Around the World Submerged (6 page)

Rowlands grinned. “You can sleep through anything if you’re tired enough, sir, but it sure is noisy.”

“She’ll quiet down a lot when we dive,” I pointed out.

Rowlands agreed. “But we’ll have to go pretty deep, Captain, to quiet down them spinning wheels with all that power.”

He was right. The deeper you go, the less noise your propellers make, but the bigger they are and the faster they spin, the more noise they make.
Triton
’s propellers, eleven feet in diameter, turning far faster than any other submarine’s, could not avoid making noise at their present shallow depth. But, of course, no other submarine could go as fast on the surface as
Triton
; when we slowed down to comparable speeds or when we submerged, the chances were that our ship would be as quiet as the others—perhaps quieter.

It was nearly time to dive. I hurried forward. Lieutenant Tom Thamm,
Triton
’s Diving Officer, was already at his station with his number one diving crew. This entire group had trained together for several months at the submarine dive simulator at Electric Boat and at another, fancier, one in the Submarine Base; but, of course, this was the first opportunity for them actually to dive the ship.

They were, naturally, somewhat keyed up. The weights in a submarine must be so balanced that when she fills her main ballast tanks the ship will be in precisely neutral buoyancy. Otherwise, she would not be controllable. Naturally, as stores or torpedoes are put aboard, consumed, fired, or unloaded, there are changes in internal weights. These are compensated for by the bow and stern trimming tanks, and by two auxiliary tanks located amidships. These four tanks are known as “variable tanks,” because the amount of water they contain may be
varied. This can be done without danger of rupture due to internal or external pressure. The “ballast tanks,” by contrast, are always open at the bottom, are empty for buoyancy when the ship is surfaced, and must be fully flooded to dive her. One of the trickiest problems in designing a submarine is to calculate the weights and the volumes so that, with all conceivable weights out of the ship, it is still possible to put enough water into the variable tanks to achieve neutral buoyancy. Conversely, she must be designed so that with maximum weight on board, enough water can be pumped
out
to restore her to neutral buoyancy. (Ballast tanks cannot be used for this, despite the misleading name, for they must always be fully flooded when submerged. Since they are never under any pressure differential, they are lightly constructed, unlike the extremely rugged variable tanks.)

As Diving Officer, Tom’s job was to work out the compensation under the load condition that existed at any given time, and to calculate exactly how much water was required in each variable tank to insure that when
Triton
’s main ballast tanks were flooded, the ship would be both in neutral buoyancy and balanced fore and aft. When the right amounts of water are thus in her variable tanks, the ship, in submarine parlance, is in “diving trim” or “compensated.”

“The ship is rigged for dive and compensated, Captain,” Tom reported.

A submarine cannot submerge until it is “rigged for dive,” by which is meant that all the proper equipment for diving is in correct position, either open or shut, in power or set for hand operation as designated, and that every compartment has been inspected, both by the crew members responsible for rigging it and by an officer detailed to check it. There have been cases when a submarine was lost, seriously damaged, or suffered loss of life because of an improper rig somewhere.

“How is your trim?” I asked.

“I’ve pumped it all in,” Thamm said. He added, “I guess
we’ll find out how good the trim is as soon as we pull the plug.”

The indicator lights on the Ballast Control Panel showed that we were ready to dive, except that our main air inlet pipe and the bridge hatch were still open.

“Shut the induction, Tom,” I said.

At Thamm’s signaled order, Fitzjarrald, hovering over the Ballast Control Panel, moved the control toggle switch to the shut position.

I picked up the microphone controlling the speaker on the bridge, told Brodie to reduce speed and shift his watch to the conning tower. There was a “clink” of annunciators, a clatter of feet on ladder rungs, a thump as the bridge hatch slammed shut. The Ballast Control Panel indicated that the last important hull opening was now closed.

“All clear topside!” Brodie’s voice came from the conning tower, where, according to plan, he would be manning the periscope.

“Bleed air, Tom,” I said.

Thamm picked up a microphone in his turn. “Engine room, this is control. Bleed high-pressure air into the ship!”

For our first dive, we were using the so-called “safe-diving procedure.” For the moment, we were driving along on the surface, entirely sealed, with no one topside. In the meantime, high-pressure air was being released from a connection in the engine room to increase the air pressure slightly within
Triton
’s hull. If air could not leak out of the ship, then presumably water could not leak in. At the Diving Control Panel was a barometer which would indicate the pressure inside the ship. If this pressure rose and did not drop back after the air valve was shut, the ship had to be airtight.

Thamm, Fitzjarrald, and I inspected the barometer closely. The needle rose a short distance, then stopped rising and remained rock steady.

Tom took a long minute to watch it carefully. Finally satisfied, he nodded to me. “The ship is tight, sir.”

An interested group of observers had silently gathered in the control room. All experienced submariners, some of them tops in the field of submarine construction and design, every visitor aboard had a keen interest in
Triton
’s first dive. I gave Brodie the order to sound the diving alarm, and a raucous, automobilelike horn reverberated through the ship. Fitzjarrald, his hands on two of the control buttons on the Ballast Control Panel, was watching Thamm.

“Open the vents,” Tom ordered.

Swiftly, the Chief ran his fingers down the panel of switches opening
Triton
’s main vents to the sea. The rush of water into the tanks could be heard through the thick steel plating of the ship’s hull.

Thamm waited several seconds, then ordered, “Shut the vents.”

This also was by prearrangement. Our purpose on this first dive was to ease
Triton
down into the depths easily and gently. Should something be radically wrong with the compensation, or should the controls somehow fail to function properly, we wanted to be able to regulate things immediately. Eight thousand tons of insensate steel running out of control could be a frightening, possibly disastrous experience.

Another long moment went by while Thamm checked all his instruments. Though lower in the water by several feet,
Triton
was not yet submerged. Again Tom ordered the vents reopened, and again he shut them. The third time he opened them still longer, and as we felt
Triton
angling down at the bow, he opened them all. It had taken us several minutes to dive, but we were all well satisfied; our ship had performed exactly as we had predicted. Later, of course, we would strive for a faster diving time.

The submerged trials started out simply, but rapidly increased in severity. Soon we were running the entire gamut of
submerged operations, and our feeling of pride and confidence in our ship grew steadily.
Triton
behaved beautifully, like the queen she was designed to be. Despite her huge bulk, she could turn around so fast that her gyrocompass indicator would spin like a top in front of the helmsmen. When up or down plane angles were used, she responded immediately—and the smallest angle on the planes was sufficient to bend her to our wishes. When “flank speed” was ordered, we were surprised and delighted; surfaced she was by design faster than any submarine, faster than most surface ships, in fact. Speed under water had been a secondary consideration; yet, submerged, only her immediate predecessor, the football-shaped
Skipjack,
could equal her. There was absolutely no sensation of passage through the water, nor any water noise. Much of the noise created by a speeding ship is a result of the mixture of air and water at the surface. Thus the water noise is largely a boundary effect. But when the ship is deeply submerged, there is no such boundary, no opportunity for air to mix with water. Our superstructure and hull were firm and solid; there was no rattling or vibration here either; no noise of any kind except for
Triton
’s propellers and internal machinery back aft.

Whenever I could absent myself from the control room, which was not very often on this first day under way, I took a turn through the machinery spaces. There, everyone was smiling. Assistant Engineer Don Fears, part of the time Engineering Officer of the Watch in number two engine room and later occupying himself by a continuous working check of all operating equipment, reflected joy and pride every time I saw him. So did Les Kelly, who, as
Triton
’s Chief Engineer, had overall responsibility for the entire plant. Pat McDonald, our Reactor Control Officer, responsible for theory and practice insofar as the reactors were concerned, was positively ebullient.

“How’s it going, Pat?” I asked him, cornering him in the reactor monitoring area which someone—Pat himself, I had always suspected—had nicknamed “Idiot’s Alley.”

“Just fine, Captain, just fine!” answered Pat. “She’s humming away like a big watch. I wouldn’t be afraid to take her clean across the Atlantic this very minute—just look at this!”

Pat pointed with his slide rule to one of the hundred or so “read-out” indicator dials which lined both sides of “Idiot’s Alley.” I looked. The Power Output dial was approaching the edge of the full power mark.

“We crept up on it slowly,” said Pat, “but we’ve been running just below full power now for the past hour and a half. The Admiral sure believes in working out the machinery!”

“You can say that again,” I told him. “When the
Nautilus
prototype out in Idaho was first fired up, he made them take it on a simulated voyage at full power all the way to Europe. Regular watches, course charted, daily positions, and all that. There weren’t many who said it wouldn’t work after that.”

“Where does the standard Navy four-hour full-power trial come into this picture?” Pat asked.

“Sometime when we’ve got nothing else to do we’ll run one off just to get it on the record,” I said. “You don’t suppose Admiral Rickover will let Les cut this initial run short of full power, do you—or that four measly hours will satisfy him? Any more than it would satisfy you, if you had to be on board this ship in combat?”

Pat grinned. Then, as we watched the Power Output dial, the needle slowly climbed until it was exactly centered on the full power mark.

“There’s part of the answer, Pat,” I said. “Excuse me, but this I want to see,” and I started aft through the watertight door into the engine room, leaving a Reactor Control Officer staring with delight at the evidence his monitoring instruments were presenting.

In number one engine room, George Troffer had the EOOW watch. Les Kelly was standing right behind him, and Admiral Rickover was seated on a tool chest a few feet away, absorbed in a red-covered book which I took to be a power
plant testing manual of some sort. With a side glance at the Admiral, who showed no sign that he had noticed my appearance, I addressed myself to Kelly. “Les, how much power are you indicating back here?” I asked. I had to shout to be heard above the powerful roar of the engine.

Kelly put his mouth to my ear and shouted back, “We’ve just gone to a hundred percent power! She’s running like a million bucks! No trouble at all!”

I decided against asking why I had not been consulted before the speed change was made. No doubt a messenger was off looking for me at that very minute. This was Vice-Admiral Rickover’s plant and his test. My duties, clearly stated for these first trials, were to operate the ship in accordance with his directives. Besides, I, too, wanted to find out what were the actual limitations of our engines.

Les had something more to say, which he did with a broad smile. “One more thing. That’s no power plant manual the Old Man’s got his nose into. Take a good look at the name on the cover, if you get a chance.”

Casting a quick glance at Rickover, who appeared still engrossed in the book with the red cover, I decided to get a better look at it soon, nodded my thanks to Kelly, and began a tour of the remaining engineering spaces.

In number two plant, all was serene. The port engine and reduction gears were spinning away with the greatest aplomb, and every bearing was cool, every critical point reading well within the specified limits.

Lieutenant Curtis Shellman, Machinery Division Officer and presently in charge of the port engine-room watch, must have been born with the sallow complexion and dark circles under his eyes which made his normal everyday appearance that of a man under severe strain; recently he had had every right to look this way, for the main brunt of getting
Triton
’s engines ready for her first engineering trials had fallen upon him. Practically all of the operating machinery of the ship was under his
surveillance, and the toll of many sleepless hours showed in the veritable death’s head smile he gave me by way of salutation. But there was nothing beaten down or tired about the pure and happy sense of accomplishment which showed there too, as he called my attention to the pounds of steam flow per hour, the throttle setting, the steam pressure, and the effortless RPM of the port main shaft.

Not ordinarily given to use of the superlative, Curt essayed one this time. “She’s just wonderful, Captain!” he yelled. “I’ve never seen an engine run as smoothly as this one. Why, we could take her anywhere, anytime!” His enthusiasm was contagious, and there were corroborating nods from Chief Electrician’s Mates “L” “E” Poe (another old shipmate) and Walter O’Dell, members of the watch section.

It was not hard to believe. What
was
difficult to appreciate was that
Triton
at this moment was driving through the water at a speed which no member of her crew had ever experienced, which we would have dismissed as insane had anyone suggested it but a few years ago, which, had this ship but come a few years sooner, might have won the war in the Pacific for us in a matter of months, instead of the years it took.