Edward Beach - Around the World Submerged

All hands were advised to lay in a private supply of tobacco, chewing gum, toothpaste, soap, and other personal necessities, for submarines carry no ship’s store where these items may be purchased. (Quartermaster First Class Curtis Beacham was, as a result, observed trying to stow eighteen boxes of cigars, which he figured would just about last him the trip.)

There was one other person, I realized in a few days, who apparently knew of the real nature of our projected voyage. About midway during our period of preparation, a telephone call came for me. I took it on the private line which had been connected to my stateroom.

A female voice said, “Captain Beach? Admiral Rickover calling.” I recognized Dixie Davis, the Admiral’s secretary for many years.

“Beach here,” I said.

“Beach”—this, after a moment and without preamble, was Rickover’s soft tone—”I’m sending you some changes in your power-plant settings. You may need them. Have them put in immediately. Will you do this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“They will increase the safety and dependability of your plant. We’re doing this ahead of time because I want to do everything I can to help you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I did, indeed. “Yes, sir,” I said again.

“Leighton is putting them in the mail this afternoon. Let me know personally if there is anything else we can do. I’ll be watching your progress. Good luck!”

I started to say, “Thank you,” but the receiver clicked before I was able to say a word.

Next day, as promised, a thick special-delivery envelope arrived for me. Its contents were confidential and must remain so, but perusing them before passing them on to Don Fears, who had taken over Les Kelly’s duties as Engineer, I recognized them as following a pattern already established in earlier nuclear plants. After a period of running in, certain changes, essentially a relaxation of initial operating plant conditions, had been made in both Nautilus and Skate. Dennis Wilkinson and Jim Calvert had had, as a consequence, greater flexibility and a higher safety factor during their subsequent operations, and Bill Anderson, when he took over Nautilus from Wilkinson, had similarly profited. I could imagine the special work it must have taken to get a similar change ready on such short notice for us, and I wondered whether Dave Leigh-ton had had any knowledge of why the extra labor had been so suddenly demanded. I doubted it.

Triton ’s supply officer, Lieutenant Commander Bob Fisher, Supply Corps, USN, was an especially busy man. In response to the order to load the ship for 120 days, he crammed aboard 16,487 pounds of frozen food, 6,631 pounds of canned meat, and 12,130 pounds of canned vegetables. With interest, I noted that he had taken more coffee (1,300 pounds) than potatoes (1,285 pounds). He also stowed as much fresh stuff as he dared, considering spoilage. In all, we carried 77,613 pounds of food.

In addition, Bob secretly laid in a large store of candy. His reason for this, when I asked him what in thunder he was thinking about, was that he had noted, among the tests planned for the cruise, a period of several days when smoking would be prohibited throughout the ship. In his experience, an extra supply of candy in such cases always proved of value. It was something I hadn’t thought of; I wondered what Beacham would say when he found out.

There were, indeed, several tests to be carried out during this abstinence-from-smoking period, in addition to those planned for the cruise as a whole. Among them was a test to determine the psychological effects of the smoking ban, and a purely mechanical test to discover the percentage of contaminated aerosols which the smoking ban might remove from the atmosphere inside the ship. With these tests, the Navy’s Medical Research Laboratory hoped to learn whether smoking should be restricted in nuclear submarines during long-submerged cruises, whether the crews of such ships should comprise only nonsmokers, or whether special equipment should be devised and installed to remove the aerosols to allow smoking.

Fisher exercised great ingenuity in placing his supplies. Submariners have always taken pride in their ability to do this in these cramped vessels, and Bob proved himself adept despite the fact that, before Triton, he had never been to sea in a submarine. Our wartime submarines, designed for crews of sixty-five men, sometimes went to sea with as many as eighty-five and still maintained their sixty-days-provisions capability. Triton, designed for a crew of 171 and endurance of seventy-five days, was to make the world cruise with 183 persons; but we loaded her for 120 days nonetheless.

Our crew stowed away the increased amounts of foodstuffs, even when the stacks of supplies threatened to usurp their bunk spaces. Since the increased supplies were compatible with our cover story of a lengthened cruise, we did not concern ourselves about crew reactions, but I did worry considerably about Electric Boat workers, many of them experienced, though retired, submarine Chief Petty Officers, who might draw conclusions pretty close to the truth we were so carefully concealing.

Adequate sleeping space for our expanded complement was also a problem. True, submariners have for years been accustomed to “hot-bunking”—the term used to describe the system in which three men, one in each of the three watch sections, occupy only two bunks in rotation. For a cruise as long as ours, however, I thought individual bunks should be provided for all. But even Triton ’s huge size could not comfortably accommodate all of the men. We crammed extra bunks into every conceivable spot, including the atticlike space above the false ceiling in the wardroom and the yeoman’s office, but we were still short.

I was for a time very pleased with the eventual solution: Triton, the world’s most modern and marvelous ship, would also be the only undersea craft in our Navy to be fitted with the traditional oldtime sailorman’s joy and comfort, the hammock! We installed two of them; one in the forward torpedo room, the other in the after torpedo room. There were some difficulties, however. No one aboard except myself, apparently, had ever slept in a hammock. No one had ever rigged one—no one knew, for instance, that for sleeping it must be stretched just as tightly as possible, or that a short wooden batten is generally desirable near the sleeper’s head to keep the heavy canvas from curling over his face. No one, in fact, had ever seen a hammock of the kind I was describing. Or at least, so they would have had me believe. I delved deep into my own hammock-sleeping experience during midshipman cruise days in the old battleship Arkansas, designed the hammocks myself, supervised their installation, and personally checked out the men when they used them the first time.

I was sure that once it was known how comfortable a hammock could be, the lucky occupants would everlastingly bless my thoughtful kindness—and our berthing problems would be over.

It was not until later that I realized the hammocks were not getting the use I had expected. For a while, someone, anyone, climbed into them when the grapevine announced my approach, but even that custom gradually fell into disuse, and the swaying nests hung empty. Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower both slept in hammocks, and so did John Paul Jones. But times have changed.

One of our more perplexing tasks was to prepare a suitable memorial to be delivered at Cadiz, the point from which Magellan departed on his successful but, for him, ill-fated circumnavigation. Having optimistically stated that Triton would herself design and procure a suitable plaque, I now found myself in the foundry business, all highly classified, of course, wishing mightily that I had been more reserved. Fortunately, in Tom Thamm Triton had an excellent and imaginative artist, and at the Submarine Base there was a superb woodcarver who, we hoped, could be prevailed upon to make the necessary wooden mold.