Around the World Submerged (26 page)

While waiting for further word from the
Macon,
Machinist’s Mate Bob Carter is busy with a hacksaw, taking off the loose bridge guardrail we had noticed. In a few minutes the welcome word comes from our Communications Officer, Lt. Bob Brodie, in Radio: “Bridge, Radio—from the
Macon
—Poole safely on board.”

Among the papers Poole has with him are personal letters of appreciation to Admiral Stephan and Captain Reuben Whitaker. More than our thanks for their help, there is little information we can give them about our trip. They must be bursting with curiosity.
We send a final message of thanks and then, with topside clear and hatch shut, I order Dick Harris, Diving Officer of the Watch, to return to periscope depth. The air bubble in our tanks is released, and gently
Triton
eases her sail into the warm sea. The total time with the bridge above water has been less than an hour. With a deep feeling of gratitude for the way the Navy has come through, we shape our course at maximum speed southward.

Now that we have successfully solved the difficult problem about Poole, the atmosphere in our ship lightens considerably. With everything wide open,
Triton
is again heading for Cape Horn. This time we will save time by passing to the west of the Falkland Islands and head for Estrecho de le Maire, a small strait between Staten Island [familiar name] and the main part of Tierra del Fuego.

We calculate that we will have gone 2,000 miles out of our way on this mercy mission, and it has cost several days. The distance is almost equal to an Atlantic transit.

Sunday, March sixth, was a day of rest, well deserved by all hands, and it was noteworthy for a special reason. Our growing concern over our fathometer had caused us to keep a closer-than-usual watch over it and over our regular search-sonar equipment, too. Searching out ahead, to our great pleasure, the latter at 1610 detected something that looked like a fifty-foot peak, or boulder, on the bottom. A moment later, as
Triton
herself passed over the spot, the fathometer registered the accuracy of the information. It was a comforting thought to know that our search sonar, designed to detect other ships and submarines, might be depended on to give us adequate warning of the approach of shoal water.

For two days,
Triton
roared toward Cape Horn, driving to
make up lost time. On Monday, the seventh of March, we reached the storied Land’s End of the western hemisphere.

I had been giving some thought to how we should make proper observance of our passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific and finally hit upon a simple idea. In the
Triton Eagle,
I occasionally wrote a column called “The Skipper’s Corner,” to say things which it seemed might best be handled informally. On the seventh of March, therefore, the following entry appeared in “The Skipper’s Corner”:

As for Cape Horn,
Triton
will make a photographic reconnaissance on it, and then Mr. Roberts will make a National Geographic reconnaissance. Following this, as we cruise by for the 3rd or 4th time, I intend to require every man on the ship to come to the conning tower for a look. It is not a usual thing for a sailor to round the Horn these days. Many spend a lifetime and never do. By far the majority of US Navy sailors have never done it. Quite obviously, if you ever brag about having been around the Horn, the next question will either be, “Did you see it?” or “What does it look like?”

We intend to take a picture and I think it will be possible to make enough copies for all hands. But more than this, I want every man aboard to be able to say he’s seen it. Note: there will be no muster taken. If you don’t want to see the Horn, no one will force you. But you’ll wish you did later, because you’ll probably never get the chance again.

And then, that morning, I let it be known that in the old days, when a sailor went around the Horn, he hoped not to see the fabled Cape. If anyone aboard an old sailing ship, bucking wind and tide to double the Cape, sighted the forbidding promontory looming through the haze, it was considered that bad luck would follow very soon in the form of shipwreck on one of the most inhospitable coasts in the world.

More modern traditions, I announced, were different. A sailor who gazed upon Cape Horn deliberately would experience
good luck for the rest of his seafaring career. Not only that, but all sailors who rounded the Horn automatically attained certain privileges denied ordinary mortals (one I did not recommend was that we might all have a pig tattooed on the calf of the right leg). Tradition has it also that sailors who have rounded the Horn may with impunity throw trash and slops to windward, and because of their great victory over the forces of the wind, none of it will ever be blown back into their faces. They also have the traditional right to wear their hats on the side of their heads instead of square above the eyebrows, as is required by Navy regulations (no one may wear it on the
back
of his head).

We made no muster, but we did keep an unofficial count of the persons coming into the conning tower for a look, in some cases to photograph the famous landmark with their own cameras (which they had been permitted to bring provided all film was turned in for checking). Every man wanted a look, and it was necessary to go back and forth five times in front of the Cape before all hands had had their view.

Triton’
s Log for the passage may give some idea of the conditions the old-timers faced in the days of sail.

Our observations of the conditions make it quite clear why it was such a tremendously difficult thing for old-time seafarers to weather this famous Cape. In the first place, though we are safely submerged and comfortable,
Triton
is rolling rather heavily. There is an unusually rough sea topside. Lt. James C. Hay, recently reported aboard from West Milton, has already established himself as a most competent diving officer—but he is having difficulty in maintaining ordered depth today. Good practice for young officers, and planesmen, too. We estimate the waves as 10 to 12 feet high and the wind about 25 knots from the west.

There are occasional rain squalls and the cloud coverage is rather low to the water. It is also noticed, after a few navigational cuts, that we are being set backwards, to the east, by a current of
some 3 knots. Under such conditions it is easy to see how an old wind-jammer, trying to beat her way around the Cape, might find it almost impossible. Heavy winds and a strong current were both dead against her. Even a steamer would have her troubles at a time like this.

Although the conditions we have observed could hardly be called a storm, there is no doubt that any ship riding around Cape Horn on the surface today would be having a rough and uncomfortable trip. By contrast we are comfortable and snug.

Joe Roberts had spent practically his entire life as a photographer, and was one of the
National Geographie’
s best. He also happened to be endowed with a genial personality which generated real affection on the part of officers and crew alike. An illustration of this was an incident that occurred in the conning tower as we passed Cape Horn. After taking his
National Geographic
pictures with half-a-dozen expensive cameras which he had slung around his neck, Joe had been about to make room for others by going below, when a sailor with a box camera appeared in the conning tower. Photographing through the periscope is by no means a simple procedure and Joe put down his cameras and other paraphernalia and turned back to help.

Sailor after sailor—and some officers, too—came to the conning tower with cameras, and to each one Commander Roberts patiently showed the tricks of the game, helped calculate and adjust the periscope diopter setting for the particular camera, plus the camera settings for the type of film and the outside light. Money could not have purchased the instruction and assistance these men were getting for nothing, and I wished I had had the sense to bring my own camera.

We had hoped the passage to Easter Island would be uneventful, after the rather strenuous navigation around the Falkland Islands and Cape Horn. I looked forward to a twenty-five-hundred-mile run through deep water, few problems, and
a chance to read Thor Heyerdahl’s book,
Aku-Aku,
in which he describes his search for the origin of the Easter Islanders and his re-erection of one of the stone monoliths. It was, unfortunately, not to be so.

The tremendous capability of the nuclear power plant and the many changes in submarine operating procedures which it requires were brought firmly home the day after we passed Cape Horn, when we held a “loss of all main power” drill. All naval ships are required to carry out such exercises, for the obvious reasons that they develop the crew’s ability to cope with the problem should it occur in battle or as a result of some mishap.

Triton
had, however, traveled some two thousand miles at great speed since she had last “gotten a good trim,” as submariners say. She had, moreover, changed from Atlantic waters off the River Plate to Pacific waters on the far side of Cape Horn, and was well on her way toward Easter Island. Our instruments, and those of Nick Mabry from the Hydro-graphic Office in Washington, gave us some idea of the change in salinity of the sea water—generally speaking, the Atlantic side of South America was saltier. We had taken aboard a good deal of water for various purposes, including running our evaporators and keeping our fresh water tanks full, and we had pumped varying amounts of water overboard to compensate for our computed decreased buoyancy.

Prior to the test, Tom Thamm sought me out.

“Captain,” he said, “my calculations show us to be pretty heavy by the time you consider the reduced salinity and the changes which have taken place in our internal weights.”

“Yes?” I said.

“According to these figures we ought to pump out about seventy thousand pounds before we have the drill . . .”

“Tom,” I interrupted, “aren’t your Diving Officers and Diving Chiefs keeping up with the trim as we go along?”

“Yes, sir, but I made a special computation because of this drill coming off, and that is what the figures show.”

This would be an opportunity for a good lesson, I thought. “Permission not granted, Tom,” I said. “The sort of casualty that we’re simulating might happen at any time, and we would have to face it with the conditions existing at that time. Suppose we really were to lose all power right now, rather than an hour from now after you get all this water pumped out?”

I had Tom there and he knew it, though I could see that he did not fully approve. “Aye aye, sir,” he said. “I’ll stand by in the control room just in case.”

I grinned at him. Tom was a perfectionist who didn’t want to have anything go wrong in his department. If the ship were too badly out of trim, a short blast of high-pressure air in the main ballast tanks was the quickest way of expelling a lot of water and stopping her descent. Then, the air in the tanks would have to be vented off—partly, at least—as we came up. Otherwise, with reduced external pressure as the ship rose to shallower depths, the air in the tanks would expand even more, thus still further lightening her. Blowing precisely the right amount to balance exactly could not be guaranteed, and several blowings and ventings would undoubtedly be required before the trim pump could get rid of enough water. And later, Curt Shellman’s carefully tended air compressors would have to perform considerable extra work to recharge the air banks.

In the unlikely event that Tom was wrong, that the ship was light instead of heavy, water would have to be taken in rapidly in order to keep her from broaching surface; but with the aid of sea pressure, this is always a much easier thing to do than to pump it out.

The particular problem that faced us had almost never been experienced in battery-driven submarines, for these normally operate at minimum speed while submerged in order to conserve their vitally important batteries, and any divergence from
a perfect submerged trim is instantly evident. As a consequence, all old-fashioned submarines automatically stay in perfect trim, practically as a reflex action, whenever they operate submerged. Being even slightly out of trim causes difficulty in maintaining depth at slow speed. But at our sustained high speed, a few hundred tons of extra weight, or buoyancy, would be unnoticeable—until we slowed down.

Everyone in the ship was up and around during the drill period, late-sleepers among the off-watch section having been jolted into consciousness by the daily test of the ship’s various alarm systems, which had been programmed for fifteen minutes prior to the beginning of the exercise.

At the agreed-upon time, I, too, was in the control room, as were Will Adams and Tom Thamm. At my signal, Will picked up the telephone and spoke briefly to Don Fears, who, naturally enough, just happened to be in number one engine room.

Immediately, a strident voice bellowed on the ship’s general announcing system. “Control, this is Maneuvering One. We’ve lost all power, both shafts.”

I watched the engine-order telegraph indicators on the Diving Control Panel shift swiftly from “ahead full” to “stop.”