Читать книгу Spy Sub - Roger C. Dunham - Страница 12
ОглавлениеSINCE THE EARLY 1960S, the waters off the eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula have been closely monitored by United States surveillance systems that acoustically track submarines as they approach and depart the naval bases at Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk. One of the most comprehensive of these systems is the passive hydrophone array, known by the Department of Defense as the sound surveillance system (code-named SOSUS), capable of accurately identifying the positions of ships at sea. Installed at a cost of $16 billion and stretching for thirty thousand miles, the SOSUS microphones were arranged in a highly classified manner throughout the Atlantic and Pacific oceans for the primary purpose of detecting Soviet missile-carrying submarines. By 1966, this system was already in operation and quietly analyzing the acoustic signatures of Soviet submarines sailing from their home ports into the Pacific Ocean from the Sea of Okhotsk and the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The ocean is filled with noise spanning a wide range of frequencies emitted by abundant biological life-forms. From the train of sharp clicks generated by the sperm whales (often rattling thirty to forty clicks per second, they sound like a cadre of carpenters hammering simultaneously) to the growling of the fin whales, the rasping and drumming of the triggerfish, and the whistles of the killer whales, SOSUS heard them all. With regularity, the sensitive microphones of SOSUS detected the deep-throated rumbles from the screws of passing freighters mixing with the clatter of Soviet diesel submarines as they ran their engines to charge their batteries. Less commonly, SOSUS picked up the sounds of explosive charges detonated by antisubmarine aircraft and ships, along with a profusion of underwater communications, during war game activities.
Every ten or twenty years, maybe once or rarely twice in the career of a SOSUS specialist, there were the loud noises of collapsing steel and rupturing compartments as a vessel on the high seas lost her integrity and began to break apart. On these infrequent occasions, the noise continued for a minute, sometimes longer, as the ship dropped below the surface and, falling thousands of feet, broadcast her trail of progressive destruction into the sensitive microphones on the bottom of the sea. When the reverberations finally ceased and the ocean was returned to the sounds of the whales and the fish, the SOSUS analysts were left with a final epitaph to the men and the vessel that no longer existed.
THE VIPERFISH WAS A monster of a submarine.
Stretching 350 feet from bow to stern, she was bigger than any vessel I had seen at New London. Sitting high on blocks arranged across the sunken floor of the dry dock, she looked like an ominous black trophy on display. Any sleek lines envisioned by her designers never made it to the final product. Flapperlike bow planes sticking out near her nose gave her the appearance of a 1930s submarine, the huge tumorous hump bulging out of her skin disrupted her shape, and the square limber holes along her sides looked like a colossal engineering mistake.
Torrents of water shot straight out from holes in her flanks and, arcing far into the air, fell to the concrete floor below. Workmen scurried over the various steel protrusions and sent streams of sparks across the hull as their grinders and air hammers clattered a dissonant cacophony. In the background, barely audible through the bedlam from the dry dock, curious clanging sounds announced the movements of the enormous cranes rolling across railroad tracks around the perimeter of the dry dock as their cables lowered open crates filled with men to the deck of the submarine.
“Ugly bastard, ain’t she?” Mathews hollered over the noise of the chaos in front of us.
“Never seen anything like it,” I called back.
“There is nothing like the Viperfish anywhere in the world.”
The chief and I each donned a blue plastic hard hat from the stack near one of the cranes and climbed into an open wooden box at the side of the dry dock. After a shipyard worker signaled the crane operator, the cable over our heads snapped tight. The crane abruptly lifted us high into the air over the cavernous dry dock and then propelled us in the general direction of the Viperfish.
I looked down at the dark concrete far below. At the same instant, the chief yelled, “Don’t look down, it’s a long drop!”
We landed on the Viperfish deck with a jarring thud. Mathews led the way to the forward hatch-a circular hole on the surface of the deck-and down a long vertical steel ladder to the central control station.
The inside of the Viperfish appeared to be in a state of total disorder. As military and civilian personnel worked side by side on numerous pieces of electronic equipment, the tight compartment was buzzing with the electricity of energized circuits. I sniffed the pungent odor of diesel oil mixed with the smells of new linoleum, fresh paint, and sweat and wondered about the oxygen levels inside this tight enclosure of human activity.
The bulkheads (walls) of the compartment were covered with hundreds of red, yellow, and green lights blinking on and off like a Christmas tree. Several drawers, filled with electronic equipment, had been pulled out from the bulkhead. Wires were hanging out of them-some connected to other wires from other drawers, others poking freely into the air. Men in blue dungaree uniforms were busy working on the periscope lens assemblies at the ends of long shafts extending down from the overhead spaces. Others were cursing and struggling with the steering wheels at the diving station, where a pair of cushioned chairs had been bolted. Later, I learned that the chairs were for the planesman and helmsman as they controlled the depth, course, and trim angle of the submarine.
The men in front of us occasionally glanced in my direction. I felt awkward in my clean white uniform. Standing next to Chief Mathews at the bottom of the ladder, I was moving my head back and forth, with my eyes wide open in wonder. I knew that I presented the unmistakable appearance of a rookie.
A couple of the men nodded a greeting to us as the chief guided me out of the control center and up a passageway to the yeoman’s office. I signed a stack of papers filled with legal jargon; the yeoman mumbled something about gamma rays and handed me a clip-on radiation film badge. We moved forward again to the captain’s stateroom. Mathews rapped on the door, and the commanding officer of the Viperfish promptly invited us into his cramped quarters.
Capt. Stuart Gillon was a short man with a worried expression on his face. He looked like the burdens of the world were weighing heavily on him. He was of small frame and spoke with a soft voice that was hard to hear. My first thought was that this could not possibly be the captain of a nuclear warship. The captain should look more like a skipper, I thought-tall, strong voice, square jaw, and the other features that I considered to be requisites for such an important position.
And then I noticed the intensity of the man’s eyes. They reflected a perceptive intelligence as he studied me closely, sizing me up, listening to what I said, and taking measure of the newest enlisted man who would, someday, run his boat’s nuclear reactor. Although his voice was kindly, his words were concise and his thinking tightly organized. He displayed intense concentration and focus of thoughts. Quietly, he began to tell me about future activities on the Viperfish and encouraged me to begin qualifications promptly because the mission mandated a fully qualified crew.
“We’re coming out of dry dock in a couple of months,” he said, “and we’ll be conducting sea trials, followed by a shakedown cruise to Seattle and San Francisco. We’ll be testing the Fish soon thereafter, and, by that time, you should be standing watches at the reactor control panel. Do you think you can handle all that?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered briskly, wondering what fish he was referring to. Jane’s Fighting Ships didn’t mention anything about a fish, and submarine school hadn’t described fish equipment on any submarines in the fleet. Before I had the chance to ask questions, he told me how pleased he was to have me on board and dismissed me with a quick nod to Chief Mathews.
“You’ll find out about the Fish when you start qualifications,” Mathews said after we left the captain’s stateroom and headed aft. “The next stop is the engine room, where you’ll have the pleasure of meeting Bruce.”
We climbed through the thick oval doors into a confining corridor leading to the engine room. Mathews paused and called back to me, “This is the reactor tunnel and the nuclear reactor is directly below you. When we’re at sea and the reactor is running, you’ll want to move through this area pretty fast.” I looked down at my feet and discovered a large circular ring carved in the floor, presumably “ground zero.” The constricted area around me was jammed with valves and pipes, and several signs displayed the nuclear symbol that warned of radiation. As I ducked my 6’2” frame around various steel obstructions protruding from the tunnel’s overhead, we continued to move aft until we reached the last watertight door and the engine room. The room was hot and filled with the suffocating odor of burning diesel fuel. Surrounded by insulated pipes, gauges, valves, and circuit breakers, I came face to face with the man who was in charge of the Viperfish’s nuclear reactor operators.
“Bruce, this is Dunham, fresh from New London, your new reactor operator,” Mathews said. Bruce Rossi was a tough, powerful man with a burr haircut and coal-black eyes that scrutinized me closely. He barked a loud greeting and gave me a tight smile. With his heavily muscled right hand, he reached out and crushed my hand.
“Reactor operator trainee, Paul. Glad you’re here, Dunham,” he growled.
“Happy to be on board, Bruce,” I replied. His pulsating jaw muscles suggested a significant measure of controlled anger.
He stared at me. “Let me get right to the issue at hand because there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said. “The Viperfish is powered by a complex water-cooled S3W nuclear reactor, and our division requires three ROs [reactor operators] qualified to control the system. Two of the ROs will be finishing their tour of duty and will be leaving the boat after the sea trials and our shakedown run. The Viperfish will, therefore, need replacement reactor operators. You are one of the replacements, and Petty Officer Richard Daniels will be the second replacement when he arrives in the next few days. Both of you are going to work your tails off to learn every system in the engine room and on the Viperfish. You need to become qualified on this boat. Fall behind on the qualifications schedule, and you will find yourself on the dink list.”
Mathews smiled and turned to leave. “Don’t be too hard on the guy, Bruce,” he said over his shoulder. “This is his first boat.”
“The dink list?” I asked Bruce.
Rossi’s face looked tougher. “The delinquent list,” he said. “It’s updated every day, posted in the control center near the periscope station, and in plain sight for everyone to see. If you fall behind on qualifications, you will land on the dink list, you will remain on board the Viperfish, and your liberty will be curtailed. That means you can’t leave the boat and you don’t visit Waikiki. You will eat here and sleep here until you get caught up. I don’t want any of my trainees on the goddamn dink list, and I don’t want any of my qualified ROs standing goddamn port and starboard watches.”
An old chief told me, a long time ago, that the Submarine Service is unique because the men are pleasant and they get along so well together-I decided that chief had never met Bruce Rossi. Although the dink list program sounded almost like a prison system, I figured it would never become a threat to me; Rossi looked like he would kill, with his own bare hands, anybody who dared to come close to getting on the dink list.
I nodded to Bruce that I understood and then glanced at the engine-room equipment around us. There were thousands of pipes, valves, and large pieces of powerful-looking steel machinery jammed into every available space. To become qualified, I knew I would have to know where each pipe went, what each valve controlled, and how every piece of machinery worked.
I turned back to Bruce. “Port and starboard watches refers to-?” I asked, trying to remain polite.
His faded blue dungaree shirt tightened across his chest as his muscles tensed with annoyance.
“Six hours on watch, six hours off, six on, six off, over and over again, week after week, month after month” he growled. “Somebody has to control the nuclear reactor, Dunham, and it can’t be a man who isn’t qualified. Furthermore, when we leave on our mission, the captain doesn’t want his boat filled with non-qual pukes. If you and Daniels are too slow to get there and we end up with only two qualified reactor operators, they are going to be standing port and starboard watches and I am going to be pissed. Get yourself checked into the submarine barracks, pick up your qualification card from the chief of the boat, and start your quals-today. I want those systems signed off; I want you to be well on your way to becoming an RO before the Viperfish leaves the dry dock.”
For the next several weeks, I chased back and forth throughout the boat and learned system after system as if my life depended on it. I quickly discovered that trying to learn about the complex equipment in the engineering spaces of a submarine in dry dock was nearly impossible. Because of the disassembled state of the engine room, I found it difficult just to walk around the passageways, much less to learn anything about the equipment. Parts of motors, pumps, and circuits were strewn everywhere. Just moving across the decking area required great care to avoid stepping on some vital component.
Although I had just completed several years of rigorous nuclear training, I found it even more difficult to figure out the operation of a submarine system that was partially in pieces. Also, the most critical parts always seemed to be missing. I searched through the thick Reactor Plant Manual for pictures of each system that I needed to learn, but finding the essential components in the maze of pipes and meters was a daunting challenge. Often, I had to locate a qualified crew member to tell me what I had missed.
When the qualified man was finished with his instructions, it was quiz time: Did I know everything there was to know about the system? If not, “Start over again, you non-qual puke, and pay attention this time.” If the quiz went well, the system was signed off, there was one less thing to learn, and I was one tiny notch farther along the tortuous pathway toward submarine qualifications.
The electricity was always turned off when equipment was disassembled. To lessen the risk of accidentally energizing a circuit during repair work, red tags were placed all over the circuit breaker and not removed until it was demonstrated that no danger of electric shock or other problems existed. When it was time to turn on the electricity, however, I discovered that things often went very wrong.
“Okay, remove the red tags and turn it on!” the electrician hollered down the passageway to the man standing next to the tagged circuit breaker when a repair was completed.
“Okay, here it goes!” the man hollered back as he removed the red tags and placed his hand on the breaker.
The electrician threw the switch, and there was a brilliant electrical flash with the “clap” noise of current flowing through the circuit breaker. The men standing around the equipment watched closely as the current raced through repaired circuits and brought the device to life. When equipment did not function properly, which seemed to happen with amazing regularity, a moment of silence was followed by furious arm waving and screaming: “Turn if off! Turn it off! Turn it off!”
That scenario was followed by a torrent of cursing, which often included phrases unique to the submarine service and words that I had never heard before. When the cursing was over, the circuit breaker was locked open again and the painful process of repairing equipment started again.
Although the crew of the Viperfish appeared to be a single unified group of men, I soon discovered that it was actually an accumulation of 120 volunteers for submarine duty who were in a state of flux. Someone was always coming in or going out. The men on board the boat at any time were significantly different from those who had been there one year before and those who would be there a couple of years later. Members of the crew reported on board or left for reasons of seniority, completion of defined tours of duty, and many other factors. I did not know it at the time, but the personnel turnover was less than was usual in the Navy. Washington’s BuPers (Bureau of Personnel) had worked to stabilize the crew of the Viperfish to a relatively fixed complement of men for this mission.
The veteran group was the core of the crew when I reported on board. These men had been qualified on all of the systems for several months or years, and several had been previously qualified on one or more other submarines before reporting to the Viperfish. They were the recognized pros, the men who had their dolphins.
The “dolphins,” an internationally recognized pin, is worn above the breast pocket of dress uniforms. The pin depicts a pair of dolphins, on either side of a World War II submarine, guiding it to safety. The dolphins represent “qualified in submarines,” a symbol that is the coveted treasure awaiting non-qual pukes struggling to learn about their submarines. Wearing the dolphins means that the individual has been granted membership in one of the most exclusive clubs in the world.
To me, the qualifications process was almost like a mandate from God: until I earned my dolphins and until the captain certified me to be qualified on all of the Viperfish systems, I could not belong to the club.
The men of the qualified crew on the Viperfish knew exactly what they were doing. They knew which valves should be shut and which should be open; they knew which electrical and mechanical systems should be on and operating and which should be in standby. The man sitting in front of the ballast control panel knew how to maintain neutral buoyancy, important for proper depth control. The men controlling the reactor systems, those high above us in the cramped cockpit of the sail, and those who would later prepare our food and tend to our medical needs were all skilled in their areas of expertise, thus allowing the crew of the Viperfish to function as one cohesive unit of qualified men. The confidence that the qualified men had in each other was the force behind the enduring shipmate camaraderie, the essence of life for the men serving on board the Viperfish.
Those who were not yet qualified in submarines were treated as if they knew nothing, regardless of their rank or intelligence. Officers often needed instruction and signatures from enlisted men, while enlisted men frequently turned to officers for information. If a man was not qualified and was on the dink list, he was at the absolute bottom of the pecking order.
The civilian scientists in the bow compartment (also called the hangar compartment) where the mysterious Fish was supposed to be, were not involved in the qualifications process, and their interaction with the crew was minimal. They were on the Viperfish to accomplish a mission. Clearly, they did not want to talk about their work to any of us, so we simply treated them, in a polite manner, as civilian outsiders and left them to their own work on the Special Project.
The heart of the Special Project operation was in the forward third of the submarine, in the cavernous hangar compartment that formerly contained the Regulus missiles. With no understanding of what the project was about and with nobody inclined to say anything specific about it, I simply added Special Project to the vast number of mysteries on board the Viperfish.
Whenever I went through the bow compartment as I studied the location of various cables and valves, I moved past the cluster of civilians looking down into a huge hole that penetrated the decking of the compartment. Walking around the men gathered above the hole and ignoring their hushed conversations, I continued forward until I either bumped into the torpedo tubes or identified the location of the equipment I was studying. With the wrath of Bruce hanging over my head if I didn’t move ahead with qualifications at full speed, I felt that civilian scientists looking down big holes were of little importance.
Richard Daniels reported on board within a week of my arrival, and now two potential reactor operators studied Viperfish tech manuals, searched for crewmen who knew the systems, and struggled to show progress with qualifications. In his early twenties, Richard was a tall, intelligent man with a Georgia accent. He immediately developed a respect for Bruce Rossi’s grinding jaw muscles and scowling looks. Early in the qualifications process, he informed me that he had little inclination to die at the hands of Rossi, especially before getting qualified. Richard also had never been on a submarine before. Inside this gigantic steel vessel, we both felt an equal sense of anticipation as we prepared for our secret mission below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
After a couple of weeks, Chief Mathews handed out the rack assignments to the berthing area. Located in the center of the ship, the racks (bunks) were stacked in columns of three. Each rack included a pillow, a thin mattress, a blanket stretched over cotton sheets, an air conditioning vent, a tiny neon light, and a locker under the mattress for personal belongings. Opened by pulling up on the hinged mattress support, the locker was about six inches high and spanned the length of the bunk. Most important, there was actually a curtain that could be pulled across the rack’s opening-privacy on a submarine, a luxury previously unheard of.
My rack was far more than just a place to sleep. When we left dry dock, it would become my sanctuary from the rest of the submarine world. I was assigned the middle rack; by lifting myself up and squeezing sideways into the coffinlike opening and then reaching out and pulling my curtain shut, I was suddenly enclosed in a world of privacy that was unavailable anywhere else on the boat. The mattress, although comfortable, was very narrow and barely six feet long (requiring a slight bending of my knees if I kept my neck straight). In the event of a sneeze, I had to quickly turn my head to keep from crashing into the steel underside of the rack above me. Otherwise, the enclosure offered most of the comforts of a good bed at home.
The months in the shipyard passed, the qualifications continued, and the big day finally arrived when the Viperfish could leave the dry dock and float to the pier at the submarine base. Floating the submarine off the blocks in dry dock and moving her a mere half mile across the Southeast Loch to her new berthing spot was a remarkably complicated operation. As one of the newest men on board, I was assigned a trainee position. I sat next to my friend, Jim McGinn, at a watch station controlling the delivery of steam to the turbine systems turning the screws. During the early hours of the morning, I watched the vigorous work of the qualified crewmen bringing the reactor to an operational status, drawing steam into the engine room, and checking all of the seawater valves. Finally, I heard Chief Mathews announce over the Viperfish loudspeaker system: “Now, station the maneuvering watch! All hands, station the maneuvering watch!”
There was a feeling of excitement as we prepared for the transformation from a stationary mass of steel resting on blocks in the center of the dry dock to a functioning submarine that would soon be ready to go to sea. With Bruce Rossi standing nearby and watching over all of the trainees, Jim and I gripped the throttle wheels controlling the flow of steam to the turbines and awaited orders.
In the engine-room spaces around us, machinist mates, electronic technicians, electricians, and engineering officers took their positions in front of the panels that controlled various parts of the nuclear propulsion and turbogenerator systems. The sound of steam hissing through insulated piping added to the excitement as we waited for orders from the officer of the deck (OOD) in the control center to rotate the steam wheels and open our throttles.
The seawater of Pearl Harbor swirled into the dry dock, covered the blocks under the hull of the Viperfish, and rose around her superstructure. The boat finally floated as the dock filled to sea level. Squeezed into the tiny cockpit at the top of the sail (formerly called the conning tower in the older diesel boats), the captain, a junior officer, and two lookouts took their positions and prepared to call orders to the engine room over the loudspeaker communication system.
Jim turned to me at the instant that we first felt the slight movement of the submarine’s hull.
“We’re off the blocks,” he said, excitedly. “Cheers to the forward pukes-they’re doing something right.”
“All ahead one third!” blared from the loudspeaker over my head, and the bell indicator clanged as the needle pointed to the ordered bell. Jim and I grabbed the wheels in front of us. Cranking them to the left, we heard the whining noises of the main propulsion turbines spooling up. We could feel the vibrations of the hull caused by the screws rotating in the water behind us. I felt a surge of excitement at being a crewman actually controlling the movements of a fleet submarine moving across Pearl Harbor.
In a nearby area called the maneuvering room, the reactor operator and electric plant operator sat rigidly upright in front of the lights and meters of their complex panels to observe any abnormalities that could shut down the reactor or trip a turbogenerator off-line. Except for the sensation of floating, there was no way to confirm that we were moving out of the dry dock or to know our direction and speed. The Viperfish had no windows. With the engine-room hatches all closed and clamped shut, we could see nothing as we moved across the bay. After several minutes of speculation, we tried to guess where we were from the movements of the hull, an effort that proved to be a futile waste of time.
Suddenly, the central 1MC loudspeaker system blared, “Attention to port!”
I looked at Jim. “Attention to port?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. From behind us, Bruce Rossi’s growling voice came to life.
“Attention to port is a call of respect,” he said.
Jim and I looked appropriately confused. I glanced back at Bruce and asked, “Respect to whom, Bruce?”
“Respect for the men of the USS Arizona. They are off our port bow, right about now, and the men topside are giving the traditional salute to show respect as we pass by.”
Jim and I felt the impact of his statement as our enthusiasm turned to somber silence. We spent the remainder of the ten-minute trip with some quiet thoughts about the men still trapped within the steel walls of their destroyed battleship, the men who never had a chance of survival during the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.
The sudden and urgent call through the loudspeakers from the officers on the bridge, “Back one third,” gave us a clue that we were approaching our berth at the submarine base. The quick, high-pitched “Back emergency” that came shortly thereafter, immediately followed by the sound of crushing wood, gave us the best indication that we had, in a manner of speaking, arrived at the pier.
“What’s that noise?” I hollered to Jim over the whining sounds of turbines and steam.
“It sounds like we just squashed a wooden rowboat against the pier,” he hollered back.
Rossi gave us the answer. We had just crushed a “camel,” the wooden structure attached near the pilings of the pier. Normally, a submarine gently touches the camel, so that the boat’s superstructure is held away from, and not damaged by, the thick pilings. The floating camel has two functions: to protect the pier from the crushing force of a submarine and to protect the submarine from being crushed against the pier. When the camel is approached too rapidly, as the Viperfish had just done, the device is easily crushed. Inside the boat, the noise of splintering wood is exceedingly loud. I would hear this sound many more times during the months and years ahead when various junior officers, working on their qualifications, tried to maneuver the ungainly hulk of the Viperfish near a pier and took out the camels one by one.
After the reactor was shut down, I climbed up the long ladder that passed through the engine-room hatch to the topside deck. Standing on the black steel hull, I looked at the new world around me. The change of scenery from the shipyard was remarkable. Several black submarines, sitting low in the water and looking extremely sleek in comparison to the Viperfish, stretched out in a long row ahead and astern of us.
I could almost sense the presence of the deep Pacific Ocean, only three miles away, waiting to challenge and test us during our upcoming sea trials. Although the Viperfish had not yet submerged and we had crossed only a small span of calm water, this had been my first real submarine voyage, and I had actually controlled the engine-room steam during the trip. I looked at the western horizon, and I felt an excitement that we now had a functional submarine with an operating nuclear reactor. The Viperfish had floated without flooding, and, deep in our bow compartment, we had a mysterious Fish with miles of cable waiting to fulfill our promise for the future.
