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Submarine: Steel Boats and Iron Men


Sedalia Dave

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I made this one hour primetime television special in 1986. At the time, it was a big deal for the American Navy to let me on one of their submarines. I loved the experience and the submariners. This documentary won the Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival. In my opinion what makes this so realistic is the everyday life submariners experienced and how when they trusted me and the crew, they let me record how things were when no one was watching.  I was impressed with how professional they were and how, though underwater for months at a time, they treated each other decently and with respect.  It takes a certain kind of person to be a submariner and I have deep respect for their professionalism and their patriotism.  I know from so many who have commented on this video that to some extent, life on board a submarine has changed.  For example there is no smoking cigarettes for sure.  But in other ways, the life on board a Boomer or and attack sub isn't all that different from what is shown here. 

 

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My dad was on the Skate when it surfaced at the North Pole.  He was on a Trident submarine when he retired in 1967.

 

220px-USS_Skate_(SSN-578)_surfaced_in_Arctic_-_1959.jpg.bd1a21462482caa2057225f82e02a9a6.jpg

 

I still have one of these envelopes.

 

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My grandfather was a sub commander in WW1.  He told the secretary of the navy he couldn’t build a decent latrine let alone a sub, and got away with it.  He wound up at the South Pole with Adm.  Bird.  Wish I knew him as a grown man… and hear the things he did and places he went.  One of those was riding horses in Haiti with the American consulate into the hills to watch the voodoo rights.

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One of my senior partners in the practice of law founded the firm in Tacoma in 1949. He and his two partners had grown up as friends in North Dakota, and enlisted in the Navy after Pearl Harbor. They weren't going back to No Dak no way after the War and so ended up on the West Coast.

 

He was in submarines in WWII, and was on four war patrols on the USS Pogy as a torpedo control officer. On their third or fourth patrol, they were in a minefield in the Sea of Japan, and he described the twelve or so hours of crawling submerged through the field, hearing mine cables touching the hull, as the most frightening experience of his life; he said was never really afraid of anything else thereafter.

 

He lived to 94 and I practiced law with him for over 20 years. RIP Captain Claude M. Pearson, USNR.

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Not too bad.  I was on the USS Phoenix (SSN 702). The one in the video was SSN 709.  I was one of the guys that worked in the secret space known as the engine room.  Just a nuclear reactor and its steam turbines for electricity and propulsion. The video was nostalgic to see the old views again.  Thanks for the video. 

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In this day and age of environmental idiocy, one way to improve the source of electricity is to build more nuclear powerplants.  But, so many people are afraid of more Chernobles and Three Mile Islands, that they don't realize that the Navy has run nuclear power plants aboard subs and surface ships, and, to my knowledge at least, has never had a problem with their reactors.  

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On another forum I ran across a thread which someone posted a patch for the USS Enterprise CVN65 having the nickname "Mobile Chernobyl."

I'm sure there is a story behind that which unless you have a proper clearance, they can't tell it to you LOL. But. The Navy has an exemplary nuclear program and every systems operator I ever ran into was trained by them seems like. 

 

On the other hand, Both of those mentioned accidents were due to operator error. Granted, Chernobyl was running a test of safety systems and ran into some one percent type problems. One in a million shot according to the detailed information I've seen over the years. TMI...well, running the core out of water because of a stuck/forgot and left it open/no indicator valve indicator while dealing with other problems that (if I remember correctly) weren't exactly in the book. Double/triple that with a bunch of idjit politicians who, not wanting to panic people, lied to them instead. And they still panic'd LOL.

 

So yeah. Nuclear got a bad rap from TMI and Chernobyl didn't help. At all. Neither did Fukishima but that's a bird of a different color. The good thing is they actually certified a new reactor in Georgia this year.

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Von Trapp's autobiography of submersible service in WWI Med Sea is a must read for anyone wanting to hear what subs were like when subs were not fully submarines.

Tough guy that certainly explains why the Nazi navy wanted him.

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From what I understand the fact that Admiral Rickover refusal to compromise on the design of the US Navy's reactors is directly responsible for the Navy's safety record. 

 

He was definitely cut from a different bolt of cloth.

 

 

One has to wonder how he ever advanced in the US Navy much less made Admiral.

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I took a tour of the USS Requin WWII submarine in St. Pete, Fl. when I was about 9 or 10 years old. If I remember right, it was a "Trench" class sub. I'm not a claustrophobic type person but I was inside that boat. No way would I want to serve on that boat or any like her. Took a bunch of guts to serve on a sub I'll bet.

 

Don't know what happened to the Requin but hasn't been in St. Pete in many years. Probably sitting at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef, if I had to guess.

 

Edit: Surprise! She has been restored and now resides in Pittsburgh.

USS Requin (SS-481) - Wikipedia

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my father in law was an original nautilus crew member , i recently inherited a plethora of info on his career , two trips "round the world" im aware of as well as served three tours in VN , im just beginning to research and understand his life better , i knew he was on the nautilus and i knew he was on the swordfish as well as the corral sea in VN [not where youd expect a submariner] but that tour was river boats and confirmed with two separate sources even tho he seldom spoke of it , he was also a geography nut , 

 

a lot of this memorabilia is left to be gone thru , hoping to get to that this winter , i did a lot of research on my fathers army air force service in WWII but this all takes place from korea through the cold war , my wife is ten years younger , her father was about that younger than my father , its interesting to me but more so because i knew the man so well ....yet didnt know him all that well , my dad did the 3 year WWII experience from 42 to 45 , my FIL did the whole 20 year stint in the navy from an enlistment to a mustang officer - departing as a commander , there is so much he never shared in our frequent talks ...so much i never knew to ask , 

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On 11/27/2022 at 12:19 PM, Trailrider #896 said:

In this day and age of environmental idiocy, one way to improve the source of electricity is to build more nuclear powerplants.  But, so many people are afraid of more Chernobles and Three Mile Islands, that they don't realize that the Navy has run nuclear power plants aboard subs and surface ships, and, to my knowledge at least, has never had a problem with their reactors.  

Look up SL-1 Reactor. It was a joint Army-Navy reactor that went prompt critical during maintenance. There was a steam explosion and a couple of guys died, and yes there was radiation leakage. When I went through the Navy's nuclear power school, we saw a movie about the reactor. At the time it was classified. I later (a few years ago) saw the same movie on some history type programing. They must have declassified the movie.

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7 hours ago, Dustin Checotah said:

Look up SL-1 Reactor. It was a joint Army-Navy reactor that went prompt critical during maintenance. There was a steam explosion and a couple of guys died, and yes there was radiation leakage. When I went through the Navy's nuclear power school, we saw a movie about the reactor. At the time it was classified. I later (a few years ago) saw the same movie on some history type programing. They must have declassified the movie.

Yes, that happened.  But that was up at Nukepoo, not on board a ship. And there were several mistakes made by the personnel in the early days of reactor development.  The results of that event were, IIRC, pretty grusome. :o

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10 hours ago, Dustin Checotah said:

Look up SL-1 Reactor. It was a joint Army-Navy reactor that went prompt critical during maintenance. There was a steam explosion and a couple of guys died, and yes there was radiation leakage. When I went through the Navy's nuclear power school, we saw a movie about the reactor. At the time it was classified. I later (a few years ago) saw the same movie on some history type programing. They must have declassified the movie.

Yes. The declass on the SL-1 is interesting. There's a couple YT videos on it, the last one I just watched went into detail about how bad the contamination was for the three that died and how the remains were transported/interred. It also went into detail about specifics in the design of the reactor and the control rod design which was unusual. Also appears that there was some personal issues between two of the team members about one's wife. If you know what I mean. 

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On 11/28/2022 at 12:57 AM, Sedalia Dave said:

One has to wonder how he ever advanced in the US Navy much less made Admiral.

Edited November 28 by Sedalia Dave

In point of fact, Rickover didn't get promoted by the Navy above maybe captain or Rear Admiral (Lower Half).  He was recognized by Congress as vital to the nuclear navy, and the Senate promoted him every time the Navy tried to pass over him twice (mandatory retirement)!  

 

Another interesting situation occurred during the early days of the Polaris missile program. The program head was RAdm William F. Rayborn, Jr. (SP on the organizational chart).  His engineering deputy was Capt. Levering Smith.  Smith had been passed over for promotion and in the summer of '61, the AllNav (promotion list) was published on Friday and Smith's name wasn't on it! That meant mandatory retirement.  I was a summer hire on the Polaris (missile checkout engineer trainee) at the Cape.  The story we heard was that "Red" Rayborn picked up the phone (he had a direct line) to President Kennedy and said, "Mr. President, if you want Polaris, I need Levering Smith."  On Monday morning an amended AllNav came out, and Admiral Smith's name was on it!  By 1971, Admiral Smith was head of the Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Program (SP).  Never met either gentlemen, but by '71, I was working for the prime contractor, so, technically, Smith was our boss.

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