were specific and intense:

What is the mission of the Viperfish?

What is the submarine looking for?

Who is in charge of the mission?

Who allocated the money for the mission?

As instructed by the directors of the Deep Submergence Office of the Pentagon, Harris deferred the first barrage of questions. Rickover asked more questions, and Harris deferred those. It was a 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' situation for the captain; he could not disobey direct orders from the Pentagon, and he could not follow direct orders from the admiral. By the time Rickover finished his blasting and dismissed Harris from his office, the captain was on the long list of unfortunate individuals who had incurred the wrath of a man famous for a remarkably long memory, combined with a vindictive pattern of retribution.

In the engine room of the Viperfish, a new chief petty officer, Gary Linaweaver, reported on board to take over Rossi's job as leader of the Reactor Control Division, a change all of us welcomed. Linaweaver was bright and savvy, a veteran of the Nautilus and Scamp, as well as the Polaris submarine Vallejo. He brought us a wide range of knowledge about nuclear reactor control systems and operations. Best of all, his jaw muscles didn't pulsate in a distracting manner when he talked to us, his biceps didn't throw the fear of God into anybody standing nearby, and he didn't look like he was ready to kill someone.

The day before we were scheduled to leave Pearl Harbor, I discovered that somebody had painted over the large white 'E' and '655' that had been prominent on the side of the Viperfish's sail.

'Where's our 655?' I asked Kanen, as I walked across the brow and fired off the traditional two salutes to the colors and the top-side watch.

'Painted over, gone,' he said, simply.

I studied the sail and discovered that a random pattern of dark gray camouflage paint also had been added to the black color over the sail and to the remainder of the superstructure.

'We are becoming invisible,' I commented as I climbed through the hatch leading to the control center.

The stage was set for our departure. After nearly two years of preparation, we were ready to take the Viperfish to sea on a mission that still remained a complete mystery to almost the entire crew. There were no speeches by the captain or other officers about the days ahead-no rallying about a goal that must be reached or an objective that must be accomplished. The nukes were expected to keep the reactor systems on line for propulsion power and electricity. The men of the forward crew were expected to navigate and perform the standard submarine operations necessary for getting us safely there and back. The civilians in the hangar…well, nobody knew what the civilians in the hangar were going to do other than lower the Fish, look around the bottom of the ocean, and bring up the Fish when they were finished. At the time of departure, for all I knew, we were heading for the coast of Australia to study underwater reefs.

Although I did not know it at the time, the mission of the Viperfish finally had become defined by a mysterious and unexpected disaster in waters far from the Hawaiian Islands. For the first time since I had reported on board the submarine, we were now on our way to search the bottom of the ocean for a specific top secret target that appeared to be extremely important to the United States. Our mission changed from one of establishing our capability of finding, undetected, any deep-sea target of choice to a defined and urgent mission of locating a specific target created by events and chosen by men far beyond the knowledge of the crew. This single fateful event in a distant ocean had transformed us from a vessel with remarkable capabilities to a submarine and a crew with a mission that would now take us into the deepest waters of the Pacific.

We had prepared to leave Pearl Harbor, however, with spirits battered by the Vietnam War demonstrations and the turbulence across the country. As my parents had warned me, anybody wearing a uniform was viewed as a part of the Vietnam War. I had felt the resentments in the Berkeley bookstore, I had seen the obscene signs directed at me while I was in uniform, and I had watched young protesters throw garbage toward my car when they spotted my uniform.

We strongly resented these demonstrations. An attack against our uniforms was viewed by us as an attack against our country, and the protesters, therefore, were a kind of enemy. Also, it seemed that the protesters were attempting to destroy the values that most of us felt were important and to move us toward eradication of our society's structure. The defense of that society was the very reason why most of us wore the uniform.

The antimilitary sentiment created a mood of frustration that further shortened everybody's temper in the tight submarine quarters. We all had a sense of irritation and professional dissatisfaction because of society's widespread absence of approval. We knew little and could say nothing about our Special Project operation that might clarify the value of our work on the Viperfish, so nobody in the civilian world could understand why we would endanger our lives with a mission that couldn't possibly be more important than the war in Vietnam.

We cast off our lines and pushed away from Pearl Harbor with the dejected feeling that we were serving an uncaring society. We also left with great caution, reinforced by the recent deaths of more than two hundred submariners around the world. Although we had received no official naval announcements about the multiple disasters, we knew that machinery had failed, submarine crews had possibly erred, and capable men had died. Even our involvement with a project that presumably had minimal potential for military conflict (although none of us was sure that this was the case) seemed to place us at considerable peril. We knew we were at risk just by the very nature of our work. The little wooden sign hanging in Captain Harris's stateroom-'O God, thy sea is so great and my boat is so small'-took on new and poignant meaning as we approached the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

During the departure, I perched in front of the reactor control panel to scrutinize the various meters and watch for anything that could shut down the plant and stop our submarine dead in the water. I adjusted the reactor's control systems as we cleared Hammer Point, passed the Papa Hotel demarcation line, and powered across the surface of the ocean.

In the cockpit of the sail, high above the Viperfish, Lieutenant Pintard was waiting for word from the captain. The large and jovial officer of the deck, studying the calm ocean in front of our bow, was on the lookout for any debris that could strike the tops of our periscopes during the submerging operation ahead. Captain Harris stood at his side and scanned the myriad of ships off the west coast of Oahu, while the two lookouts announced the various bearings and distances of the ships passing by. Behind the four men, the American flag flapped vigorously in the wind, the sound blending with the noises of churning ocean water and the distant rumbling sound of our propulsion system.

'All ahead standard,' Pintard ordered into the microphone under the rim of the cockpit. His voice carried down to the men at the diving station below and into the engine room's maneuvering area where we monitored the reactor and propulsion system. At the sound of the order, Marc Birken and Jim McGinn immediately began cranking their wheels toward the left to open the throttles.

The whine of the turbines increased in intensity, and we all dutifully placed the black plastic sound guards over our ears to protect our hearing. From that moment on, if anybody in the engine room wanted to talk, he had to shout. For the most part, however, there was no conversation; we just sat in front of our panels and watched the maze of meters displaying the various conditions of the reactor and electrical systems throughout the boat.

At the top of the sail, Captain Harris leaned over the side of the cockpit and studied the white wake that began to boil around and behind us as we answered the bell and increased our speed.

'Ten seconds from the order and look at that!' he said, obviously impressed.

'Nuclear power,' Pintard said, reflecting on the obvious.

'No clouds of black smoke, no delay.'

'Rickover would love it.'

'Let's take her down,' the captain said. He stepped through the hatch and began the long climb down to the control center.

'Aye, aye, sir,' Pintard said as he and the two lookouts made a final scan of the horizon and the world around them.

'Strike the colors and clear the bridge!' Pintard ordered.