USS Nautilus - The First Icex

On Dec. 12, 1951, the Navy announced that the first nuclear powered submarine would be named USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the sixth ship of the fleet to bear that name. Her keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Conn., on June 14, 1952. Under the leadership of then-Capt. Hyman G. Rickover, known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy”, 

Construction of Nautilus hinged on the successful development of a nuclear propulsion plant by a group of scientists and engineers at the Naval Reactors Branch of the Atomic Energy Commission.2 Nautilus was powered by the S2W naval reactor—a pressurized water reactor produced for the U.S. Navy by Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Nautilus was launched into the Thames River on Jan. 21, 1954, after eighteen months of construction. First Lady Mamie Eisenhower broke the traditional bottle of champagne across Nautilus’s bow and Nautilus became the first commissioned nuclear powered ship in the United States Navy. At 11 a.m. EST on the morning of Jan. 17, 1955 the submarine’s first commanding officer, Cmdr. Eugene P. Wilkinson, ordered all lines cast off and signaled the memorable and historic message, “Underway on Nuclear Power.” Over the next several years, Nautilus shattered all submerged speed and distance records.

After preliminary acceptance by the Navy on April 22, 1955, Nautilus headed south for shakedown on May 10, 1955. She remained submerged while en route to Puerto Rico, covering 1,381 miles in 89.8 hours, immediately setting submerged endurance and speed records. In July and August, Nautilus conducted rigorous exercises with hunter-killer (HUK) groups in Narragansett Bay and off Bermuda. The submarine finished out the year conducting visits to east coast Navy bases, a battery of torpedo firing tests, and Bureau of Ships standardization trials.

Navigator’s position report to the captain showing the USS Nautilus(SSN-571) at the North Pole. U.S. Navy document.

Over the next year, the submarine served as a test platform out of New London, Conn., investigating the effects of the radically increased submerged speed and endurance on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) practices. Such changes in submerged mobility wiped out contemporary ASW techniques. Aircraft and surface radar, which helped defeat diesel-electric submersibles during World War II, proved ineffective against a submarine which did not need to surface, could dive to deeper depths, and could clear a search area in record time. In between exercises, Nautilus conducted press tours for such luminaries as Edward R. Murrow’s “See it Now” program and hosted various distinguished visitors from the Navy and Congress.

Ocean bottom profile taken along the track of the USS Nautilus(SSN-571) during transpolar voyage.

U.S. Navy document.

On Feb. 4, 1957, Nautilus logged her 60,000th nautical mile, matching the endurance of the fictional Nautilus described in Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. In May, she departed for the Pacific Coast to participate in coastal exercises and the fleet exercise, operation “Home Run,” which acquainted units of the Pacific Fleet with the capabilities of nuclear submarines.

Nautilus returned to New London, Conn., on July 21, 1957, and departed again on Aug. 19, 1957, for her first voyage of 1,202 nautical miles under the polar pack ice. Thereafter, she headed for the Eastern Atlantic to participate in North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) exercises and conduct a tour of various British and French ports where she was inspected by defense personnel of those countries. She arrived back at New London on Oct. 28, 1957, underwent upkeep, and then conducted coastal operations until the spring.

The watch crew in the control room of the USS Nautilus(SSN-571) maintain exact course and depth while the ship is passing under the polar ice gap. U.S. Navy Photo.

The historic message sent by Nautilus' first commanding officer, Cmdr. Eugene P. Wilkinson indicating that the submarine was “Underway on nuclear power.” U.S. Navy Photo.

The Importance of Operation Sunshine

The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, their first space success, on Oct. 4, 1957, which was followed by a period of agitation between the Soviets and the United States.

The Eisenhower administration immediately came under public criticism for failing to grasp the psychological significance of the space race. Eisenhower needed a way to demonstrate that the United States was a technological powerhouse. What followed was one of the most humiliating moments in American history as government scientists failed in launching their hurried response to Sputnik with their own satellite and rocket, the Vanguard. The first Vanguard launched four feet before exploding on the launch pad on Dec. 6, 1957, a disaster seen in broadcasts throughout the globe. In the aftermath, Soviet delegates to the United Nations asked their American counterparts if the Soviet’s third world aid program was needed to help the U.S. place its space program back on track.

President Eisenhower’s naval aide, Capt. Evan Peter Aurand, described to the President what he had learned about an under-ice expedition, in which Nautilus nearly made it to the pole in September, 1957. Nautilus had gone several hundred miles inside the Arctic ice pack with its underwater capabilities. The purpose was to find a good way for a submarine to transit under the ice.

In a chance meeting at the Pentagon in late 1957, Capt. Aurand spoke with Capt. William R. Anderson, commander of the Nautilus on her trip under ice. Aurand knew the White House staff would want to hear more of the story so Aurand invited the Nautilus skipper to attend one of the staff meetings to brief them on the details. Anderson told a story that set in motion a keen interest in the mind of White House Press Secretary Jim Hagerty.

The primary objective was indeed political but the ancillary benefit in scientific information and data was both planned and expected. Capt. Anderson regaled the staff with a stirring story. Capt. Aurand recalled the meeting: “Everyone was very interested, particularly Jim Hagerty. Jim and I were both interested in doing something that would take the curse off the Sputnik scare! We wanted some technological development that the United States could make.”

Hagerty wanted a vehicle for changing that perception and reestablishing the lead over the Soviets. He asked Anderson, “Is it possible for Nautilus to cross the Arctic from the Pacific to the Atlantic?”

Anderson was certain that the addition of new gyro compasses, other navigational aids, and meticulous planning could counter the experiences which led to difficulties on the first voyage Nautilus made into the ice pack. Both Capt. Aurand and Hagerty were smiling broadly when Anderson left the White House. Anderson, recalling his conversation with the President, said, “I told the President about it. He thought it would be a great thing to do. He asked me to see if Adm. Arleigh Burke thought it was alright. So, I went over and saw him.”

However, Capt. Aurand soon met some resistance and discovered that carrying out the operation would require a certain amount of cajoling and finesse. Adm. Burke initially ordered the creation of a feasibility study among a small and select group within the Navy. The study group concluded, like Anderson, that they should move forward with the mission. Capt. Aurand then proposed to President Eisenhower that Nautilus should attempt the trip the following summer of 1958. The White House then issued orders to execute what was to become “Operation Sunshine,” a mission name which implied a trek to southern climates.

Why the Secrecy?

Operation Sunshine was so secretive that the story of a routine Pacific cruise was created for Nautilus’ and her crew. To explain Nautilus’ appearance on the West Coast, a cover story was created involving a series of anti-submarine exercises in a supposed effort to familiarize military ships and aircraft with a nuclear submarine.17

The operation became known as the most top secret peacetime naval operation in history for two reasons. First, in proceeding through the Bering Strait, and while well removed from the territorial waters of the Soviet Union, Nautilus might have possibly neared areas of Soviet submarine operation. Second, White House officials preferred to attempt the voyage first and wait for success before making any announcements after the Vanguard debacle and its fallout. As such, few people within the government were privy to the plans for Nautilus as the summer of 1958 approached.

Operation Sunshine was first and foremost a White House mission, planned to enhance the United States’ image domestically as well as internationally. Nautilus’s crew remained in the dark as to their real destination as Nautilus left Groton, Conn., on April 25, 1958.

Cmdr W.R. Anderson, USN, commanding officer of the USS Nautilus(SSN-571) and Dr. Waldo Lyon, Senior Scientist, observe the thickness of the ice overhead by watching ice recorded in attack center. U.S. Navy document. U.S. Navy Photo.

Arctic Challenges

Capt. Anderson, in his memoir of the Nautilus’ first polar voyages, Nautilus 90 North, wrote that ice covering the Arctic Ocean is not a solid layer, but “composed of huge chunks and floes, varying greatly in size and thickness, grinding one upon the other, creating the effect of a solid mass.” An ice floe collision could easily destroy a submarine. Dr. Waldo Lyon, a Navy scientist, had developed a device several years earlier that would help a submarine avoid the ice. Nautilus’ sonar supervisor, Al Charette, described the invention as a sort of inverted depth sounder, or fathometer: “Instead of sounding toward the bottom, with the transducer on the bottom of the ship, the transducer was on the top of the ship, looking up at the bottom profile of the ice.”

Northern latitudes pose the most difficult navigational challenge a sailor can encounter. As it nears the pole, a magnetic compass which is oriented toward magnetic, rather than geographic north, becomes essentially worthless. To remedy this, a gyro-compass with its core aligned to true north, measures deviations from that axis, and performs more reliably, however it is also known to behave erratically as it nears true north as east-west meridians converge on the pole. Capt. Anderson in his memoir wrote: “At the North Pole, every direction you face is south” describing that situation as “longitude roulette.” Nautilus would have to wait until 1958 to be given a strategy that would help it avoid such a dangerous game of chance.

The inertial navigation system was the most useful piece of equipment brought aboard Nautilus in April, 1958. The device was designed for use in the Air Force’s winged Navajo missile by North American Aviation which had recently been discontinued in favor of the Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The inertial navigator operated independently of any reference point unlike any navigation aid then in use except for the craft’s starting position. An elaborate set of sophisticated internal mechanisms and electronics calculated the direction and distance of the boat’s every movement and rotation. The navigator created a virtual map of Nautilus’s voyage from start to finish.

Anderson was initially skeptical of the inertial navigator although impressed with the technology. “It was the first time such a system had ever been used in a ship, and as you would guess, a lot of debugging had to go on, and a lot of workup.”

First Attempt at Operation Sunshine

In her first attempt at completing Operation Sunshine, Nautilus departed Seattle for the polar ice pack on June 9, 1958, and at that time, the crew was told of their destination. The machinist’s mate, Bill McNally, remembers Anderson’s announcement to the crew in which he stated that they were headed home to New London. “But the captain turned right instead of left. He said we were going home by way of the North Pole, and that’s when we learned we were actually going to do it.” As Capt. Anderson announced their surprise route, Sonarman Charette recalled, “One of the terms he used was that our job was to ‘out-Sputnik the Russians.’”

Believed to be the most direct course, the intended route (to take Nautilus north through the Bering Strait, west around the Siberian side of St. Lawrence Island, and then into the Chukchi Sea, a shallow, 400-mile expanse) would ultimately deliver the boat to the Arctic Basin. However, in early June the ice was far too hazardous for Nautilus to successfully navigate. At times, there were only 45 feet of water below and 25 feet above Nautilus. Nautilus passed under a huge floe that was 30 feet below the surface.

Capt. Anderson’s dilemma was a difficult one: if Nautilus encountered thicker ice, she wouldn’t make the passage. The captain arrived at the decision to keep his crew and boat safe for another journey by turning south and eastward, in the direction of the Alaskan side of St. Lawrence Island. Careful threading through the Strait, in waters so shallow that she could only go around rather than under ice, allowed Nautilus to safely enter the Chukchi Sea. Nautilus met a mile-long ice floe that projected more than 60 feet below the surface in the Chukchi Sea. Nautilus cleared it by a mere 5 feet while moving at a crawl. Anderson recalled in Nautilus 90 North, “I waited for, and honestly expected, the shudder and jar of steel against solid ice.” Capt. Anderson realized that this initial effort had failed and the only way home was south.

Second Attempt—Success

Nautilus departed Pearl Harbor, on July 23, 1958, and at 11:15 p.m. on Aug. 3, 1958, Capt. Anderson, announced to his crew, “For the world, our country, and the Navy—the North Pole.” With 116 men aboard, Nautilus had accomplished the “impossible,” reaching the geographic North Pole—90 degrees North.27 She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley August 1, 1958, and on August 3rd, at 11:15 p.m. (EDST) became the first ship to reach the geographic North Pole. It would be two days before Nautilus surfaced northeast of Greenland and transmitted her historic message to the outside world: “Nautilus 90 NORTH.”

Capt. Anderson in his memoirs recounted: “There was no doubt in my mind that Nautilus could penetrate the ice safely and efficiently from the Greenland-Spitsbergen side of the pack, as we had done in 1957. The water there was quite deep. I knew that the really formidable problem lay on the other side, in the Bering Strait and the Chukchi Sea, a small body of water lying between the Strait and the Arctic Ocean.”

“Viewed from the top of the world, this area resembles a huge funnel, with the spout—the Bering Strait—lying to the south. There the ice is far more irregular and hazardous than that on the Greenland side. Blown southward against the walls of the funnel, represented by Alaska and Siberia, the ice ‘chokes up’ at the narrow mouth. In fact, it jams, layer upon layer against these rugged coastlines, and as a result is far thicker than the ice near the North Pole. To make matters worse, the waters of the Strait and Chukchi Sea are quite shallow, averaging not more than 120 feet, much too shallow for ordinary submarine operations. If a submarine in those waters encountered deep-hanging ice, it might not be able to get beneath or around it. It would be a hair-raising problem of threading through dangerous ice, seeking out the few deeper ocean-floor valleys which lead northward in the Arctic Basin.”

“From a pure operational standpoint, the question was: could a submarine negotiate this track in the face of possible poor weather and navigational errors? There would not be many feet to spare in either direction. Yet it could be done. I was certain of that. And I said so.”31 In a worst case scenario, Capt. Anderson considered using torpedoes to blow a hole in the ice if Nautilus needed to surface.

In order to insure that all gyrocompasses remained properly oriented, we made all course, speed, and depth changes extremely slowly. For example, when we came near the surface to decrease water pressure on the hull, we rose with an angle of one or two degrees, instead of the usual twenty to thirty degrees. So gradual was the shift that six minutes elapsed before settling on a new heading. Somebody jokingly suggested that when they neared the Pole they might put the rudder hard over and make twenty-five tight circles, thus becoming the first ship in history to circle the earth nonstop twenty-five times.

After crossing the Pole, Capt. Anderson made his way to join the “North Pole Party” in the crew’s mess. His first act was to pay modest tribute to the man who had made the historic trip possible, President Eisenhower. A few minutes before, Anderson had written him a message which concluded: “I hope sir, that you will accept this letter as a memento of a voyage of importance to the United States.” In the mess, before seventy crew members of Nautilus, the captain signed the letter as well as one to Mrs. Eisenhower who had christened the ship.

The Effects

Nautilus completed the first successful voyage across the North Pole and then continued 96 hours and 1,830 miles under the ice before surfacing northeast of Greenland.35 From there, as recalled by Capt. Anderson, events moved more swiftly than either he or the crew could absorb at the time. The captain boarded a helicopter off the coast of Iceland to make his way toward Washington, where he reported directly to President Eisenhower. An exhausted Capt. Anderson gave the President the memento letter written by him aboard Nautilus. The captain presented Mrs. Eisenhower the boat’s clocks which were stopped at the exact moment she had crossed the pole.

News of the trip was released after that meeting when he joined the president at an adjoining press conference at which time Eisenhower awarded the officers and crew of Nautilus the Presidential Unit Citation—the first time it had ever been awarded to a naval vessel in peacetime. Anderson, for his part, was awarded the Legion of Merit.37 All members of the Nautilus crew who made the voyage were authorized to wear their Presidential Unit Citation ribbon with a special clasp in the form of a gold block letter N to commemorate the first submerged voyage under the North Pole.

Before he had time to reflect on these events, Anderson was snatched away to rejoin the Nautilus before her arrival in England. He’d had his taste of the attention the world was about to shower on Nautilus and her crew, but the men aboard were still in the dark. When they reached England, Al Charette, Nautilus’ sonar supervisor for the successful arctic voyage said, “We were met by the press and by hundreds of people at the pier.”

It would take years for Charette and the rest of the crew to realize the impact of what they had done: “What we were supposed to have done was open up a new sea route, and we did that, but the commercial world never made any use of it.” In fact, much was made of the voyage’s practical implications at both the White House press conference and in a lead story in the following day’s New York Times.39 Anderson spoke of the potential for cargo submarines to use the Arctic route, and the press secretary pointed out that the standard London-to-Tokyo distance—11,200 nautical miles via the Panama Canal—had just had nearly 5,000 miles sliced from it.40 Today, the Arctic remains too dangerous for the private shipping industry to allow for successful exploitation of the transit route.

Unlike the taunting Soviet diplomats at the United Nations delivered after Sputnik’s launch, Eisenhower, Anderson, and everyone else associated with the voyage preferred to leave the real implication of Nautilus’s transpolar voyage unspoken. But it was certainly not lost on the Soviets. Charette notes “Knowing that we could operate it [Nautilus] safely under the ice, it was known that a Polaris submarine could operate safely under the ice. Without an equivalent submarine, there was no way to go in and find that guy… So we could be right in their back yard, and there was nothing they could do about it.”

The Soviets, while stunned by Nautilus’ triumph, weren’t exactly caught flat-footed. Four years later, their first nuclear submarine, the K-3, would surface at the North Pole, re-establishing its submarine fleet and neutralizing the United States’ strategic advantage in the Arctic.

Cmdr. W.R. Anderson, USN, commanding officer of the USS Nautilus(SSN-571) on the bridge during a period of low visibility searches for a spot deep enough to submerge safely under the ice to pass under the North Pole. U.S. Navy photo.

After leaving England and quietly establishing a speed record for a submerged Atlantic crossing, the Nautilus crew was saluted in New York Harbor by a noisy fleet of tugboats and fireboats which Capt. Anderson described as “absolutely overwhelming.”44 An estimated total of 20,000 persons visited the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn to inspect the atomic submarine Nautilus.45 The crew was given a ticker-tape parade through downtown Manhattan. A crowd estimated by the police at 250,000 lined Broadway from Bowling Green to the City Hall.

Anderson was later pictured on the cover of the following month’s issue of Life magazine. While proud of the accomplishment, he said he was uneasy about having become a figurehead for the polar trip. “I served a long time in submarines, and under many different circumstances, and I was prepared for just about any situation a submarine guy could confront, but I was totally unprepared for the aftermath of the polar trips. I dealt with it the best I could, at the same time feeling—as I still do—a certain resentment for the human tendency to concentrate attention and fame on the guy in charge, when, in this case, more than most anything I can imagine, it took the superb work of a crew of 115 to get the job done…I’ve always had that feeling of discomfort, at how difficult it is to get the credit shared where it should go: to all hands.”

Postscript

In 1964, Anderson entered the Democratic primary in Tennessee to replace Sixth District Congressman Ross Bass, who was running for the United States Senate to finish the term of the late Estes Kefauver, and won both the nomination and the subsequent general election. Anderson was reelected three times.

For the remainder of 1958, Nautilus operated from her home-port, New London, Conn.49 In May, 1959, Nautilus entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, Maine, for her first complete overhaul. This marked the first overhaul of any nuclear powered ship, and the replacement of her second fuel core. Upon completion of her overhaul in August 1960, Nautilus departed for a period of refresher training, then deployed to the Mediterranean Sea to become the first nuclear powered submarine assigned to the U.S. Sixth Fleet.

Over the next six years, Nautilus participated in several fleet exercises while steaming over 200,000 miles. In the spring of 1966, she again entered the record books when she logged her 300,000th mile underway. During the following 12 years, Nautilus was involved in a variety of developmental testing programs while continuing to serve alongside many of the more modern nuclear powered submarines she had preceded.

In the spring of 1979, Nautilus set out from Groton, Conn., on her final voyage. She reached Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, Calif., on May 26, 1979, her last day underway. She was decommissioned on March 3, 1980, after a career spanning 25 years and over half a million miles steamed.

In recognition of her pioneering role in the practical use of nuclear power, Nautilus was designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior on May 20, 1982. Following an extensive historic ship conversion at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Nautilus was towed to Groton, Conn., arriving on July 6, 1985.

On April 11, 1986, eighty-six years to the day after the birth of the Submarine Force, the historic ship, Nautilus, joined by the Submarine Force Museum, was opened to the public as the first and finest exhibit of its kind in the world, providing an exciting, visible link between yesterday’s Submarine Force and the Submarine Force of tomorrow.