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

2. Preparation for sea

Since the early 1960s, the waters off the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula have been closely monitored by United States surveillance systems that acoustically track submarines as they approach and depart the naval bases at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. One of the most comprehensive of these systems is the passive hydrophone array, known by the Department of Defense as the sound surveillance system (code-named SOSUS), capable of accurately identifying the positions of ships at sea. Installed at a cost of $16 billion and stretching for thirty thousand miles, the SOSUS microphones were arranged in a highly classified manner throughout the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the primary purpose of detecting Soviet missile-carrying submarines. By 1966, this system was already in operation and quietly analyzing the acoustic signatures of Soviet submarines sailing from their home ports into the Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The ocean is filled with noise spanning a wide range of frequencies emitted by abundant biological life-forms. From the train of sharp clicks generated by the sperm whales (often rattling thirty to forty clicks per second, they sound like a cadre of carpenters hammering simultaneously) to the growling of the fin whales, the rasping and drumming of the triggerfish, and the whistles of the killer whales, SOSUS heard them all. With regularity, the sensitive microphones of SOSUS detected the deep-throated rumbles from the screws of passing freighters mixing with the clatter of Soviet diesel submarines as they ran their engines to charge their batteries. Less commonly, SOSUS picked up the sounds of explosive charges detonated by antisubmarine aircraft and ships, along with a profusion of underwater communications, during war game activities.

Every ten or twenty years, maybe once or rarely twice in the career of a SOSUS specialist, there were the loud noises of collapsing steel and rupturing compartments as a vessel on the high seas lost her integrity and began to break apart. On these infrequent occasions, the noise continued for a minute, sometimes longer, as the ship dropped below the surface and, falling thousands of feet, broadcast her trail of progressive destruction into the sensitive microphones on the bottom of the sea. When the reverberations finally ceased and the ocean was returned to the sounds of the whales and the fish, the SOSUS analysts were left with a final epitaph to the men and the vessel that no longer existed.

The Viperfish was a monster of a submarine.

Stretching 350 feet from bow to stern, she was bigger than any vessel I had seen at New London. Sitting high on blocks arranged across the sunken floor of the dry dock, she looked like an ominous black trophy on display. Any sleek lines envisioned by her designers never made it to the final product. Flapperlike bow planes sticking out near her nose gave her the appearance of a 1930s submarine, the huge tumorous hump bulging out of her skin disrupted her shape, and the square limber holes along her sides looked like a colossal engineering mistake.

Torrents of water shot straight out from holes in her flanks and, arcing far into the air, fell to the concrete floor below. Workmen scurried over the various steel protrusions and sent streams of sparks across the hull as their grinders and air hammers clattered a dissonant cacophony. In the background, barely audible through the bedlam from the dry dock, curious clanging sounds announced the movements of the enormous cranes rolling across railroad tracks around the perimeter of the dry dock as their cables lowered open crates filled with men to the deck of the submarine.

'Ugly bastard, ain't she?' Mathews hollered over the noise of the chaos in front of us.

'Never seen anything like it,' I called back.

'There is nothing like the Viperfish anywhere in the world.'

The chief and I each donned a blue plastic hard hat from the stack near one of the cranes and climbed into an open wooden box at the side of the dry dock. After a shipyard worker signaled the crane operator, the cable over our heads snapped tight. The crane abruptly lifted us high into the air over the cavernous dry dock and then propelled us in the general direction of the Viperfish.

I looked down at the dark concrete far below. At the same instant, the chief yelled, 'Don't look down, it's a long drop!'

We landed on the Viperfish deck with a jarring thud. Mathews led the way to the forward hatch-a circular hole on the surface of the deck-and down a long vertical steel ladder to the central control station.

The inside of the Viperfish appeared to be in a state of total dis-order. As military and civilian personnel worked side by side on numerous pieces of electronic equipment, the tight compartment was buzzing with the electricity of energized circuits. I sniffed the pungent odor of diesel oil mixed with the smells of new linoleum, fresh paint, and sweat and wondered about the oxygen levels inside this tight enclosure of human activity.

The bulkheads (walls) of the compartment were covered with hundreds of red, yellow, and green lights blinking on and off like a Christmas tree. Several drawers, filled with electronic equipment, had been pulled out from the bulkhead. Wires were hanging out of them-some connected to other wires from other drawers, others poking freely into the air. Men in blue dungaree uniforms were busy working on the periscope lens assemblies at the ends of long shafts extending down from the overhead spaces. Others were cursing and struggling with the steering wheels at the diving station, where a pair of cushioned chairs had been bolted. Later, I learned that the chairs were for the planesman and helmsman as they controlled the depth, course, and trim angle of the submarine.

The men in front of us occasionally glanced in my direction. I felt awkward in my clean white uniform. Standing next to Chief Mathews at the bottom of the ladder, I was moving my head back and forth, with my eyes wide open in wonder. I knew that I presented the unmistakable appearance of a rookie.

A couple of the men nodded a greeting to us as the chief guided me out of the control center and up a passageway to the yeoman's office. I signed a stack of papers filled with legal jargon; the yeoman mumbled something about gamma rays and handed me a clip-on radiation film badge. We moved forward again to the captain's stateroom. Mathews rapped on the door, and the commanding officer of the Viperfish promptly invited us into his cramped quarters.

Capt. Stuart Gillon was a short man with a worried expression on his face. He looked like the burdens of the world were weighing heavily on him. He was of small frame and spoke with a soft voice that was hard to hear. My first thought was that this could not possibly be the captain of a nuclear warship. The captain should look more like a skipper, I thought-tall, strong voice, square jaw, and the other features that I considered to be requisites for such an important position.

And then I noticed the intensity of the man's eyes. They reflected a perceptive intelligence as he studied me closely, sizing me up, listening to what I said, and taking measure of the newest enlisted man who would, someday, run his boat's nuclear reactor. Although his voice was kindly, his words were concise and his thinking tightly organized. He displayed intense concentration and focus of thoughts. Quietly, he began to tell me about future activities on the Viperfish and encouraged me to begin qualifications promptly because the mission mandated a fully qualified crew.

'We're coming out of dry dock in a couple of months,' he said, 'and we'll be conducting sea trials, followed by a shakedown cruise to Seattle and San Francisco. We'll be testing the Fish soon thereafter, and, by that time, you should be standing watches at the reactor control panel. Do you think you can handle all that?'

'Yes, sir,' I answered briskly, wondering what fish he was referring to. Jane's Fighting Ships didn't mention anything about a fish, and submarine school hadn't described fish equipment on any submarines in the fleet. Before I had the chance to ask questions, he told me how pleased he was to have me on board and dismissed me with a quick nod to Chief Mathews.

'You'll find out about the Fish when you start qualifications,' Mathews said after we left the captain's stateroom and headed aft. 'The next stop is the engine room, where you'll have the pleasure of meeting Bruce.'

We climbed through the thick oval doors into a confining corridor leading to the engine room. Mathews paused and called back to me, 'This is the reactor tunnel and the nuclear reactor is directly below you. When we're at sea and the reactor is running, you'll want to move through this area pretty fast.' I looked down at my feet and discovered a large circular ring carved in the floor, presumably 'ground zero.' The constricted area around me was jammed with valves and pipes, and several signs displayed the nuclear symbol that warned of radiation. As I ducked