Around the World Submerged Read online

  AROUND THE WORLD

  Submerged

  This book has been brought to publication by the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

  Naval Institute Press

  291 Wood Road

  Annapolis, MD 21402

  © 1962 by Edward L. Beach

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  First Bluejacket Books printing, 2001

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Beach, Edward Latimer, 1918–

  Around the world submerged : the voyage of the Triton / Edward L. Beach,

  p.cm.

  Originally published: New York : Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962.

  ISBN 978-1-61251-198-6

  1. Triton (Submarine) 2. Voyages around the world. 3. Beach, Edward Latimer, 1918– I. Title.

  VA65.T7B38 2001

  910.4’5—dc21

  00-052445

  CONTENTS

  IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  EPILOGUE

  USS TRITON (SSR(N)586)

  ADMINISTRATIVE REMARKS

  About the Author

  The man whose inspiration, genius, and perseverance created the power plant without which Triton’s voyage could not have been conceived has never been categorized as easy to deal with, nor is his high resolve entirely without problems for himself and others. But his single-minded determination, his idealism, his relentless insistence upon the right, and his love for the United States of America distinguish him as one of the great men of our time.

  To Vice-Admiral H. G. Rickover, United States Navy, who made Triton possible, and without whom the fantastic power of the nuclear reaction would still, in my opinion, be harnessed only for atomic explosives, this book, without his permission, is very respectfully dedicated.

  IN GRATEFUL

  ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  Ship’s Company During Submerged Circumnavigation

  OFFICERS

  LCDR Will Mont Adams, Jr.

  Executive Officer

  CDR James Ellis Stark, MC

  Medical Officer

  LCDR Robert Dean Fisher, SC

  Supply Officer

  LCDR Robert William Bulmer

  Operations Officer

  LT Donald Gene Fears

  Engineer Officer

  LT Robert Brodie III

  Communications Officer

  LT Robert Patrick McDonald

  Reactor Control Officer

  LT Tom Brobeck Thamm

  Auxiliary Division Officer

  LT George John Troffer

  Electrical Officer

  LT Curtis Barnett Shellman, Jr.

  Machinery Division Officer

  LT George Albert Sawyer, Jr.

  Gunnery Officer

  LT Richard Adams Harris

  CIC/ECM Officer

  LT Milton Robert Rubb

  Electronics Officer

  LT James Cahill Hay

  Assistant A Division

  MACH Phillip Brown Kinnie, Jr.

  Assistant M Division

  CHIEF PETTY OFFICERS

  Chester Raymond Fitzjarrald,

  Harry W. Hampson, ETCA

  TMC Chief of the Ship

  Herbert F. Hardman, EMCS

  Alfred E. Abel, ENCA

  Clarence M. Hathaway, Jr., ENCA

  Hugh M. Bennett, Jr., ICC

  Robert L. Jordan, ICC

  Joseph H. Blair, Jr., EMCA

  Jack R. Judd, ETCS

  James J. DeGange, EMCA

  Ralph A. Kennedy, ENCA

  John F. Faerber, ENCA

  James T. Lightner, ENCA

  Loyd [sic] L. Garlock, FTC

  Lynn S. Loveland, MMCA

  William L. Green, SDCA

  William J. Marshall, QMC

  William R. Hadley, CTC

  George W. McDaniel, SOCA

  Walter H. O’Dell, EMCA

  Fred Rotgers, ENC

  Mack Parker, EMCA

  Frank W. Snyder, ENC

  Richard N. Peterson, ICCA

  Joseph W. Walker, YNC

  Bernard E. Pile, RDCS

  Joseph E. Walsh, RMC

  “L” “E” [sic] Poe, EMC

  Hosie Washington, ENCA

  * John R. Poole, RDCA

  Roy J. Williams, Jr., HMC

  Edwin C. Rauch, ENCS

  Marion A. Windell, RMCA

  Joseph Rosenblum, EMCS

  ENLISTED

  Walter J. Allen, ET1

  Bertram Cutillo, DK3

  Ronald Everett Almeida, RM2

  Raymond R. Davis, EN1

  Erland N. Alto, EN1

  James Obie Dixon, Jr., YN2

  Edward G. Arsenault, RM2

  Martin F. Docker, ET1

  Ramon D. Baney, CS2

  Gary L. Dowrey, SOSSN

  Robert F. Barrila, EN3

  Ralph F. Droster, EN2

  Horace H. Bates, EN2

  Alan T. Ferdinandsen, IC3

  Curtis K. Beacham, QM1

  Richard R. Fickel, HM1

  Lawrence W. Beckhaus, SO1

  James A. Flaherty, RM1

  James C. Bennett, RM2

  Joseph R. Flasco, EN1

  Nathan L. Blaede, ET1

  Fred J. Foerster, FN

  George M. Bloomingdale, EM1

  René C. Freeze, RD1

  David E. Boe, SN

  Gerald W. Gallagher, IC1

  John S. Boreczky, Jr., EN3

  Bruce F. Gaudet, IC3

  Robert U. Boylan, ETNSN

  Adrian D. Gladd, HM1

  Richard L. Brown, EM1

  Edward R. Hadley, EN3

  Earl E. Bruch, Jr., CS2

  Carl C. Hall, QM3

  Franklin D. Caldwell, EMFN

  Lawrence C. Hankins, Jr., EN1

  Edward C. Carbullido, SD2

  Carlus G. Harris, EN2

  Robert M. Carolus, EN1

  Ralph W. Harris, EN2

  Robert C. Carter, MM1

  David L. Hartman, EN2

  Leslie R. Chamberlin, Jr., CS3

  Gene R. Hoke, IC1

  Gerald J. Clark, RD3

  William C. Holly, RD2

  Charles E. Cleveland, EM1

  Floyd W. Honeysette, QM2

  Colvin R. Cochrane, MM1

  Berten J. Huselton, IC1

  Raymond J. Comeau, Jr., EM2

  Wilmot A. Jones, TM2

  William E. Constantine, FT1

  Edward K. Kammer, EM1

  William J. Crow, CS1

  Fred Kenst, SN

  Ronald D. Kettlehake, EMFN

  Donald R. Quick, EN1

  Richard R. Knorr, ENFN

  Kenneth J. Remillard, SO1

  Peter P. J. Kollar, GM1

  Max L. Rose, SN

  John F. Kuester, CS3

  Richard M. Rowlands, TM1

  Raymond R. Kuhn, Jr., FN

  Jerry D. Saunders, RD2

  Leonard F. Lehman, EM1

  Russell K. Savage, QM2

  Larry N. Mace, EM1

  Paul K. Schulze, EN1

  Ross S. MacGregor, FT2

&nb
sp; Thomas J. Schwartz, TM3

  Edward J. Madden, EN2

  Stanley L. Sieveking, TM1

  Anton F. Madsen, QM3

  Donald P. Singleton, EN3

  Robert M. Maerkel, FN

  Gordon E. Simpson, ET1

  Harry A. Marenbach, MM1

  James H. Smith, Jr., SN

  Harold J. Marley, Jr., RM1

  Peter F. Springer, EN1

  Arlan F. Martin, EN3

  Allen W. Steele, TM3

  George W. Mather, ET1

  Richard W. Steeley, EN3

  Boyd L. McCombs, EN1

  James A. Steinbauer, EN3

  Douglas G. McIntyre, EN1

  Gerald Royden Stott, ET1

  William A. McKamey, SN

  Leonard H. Strang, EN3

  “J” “C” [sic] Meaders, HM1

  Robert R. Tambling, TM1

  Charles F. Medrow II, ETN3

  Joseph W. Tilenda, SN

  Roger A. Miller, QM3

  Jessie L. Vail, EM1

  Philip P. Mortimer, Jr., EN2

  James O. Ward, SD3

  John Moulton, FA

  William R. Welch, MM1

  Larry E. Musselman, MM1

  Henry H. Weygant, EN1

  Bruce H. Nelson, FN

  Robert W. Whitehouse, EN1

  Ronald D. Nelson, EN1

  Lamar “C” Williams, EN2

  Rudolf P. Neustadter, IC3

  William Williams, EN1

  Raymond J. O’Brien, SK1

  Audley R. Wilson, RD1

  Harry Olsen, EN2

  Donald R. Wilson, SD3

  Charles S. Pawlowicz, ETRSN

  John W. Wouldridge, RM1

  Charles P. Peace, ET2

  Gordon W. Yetter, EN1

  Robert C. Perkins, Jr., RM2

  Raymond F. Young, YNSN

  Richard H. Phenicie, IC3

  Robert C. Zane, YN2

  Russell F. Pion, ET1

  Herbert J. Zeller, EM1

  George V. Putnam, TM2

  Ernest O. Zimmerman, RD2

  TECHNICAL AND SCIENTIFIC PERSONNEL

  CDR Joseph B. Roberts, USNR, Office of Information, Navy Department

  Earnest R. Meadows, PH1

  Dr. Benjamin B. Weybrew, Psychologist, Naval Medical Research Laboratory, Submarine Base, New London

  Mr. Michael Smalet, Geophysicist, USN Hydrographic Office

  Mr. Gordon E. Wilkes, Civil Engineer, USN Hydrographic Office

  Mr. Nicholas R. Mabry, Oceanographer, USN Hydrographic Office

  Mr. Frank E. McConnell, Engineer, General Dynamics

  Mr. Eldon E. Good, Inertial Guidance Division, Sperry

  In the account of Triton’s voyage which follows, I have drawn freely upon the narrative section of the official report of our trip. When assembled, this report formed a tome about three inches thick. It contained many detailed tabulations and much succinctly presented raw information, and all the officers of the ship participated in its preparation. My contribution was the narrative section, which was made public when we arrived back in the United States.

  Here, interspersed between the sections of the “Log” and forming the major portion of this book, are my own personal thoughts and observations as later reconstituted at my typewriter at home after all the excitement had died down.

  All portions of this manuscript have been submitted to the Navy Department for clearance, and each chapter bears the stamp “no objection to publication on grounds of military security.” Over and above this, the entire responsibility for everything which appears in these pages obviously must be my own.

  —Edward L. Beach

  Captain, United States Navy

  Mystic, Connecticut

  * Did not complete voyage.

  PROLOGUE

  As a small boy, I had the good fortune of being a Navy Junior while living a settled life in a small community, without the frenetic shifts of locale inherent in a Service life. My father, as a Captain, after a long and rewarding career in the Navy, retired when I was four years old to accept the post of Professor of Military and Naval History at Stanford University. He had served the Navy thirty-seven-and-a-half years, and his sea duty had culminated with command of the American flagship in the European war zone during World War I.

  During the course of his career, Dad had written thirteen books about naval life, most of them for teen-aged youths, plus several others aimed at a more mature audience. He had made a lifetime avocation of the study of history, with a natural inclination, of course, toward naval history; he had fought in three minor and two major wars (and was fond of saying that the minor ones were far more dangerous, so far as he personally was concerned, than the major). He had commanded one repair ship, two armored cruisers, and two battleships; I was born while he skippered the new “superdreadnaught” New York, in 1918.

  My formative youth was spent in Palo Alto, California, where, after his years as a professor at Stanford, Father held the combined posts of City Clerk and Assessor. Among my childhood recollections were the stories Father used to tell about his experiences in the Philippines during and after the Spanish-American War, at the Naval Academy as a midshipman and later as an instructor, and particularly about that dreadful day in 1916 when his ship, the armored cruiser Memphis, was engulfed and destroyed by a tidal wave. The latter was my favorite yarn, and I never wearied of forcing my poor father to repeat all the details of the catastrophe which had blighted his career.

  Father said that I would do well to study medicine, but I felt his heart wasn’t in it. My only thoughts were of going to the Naval Academy and becoming, like him, an officer in the US Navy.

  The long-sought fulfillment of my ambitions came in 1935. So great was my anticipation I couldn’t understand why Mother was crying when my parents took me to the train station, nor the meaning behind Father’s faraway look. I was then just seventeen years old.

  Four years at the Naval Academy had more ups than downs and were most satisfying, but when I graduated on the first of June, 1939, it was with the sad knowledge that Father was slipping away from me. His long and interesting letters had become increasingly difficult to read. The thoughts in them of late had begun to wander, and I noticed that more and more he relived the past, particularly the loss of his old Memphis and the crew members he had had to watch drown.

  Father used to say that the place for a young officer was in a big ship; so upon graduation from Annapolis, I applied for the ten thousand ton cruiser Chester. I had been aboard about two months when the war in Europe broke out. Because of a surname beginning early in the alphabet I found myself transferred to the Lea, destroyer number 118.

  The Lea was tiny, one-tenth the displacement of the Chester, and she had been “permanently” retired to mothballs some years before. The brass plate on her varnished wooden mast revealed her age as being the same as my own. There were only five officers in the Lea, and I was the most junior. Later on, when the “Third” was transferred, I automatically rose to the high eminence of Fourth, but this, under the circumstances, had little effect on my unofficial title of “George.”

  “George,” the traditional name of the most junior officer on board, always served as the ship’s commissary officer, communications officer, ship’s service officer, torpedo officer, gunnery officer, and first lieutenant. In addition, I had to insert a three-year stack of corrections into the ship’s allotment of classified books and pamphlets—a horrendous job—was in charge of the landing party (luckily it seldom got an opportunity to go ashore), stood two four-hour watches a day on the bridge while under way, and while in port stood a twenty-four-hour “day’s duty” every third day (except for a short period when I had the duty every other day).

  There was also a Destroyer Officers Qualification Course of some twenty lengthy assignments, which I was required to complete within a year’s time; and the Bureau of Navigation, evidently afraid that Ensigns might neglect their leisure time reading, had decided that we should submit
a two thousand word book report each month.

  The ship also had a skipper, an engineer, and an executive officer, but I never had time to discover what any of them did.

  After two years on the Lea, in September, 1941, a message arrived directing me to submarine school in New London for instruction in submarine duty. By this time, I loved that slender four-stacked race horse of a destroyer, and didn’t want to leave; but my skipper, an old submariner himself, would not send the protest I drafted, so off I went.

  The course of instruction at the submarine school, originally six months long, had been curtailed to three by the war emergency, and on December 20, 1941,1 was one of fifty-one graduates who heard the officer in charge of the school deliver a graduation address. In the course of it he said, “Many of you will command your own ships before this war is over.”

  None of us believed we could achieve such greatness, but a little later we all noted the other side of the coin, when the first of our group went to eternity in the shattered submarine to which he had reported only a couple of weeks before.

  My first submarine was USS Trigger (SS237), then under construction at the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California. During my two years on the Lea, I had finally bequeathed the “George” spot to someone else, but in the Trigger I found myself with that familiar title again. As before, I was greeted by a huge stack of uncorrected confidential and secret publications. The similarity, however, ended here; for Trigger, a first-line ship of war, was designed to operate in an entirely new and unfamiliar medium. The amount of highly technical equipment crammed into her sturdy hull amazed me.