Adventure classics: Spies in the air, spies under the sea

Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton

by Edward L. Beach, USN

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One of a class of radar picket submarines intended for long-range defense during the Cold War, the USS Triton, when commissioned in 1959, was the biggest submarine ever built – and the most expensive. Within two years, still newer technology would make it obsolete, but not before it had performed one of history’s most spectacular voyages – the circumnavigation of the Earth, while remaining submerged.

The time was mid-February 1960. Within three months, the leaders of the U.S. and the USSR were scheduled to meet in Paris to discuss a possible détente between their countries. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, still smarting from the USSR’s initial lead in the space race, wanted a spectacular military achievement to wow the Soviets.

There was a possibility at hand – the newly commissioned nuclear giant USS Triton, ready to make its maiden “shakedown” voyage under the command of World War II naval hero Captain Edward L. Beach, Jr. Would demonstrating the U.S.’s ability to use its radar anywhere in the world’s oceans while remaining submerged, and therefore virtually undetected, be enough to quiet Soviet Premier Khrushchev?

It was worth a try, Eisenhower decided. But to preserve deniability if the ploy failed, the Triton’s voyage must remain a closely-guarded secret until it was concluded.

Accordingly, as Beach wrote in his 1962 volume, Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton, “Late in the evening of the first of February, (with) all tests and evaluations complete. . . on my desk, as I came down from the bridge after Triton had been safely moored, (I found) a soiled envelope, slightly crumpled as though it might have been carried some distance by hand.”

Following the directions in the envelope, Beach met a few days later with a room full of admirals, captains and commanders. He had been directed to wear a civilian suit in order to mislead anyone who might question the nature of the rendezvous.  The question put to him: instead of its expected shakedown cruise in the North Atlantic, could the Triton go all the way around the world – while remaining submerged?

All he could say was, “Yes, Sir!”

And of course, could he keep the greatly extended voyage a secret from his crew members, some of them family men and expectant fathers. And still more urgent – could he keep the secret even from his wife?

“No one volunteered an explanation as to why the timing – and secrecy – were so vital,” Beach wrote, “and I did not ask.”

Most likely, Beach was aware of the impending Paris summit, scheduled for May 1960. It was possible, although less likely, that Beach may have known that the U.S. already an eye of the Soviets Since July 4, 1956, the U.S. had operated high-altitude U-2 spy planes over Soviet airspace. These flights at 70,000 feet were believed to be undetectable by ground radar, an important issue because unauthorized invasion of a country’s airspace could be considered an act of war.

But if the U.S. didn’t dare reveal its aerial overflights, it would be happy to trumpet an oceanic circumnavigation – provided the voyage was successful.

And so the Triton set off, its mission unknown to anyone on board save for Beach and a few of his officers.

“Dived,” Beach wrote on the first page of his report of the voyage. “We shall not surface until May.”

How much more than anyone realized would happen before that surfacing took place.

(Next Friday, Adventure classics continues an August of adventures at sea with Edward Beach’s Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton.)

Adventure classics: Home is the sailor, home from the sea

Surface at the Pole

by James Calvert

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At first thought, if a submariner wanted to surface at the North Pole, it might seem simpler to do it during the summer when ice melt lakes called polynyas sometimes offered breaks in the Arctic Ocean’s frozen surface. That was the hope of James Calvert, commander of the USS Skate, who chronicled the historic voyages of one of the earliest nuclear-powered submarines in his 1960 volume, Surface at the Pole.  But although the Skate was able to surface numerous times during its initial August 1958 voyage as it circled the pole, the goal of surfacing at the actual geographic North Pole eluded it. At least for a time.

Sir Hubert's memorial at North Pole

Not able to surface during the comparatively balmy arctic summer? How about trying it during the depths of a polar winter? And how about accomplishing a lifelong goal of one of the world’s most ardent adventurers, Sir Hubert Wilkins?

An Australian by birth, polar explorer Wilkins was the first to fly a plane in Antarctica, was knighted for his exploits, and served as a consultant on polar clothing and equipment to the U.S. Army. In 1931, he made the first attempt to reach the North Pole by submarine. Unfortunately, neither his vessel, an aging, pre-nuclear U.S Navy submarine he renamed Nautilus nor his equipment were equal to Wilkins’ ambitions. After sailing further north than any previous ship had accomplished under its own power, and days of negotiating the polar ice pack, he was forced to return.

But nearly 30 years later, his dream was still alive. He visited Calvert after the Skate’s return in October 1958.

“Now that you have everything you need to do the job,” as Calvert recounts Wilkins’ admonition, “you must go in the wintertime.”

“I was startled,” Calvert writes, “but knew what he meant. Every bit of submarine exploration in the Arctic had been done in summer, when polynyas are abundant. In winter they would be frozen over and open water nonexistent or very difficult to locate. . . (then) he sat for some time with a faraway look and a half-smile. . . On the first of December I learned of his death from a heart attack.”

Early in 1959, the Skate was sent back to the Arctic Ocean to investigate the feasibility of winter operations. And to fulfill the final request of Wilkins – having his ashes scattered at the North Pole, by submarine.

Would a surfacing during the Arctic winter even be possible?

Possibly, if the Skate’s sail, the vertical structure that housed its masts, antennas, periscopes and ventilation pipes – vital to its safe operation – could be strengthened enough to serve as a battering ram. “Could they stand the splintering shock as (a) three-thousand-ton ship drove them into the ice?” Calvert wondered.

In March 1959, the Skate had reached the North Pole again, beneath the surface of its frozen sea. “There was no sign of a skylight,” Calvert writes, using the name given to areas of ice thin enough for light to show through, although with the sun still below the horizon there would be little light at best. Hours passed while the ship searched for an opening before finding a trace of thin ice, “so small we could see the whole area at a glance through the periscope, outlined sharply by the . . . floes around it. . . (at last) with a sickening lurch we hit and broke through.”

The Skate had reached its goal.

Raising the flags of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States from the Skate’s masts and periscopes in the midst of a stiff gale, the crew held red flares in the darkness to give Calvert enough light to read the service for burial at sea. The sprinkled ashes “quickly disappeared in the half-darkness and the swirling snow. . . Sir Hubert Wilkins had reached his final resting place.”

(After the death of Wilkins’ widow, Suzanne Evans Wilkins, at her request her ashes also were sprinkled into the sea at the North Pole, this time under brilliant summer sunshine.)

(Next Friday, Adventure classics continues an August of adventures at sea with Edward Beach’s Around the World Submerged: The Voyage of the Triton.)