Around the World Submerged Read Free Page B

of us had ever experienced. Before we were finished, we had mapped out the entire power plant of the Nautilus prototype near Arco, Idaho, and had done the same thing for Triton ’s own prototype, more recently completed at West Milton, New York. We spent eight weeks in Idaho, during the hot summer of 1958, studying from sixteen to eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, Sundays and holidays included. At the conclusion of this period Adams and I took a comprehensive written examination which, in my case at least, took fourteen hours to complete (Will, to my dismay, walked out of the examination room two hours before me). At West Milton, our eight weeks of training was split up, partly because the prototype had barely begun to operate; but here, too, we made the same slow careful checkout of all systems.
    By the time we arrived at the Electric Boat Division of the General Dynamics Corporation, in Groton, Connecticut, to participate in the launching of our new ship, which took place on August 19, 1958, we had received the best possible training in the techniques of operating her highly complicated machinery and handling all conceivable functions and malfunctions.
    As time went on, and we came to know them intimately, Adams and I developed a deep admiration for the designers of our fantastic power plant, and it is probably proper at this point to state that Lieutenant Commander David Leighton, USN, stands second only to Admiral Rickover in our appreciation of the job done. We also developed a strong regard for the officers and men of Triton ’s crew, who had already spent so many days learning how to man her.
    Already, she had created difficulties because of her great size. Among the problems faced by the builders was that herhuge bow blocked the space reserved for the railroad which ran just forward of the building ways. This railroad was needed to haul regular loads of ship-building supplies which were needed in the Yard. It had to be kept operating. The problem was solved by cutting away a part of the lower section of Triton ’s bow to clear the trains, and replacing it barely a few days before the launching.
    At the other end of the ship, her stern projected so far out over the Thames River that efficient construction was not possible. Therefore, to the considerable consternation of the people on the New London side of the river, who could see only a great unfinished cavern where Triton ’s stern should have been, her last fifty-foot section was constructed on the adjoining ways. After the stern was built, a pair of tremendous overhead cranes hauled it into its proper place. (Before this was done, Electric Boat was many times playfully reminded of the importance of finishing a ship before launching her.)
    One segment of the ship could not, however, be installed before the launching ceremony. Triton stood on the ways about seven stories above the ground, too high to slide under the giant overhead cranes of the building ways; the top twelve feet of her sail (the great vertical structure carrying her periscopes and retractable masts) had to be cut off and reinstalled after launching.
    The outstanding feature of Triton, responsible for her unprecedented length and displacement, was that for the first time not one but two reactors were included in a nuclear submarine. The forward reactor would supply steam to the forward engine room and drive the starboard propeller; number two reactor would supply steam to the after engine room and drive the port propeller. The two plants, identical in design, were entirely independent and separate, but could, of course, be cross-connected if necessary. Designed for high speed on the surface as well as beneath it, she had a long slender hull in contrast to the short, fat shape best suited tounderwater speed alone. Triton was 447½ feet long, more than a hundred feet longer than any previous US submarine, almost as long as Dad’s lost Memphis of some forty years before. But where the Memphis