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

They knew which valves should be shut and which should be open; they knew which electrical and mechanical systems should be on and operating and which should be in standby. The man sitting in front of the ballast control panel knew how to maintain neutral buoyancy, important for proper depth control. The men controlling the reactor systems, those high above us in the cramped cockpit of the sail, and those who would later prepare our food and tend to our medical needs were all skilled in their areas of expertise, thus allowing the crew of the Viperfish to function as one cohesive unit of qualified men. The confidence that the qualified men had in each other was the force behind the enduring shipmate camaraderie, the essence of life for the men serving on board the Viperfish.

Those who were not yet qualified in submarines were treated as if they knew nothing, regardless of their rank or intelligence. Officers often needed instruction and signatures from enlisted men, while enlisted men frequently turned to officers for information. If a man was not qualified and was on the dink list, he was at the absolute bottom of the pecking order.

The civilian scientists in the bow compartment (also called the hangar compartment) where the mysterious Fish was supposed to be, were not involved in the qualifications process, and their interaction with the crew was minimal. They were on the Viperfish to accomplish a mission. Clearly, they did not want to talk about their work to any of us, so we simply treated them, in a polite manner, as civilian outsiders and left them to their own work on the Special Project.

The heart of the Special Project operation was in the forward third of the submarine, in the cavernous hangar compartment that formerly contained the Regulus missiles. With no understanding of what the project was about and with nobody inclined to say anything specific about it, I simply added Special Project to the vast number of mysteries on board the Viperfish.

Whenever I went through the bow compartment as I studied the location of various cables and valves, I moved past the cluster of civilians looking down into a huge hole that penetrated the decking of the compartment. Walking around the men gathered above the hole and ignoring their hushed conversations, I continued forward until I either bumped into the torpedo tubes or identified the location of the equipment I was studying. With the wrath of Bruce hanging over my head if I didn't move ahead with qualifications at full speed, I felt that civilian scientists looking down big holes were of little importance.

Richard Daniels reported on board within a week of my arrival, and now two potential reactor operators studied Viperfish tech manuals, searched for crewmen who knew the systems, and struggled to show progress with qualifications. In his early twenties, Richard was a tall, intelligent man with a Georgia accent. He immediately developed a respect for Bruce Rossi's grinding jaw muscles and scowling looks. Early in the qualifications process, he informed me that he had little inclination to die at the hands of Rossi, especially before getting qualified. Richard also had never been on a submarine before. Inside this gigantic steel vessel, we both felt an equal sense of anticipation as we prepared for our secret mission below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

After a couple of weeks, Chief Mathews handed out the rack assignments to the berthing area. Located in the center of the ship, the racks (bunks) were stacked in columns of three. Each rack included a pillow, a thin mattress, a blanket stretched over cotton sheets, an air conditioning vent, a tiny neon light, and a locker under the mattress for personal belongings. Opened by pulling up on the hinged mattress support, the locker was about six inches high and spanned the length of the bunk. Most important, there was actually a curtain that could be pulled across the rack's opening-privacy on a submarine, a luxury previously unheard of.

My rack was far more than just a place to sleep. When we left dry dock, it would become my sanctuary from the rest of the submarine world. I was assigned the middle rack; by lifting myself up and squeezing sideways into the coffinlike opening and then reaching out and pulling my curtain shut, I was suddenly enclosed in a world of privacy that was unavailable anywhere else on the boat. The mattress, although comfortable, was very narrow and barely six feet long (requiring a slight bending of my knees if I kept my neck straight). In the event of a sneeze, I had to quickly turn my head to keep from crashing into the steel underside of the rack above me. Otherwise, the enclosure offered most of the comforts of a good bed at home.

The months in the shipyard passed, the qualifications continued, and the big day finally arrived when the Viperfish could leave the dry dock and float to the pier at the submarine base. Floating the submarine off the blocks in dry dock and moving her a mere half mile across the Southeast Loch to her new berthing spot was a remarkably complicated operation. As one of the newest men on board, I was assigned a trainee position. I sat next to my friend, Jim McGinn, at a watch station controlling the delivery of steam to the turbine systems turning the screws. During the early hours of the morning, I watched the vigorous work of the qualified crewmen bringing the reactor to an operational status, drawing steam into the engine room, and checking all of the seawater valves. Finally, I heard Chief Mathews announce over the Viperfish loudspeaker system: 'Now, station the maneuvering watch! All hands, station the maneuvering watch!'

There was a feeling of excitement as we prepared for the transformation from a stationary mass of steel resting on blocks in the center of the dry dock to a functioning submarine that would soon be ready to go to sea. With Bruce Rossi standing nearby and watching over all of the trainees, Jim and I gripped the throttle wheels controlling the flow of steam to the turbines and awaited orders.

In the engine-room spaces around us, machinist mates, electronic technicians, electricians, and engineering officers took their positions in front of the panels that controlled various parts of the nuclear propulsion and turbogenerator systems. The sound of steam hissing through insulated piping added to the excitement as we waited for orders from the officer of the deck (OOD) in the control center to rotate the steam wheels and open our throttles.

The seawater of Pearl Harbor swirled into the dry dock, covered the blocks under the hull of the Viperfish, and rose around her superstructure. The boat finally floated as the dock filled to sea level. Squeezed into the tiny cockpit at the top of the sail (formerly called the conning tower in the older diesel boats), the captain, a junior officer, and two lookouts took their positions and prepared to call orders to the engine room over the loudspeaker communication system.

Jim turned to me at the instant that we first felt the slight movement of the submarine's hull.

'We're off the blocks,' he said, excitedly. 'Cheers to the forward pukes-they're doing something right.'

'All ahead one third!' blared from the loudspeaker over my head, and the bell indicator clanged as the needle pointed to the ordered bell. Jim and I grabbed the wheels in front of us. Cranking them to the left, we heard the whining noises of the main propulsion turbines spooling up. We could feel the vibrations of the hull caused by the screws rotating in the water behind us. I felt a surge of excitement at being a crewman actually controlling the movements of a fleet submarine moving across Pearl Harbor.

In a nearby area called the maneuvering room, the reactor operator and electric plant operator sat rigidly upright in front of the lights and meters of their complex panels to observe any abnormalities that could shut down the reactor or trip a turbo-generator off-line. Except for the sensation of floating, there was no way to confirm that we were moving out of the dry dock or to know our direction and speed. The Viperfish had no windows. With the engine-room hatches all closed and clamped shut, we could see nothing as we moved across the bay. After several minutes of speculation, we tried to guess where we were from the movements of the hull, an effort that proved to be a futile waste of time.

Suddenly, the central IMC loudspeaker system blared, 'Attention to port!'

I looked at Jim. 'Attention to port?' I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. From behind us, Bruce Rossi's growling voice came to life.

'Attention to port is a call of respect,' he said.

Jim and I looked appropriately confused. I glanced back at Bruce and asked, 'Respect to whom, Bruce?'

'Respect for the men of the USS Arizona. They are off our port bow, right about now, and the men topside are giving the traditional salute to show respect as we pass by.'

Jim and I felt the impact of his statement as our enthusiasm turned to somber silence. We spent the remainder of the ten-minute trip with some quiet thoughts about the men still trapped within the steel walls of their destroyed battleship, the men who never had a chance of survival during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

The sudden and urgent call through the loudspeakers from the officers on the bridge, 'Back one third,' gave us a clue that we were approaching our berth at the submarine base. The quick, high-pitched 'Back emergency' that came shortly thereafter, immediately followed by the sound of crushing wood, gave us the best indication that we had, in a manner of speaking, arrived at the pier.