Edward Beach - Around the World Submerged

0430 Periscope depth for approach on Tenerife, Canary Islands. The spectacle on raising the periscope is remarkable. Although we are still quite distant from land, the lights of the city of Santa Cruz are so high above the horizon as to give the appearance of stars. Tenerife, according to the Sailing Directions, is an extremely high and mountainous island. The highest peak, Pico de Teyde, is more than 12,000 feet. The chart shows that modern Santa Cruz has a large and efficient-looking artificial harbor formed by a long breakwater. Try as we may, we are unable to locate where Magellan’s precipitous cliff-walled harbor could have been.

A historical episode in which Santa Cruz figured was the 1798 attack on the city by an English squadron under Horatio Nelson. Nelson was then 39 years old and had held the rank of Rear Admiral in the British Navy for a year. The attack on Tenerife miscarried in the initial stages, mainly because of indecision among the commanders of the assault troops, and Nelson determined to lead the second attack in person. As he landed, a grape-shot shattered his right elbow, and with their leader out of action, this attack also failed. Nelson’s arm was amputated and he was invalided home for several months.

A sketch of the defenses of Santa Cruz and the shore configuration, drawn by Nelson for this campaign, is easily recognized on our chart. The changes wrought by the recent century and a half are not so great, evidently, as those of the previous three.

Apropos of Nelson’s arm, shortly before landfall this morning, Chiefs Bennett and Jordan ganged up on our two most junior Electrician’s Mates, Franklin D. Caldwell and Ronald D. Kettle-hake, with a story to the effect that all ships approaching the Island of Tenerife were required to set a watch for Horatio Nelson’s arm, and that they, being junior, had been designated for the first watch. Having been forewarned by the two perpetrators of the joke, I sent separately for Caldwell and Kettlehake in order to brief them on their duties.

Caldwell appeared first, somewhat nonplused at this unusual summons. I carefully explained to him that Nelson’s arm had become petrified and greatly enlarged after being tossed over the side from his flagship Theseus, and that now, standing vertically in the mud of the channel off Tenerife, it had become a danger to navigation.

Caldwell slowly produced a sheepish grin as I went on with the gag, finally departed to fetch Kettlehake. This engaging young character completely swallowed my long yarn about the huge petrified arm, seemed perfectly willing to believe that it could have become an object able to menace navigation in water many hundreds of fathoms deep. He was, in fact, very interested in all the details of my dissertation of how it came about, and finally blurted out, “It sounds like a grand tradition, sir. How long has it been going on?”

“About an hour,” I told him.

But Kettlehake continued with questions about Nelson, and when he departed, he carried off volume one of my precious set of Mahan’s The Life of Nelson. Now that the fun is over, I am wondering just who was hazing whom, and whether there was a bet in the background involving getting that book away from me.

0830 We are now near enough to begin our “photo-recon” of the outskirts of the city of Santa Cruz on Tenerife island. It is indeed an imposing skyline, though search as we may, we still find no evidence of the harbor supposedly used by Magellan. The scenery is most spectacular, however, far and away the most breathtaking of this cruise.

Behind Santa Cruz towering peaks stretch in both directions. Though vegetation is visible in many places, generally speaking the brown hillsides are similar to the Cape of Good Hope.

The city of Santa Cruz extends back against the hillside in such a way that the whole is laid out before us and presents an extremely imposing view. Many roads can be seen stretching along the hillsides, with automobiles moving back and forth on them. Many new modern buildings, evidently apartments, line the roads and, as at Cebu, march steadily up the hillside and back from the sea. Nearly 300,000 people supposedly live on this island. From the size of Santa Cruz it can be readily believed that about 200,000 of them must live here.

The breakwater is visible. Construction work is going forward to lengthen it and extend the harbor even farther. Sheltered behind are a number of large ships, including some cruise ships. Indeed, Santa Cruz looks like an ideal spot for a vacation.

0933 Departed Tenerife for rendezvous off Cadiz the early morning of Monday, 2 May.

Sunday, 1 May 1960 1330 Our next-to-last church services. Chief Electrician’s Mate Hugh Bennett leads. His talk is titled “Success,” and it has much food for thought.

The Triton Eagle has formally ceased publication, though we shall probably put out one more issue prior to arrival in the United States. The reason is that mail from home will now fill the void the paper has been filling these several months. The entire staff deserve much credit for daily extra duty faithfully performed for the benefit of their shipmates.

Monday, 2 May 1960 0117 Sonar contact identified as USS John W. Weeks (DD-701).

0243 Periscope depth. Weeks in sight bearing 035.5° true.

A blown tube in sonar equipment prevents communication with the destroyer. Most annoying to have it take place at precisely this moment. We are however prepared against this eventuality with our homemade method of signaling by light through the periscope. As with the Macon, we have to use two periscopes and three quartermasters, but the thing works as well as before. We shall design a more refined apparatus for use at future times.

0302 There are lights of entirely too many ships around our present position. Signal from the Weeks: “Follow me.” We head out to sea in the direction we’d most like to head, toward the USA.

0554 The Weeks is to deliver a SubLant Medical Officer to us for transportation back to the United States and take Commander Roberts with his exposed film to Rota for further transfer by air back to the US. She also carries instructions for us regarding the end-of-cruise rendezvous near the United States.

I remember thinking, at the time, what a good idea this was. All of us were famished for news of New London, not just for personal family news, though that of course figured prominently too, but for general information as well. Occasional news messages had indeed been received, but what I, for one, wanted to know was how Poole had fared, had any of our hydrographic bottle papers been picked up, had there been any repercussions as a result of our encounter with the young man in the dugout canoe in Magellan Bay? Also, I wanted to know which ships were in port and which at sea, what new ships had been launched, which ones completed and commissioned, who had relieved whom in command of what—and a rather considerable list of strictly parochial submariner to submariner professional queries.

A Medical Officer would not be expected to know the answers to all these questions, but if he were anything like Jim Stark, who always tried to keep up with everything going on around him, it was a safe bet he could make a pretty good stab at many of them.

Sparing an officer from SubLant’s small staff for a purpose of this nature would be a problem; no doubt the Medical Officer was a compromise, probably sent for the added purpose of giving us all some sort of physical examination as part of the information needed for the cruise evaluation report. There would be many pleasant hours spent in pumping him for information during the Atlantic crossing, I thought, and I felt like thanking the man who had thought of this kindness.