Submerging for the first time
These were both early days for the USS Daniel Boone and for me. The Boone had just become seaworthy again after its refit and collision at sea. It was now busy heading out on brief excursions to certify that the newly installed, newly modified and updated submarine systems were operating as specified. Often, these trials were scheduled over weekends, to meet the needs of all the extra civilian employees (many ex-Navy) that we carried. Meanwhile, I was newly aboard and was occupied with trying to learn enough engineering to understand what I needed to know to qualify as a diving officer. On these brief trips, I was scrounging about the boat, hunting a place to sleep and generally trying to stay out of the way.
On our first trip out to sea, as soon as we reached deep water, the word was passed to “rig for dive”. Throughout the entire boat, from top to bottom, from fore to aft, the crew went about checking and re-checking that all switches, valves, and ducts were set to their underwater or ‘dive’ configuration. I would usually hang about the control room during this entire process. Meanwhile we would be proceeding along on the surface. Our submarine, lacking a keel, was the sport of every wave and swell, and it could be a rough ride. The captain (the CO) was usually up on the bridge at this time, giving orders from a high point on the submarine’s ‘sail’. After every compartment had reported back and all the lights on the board were green, the captain would order the lookouts below. The call to “clear the bridge” would go out, the order “Dive, dive, dive” would come over the intercom and the diving alarm would sound, “Ah-oo-gah, Ah-oo-gah”. The CO would come down the ladder to the control room, mount the conning platform, grasp the periscope and start swinging it around. I don’t know if I remember or simply imagine him grabbing his hat brim and pulling it around to the back of his head. It was just like the movies.
Most of the time I was simply a dumb witness standing by, observing. Occasionally the CO would offer an invitation, “Doctor, do you want to come up and have a quick look?” Naturally, I did. There wasn’t a whole lot to see. The bow would dip down, the ocean would wash over the forward part of the boat, and the periscope lens would be splashed with spray, as the boat gently slid beneath the waves. The control room was very active during this time. The Diving Officer would be given the order to “make your depth 60 feet” and he might instruct the helmsmen to move the planes, “down bubble 5 degrees“. Likewise, the Diving Officer would be giving instructions to the chief petty officer (CPO) manning the “Depth Control Board” to pump so much water from this to that buoyancy control tank, thereby keeping the boat level or ‘trim’ and compensating for any changes in buoyancy caused by the dive. After passing a depth of only 10 or 20 feet, any roll or pitch from surface swells would cease and the boat became, in your perception, steady and motionless. The only way of really determining where you were in relation to the surface was by watching the depth gauge as the numbers slowly rolled by.
Rigging the torpedo room for dive
I read recently in a magazine article that memory is not some static representation of the past that we carry in our brain, like images carved in stone. Rather 30 years of study, research and experimentation had proven it to be malleable and alive, more like an amoeba than an obelisk in a museum. I found this to also be true as I sat down to write my memoir, my account. My Navy past was like the map of a river’s watershed in my mind. There was a pattern and direction that I could discern, sometimes only dimly. I found it so surprising that writing and thinking about events would open up adjacent channels, which I had forgotten entirely. Things would spring up, dry river beds would fill up, but more than that, the entire network of rivers and canals would reorganize and a different pattern would emerge. This happened when I thought about my attempts to rig the torpedo room for dive.
You probably didn’t notice, but I had not spoken much about the torpedo room on the submarine. Naturally it was located behind water tight doors and was the submarine’s first forward compartment. The compartment was only a single level and it ended at the bow with 4 torpedo tubes. Beyond that, there was nothing about the torpedo room that said ‘nuclear navy’. It was ‘old navy’ and looked the same as any torpedo room from any World War II movie.
Long green-painted ponderous torpedos lay in shiny metal scoops, like fat children stuck on playground slides. Numerous block and tackles with heavy chains and metal hooks were suspended all about. Moreover, in contrast to the engineering types sporting trim mustaches along with their pocket dosimeters, the torpedo men in the forward compartment looked the role of sailors. They wore tight shirts with sleeves rolled up around bulging biceps with maybe room for a pack of cigarettes wedged in. They were usually tattooed, cocky, and gave off the aura of a grease-monkey.
Remember, we are now talking about 1 month into my entry onto the Boone. I had been busy trying to learn how the boat was constructed, how all these manifold systems that came together in my Daniel Boone User Manual actually functioned in the flesh. I was making some progress. Things were starting to make a little sense, at least I was beginning to grasp the big picture, the overall design.
The Boone meanwhile was just beginning these regular short trips out into the Atlantic beyond the harbor of Newport News or Charleston. One day, 3 or 4 hours before a scheduled dive, one of the officers casually suggested that I go forward and “learn how to rig the torpedo room for dive. It will be a good learning tool and we will put you in charge. Rigging the torpedo room; that will be your job.”
I was handed a clipboard with what seemed like a dozen pages, each page listing about 20 or 30 items that had to be checked off before a dive. I was sent off to the torpedo room and was taken under the wing of a torpedo petty officer. He was there to assist me.
The first few items indicated that they were located in the overhead above. I was given a ladder and pointed towards a valve wheel the size of my palm, like you might find on an outdoor faucet, painted orange. That valve would have to be shut off. You would know it was shut off when the wheel could no longer be turned clockwise. Only when you reached that point would you know that the valve had been properly rigged for dive. I looked up into the overhead and for the first time took in the view, critically. It was a forest, a veritable jungle of pipes and tubes and valves snaking around each other as far up as I could see, extending in shadow to the inner wall of the hull above.
I mounted the ladder and straining, was able to turn the valve wheel for a revolution or two until it firmly reached resistance and would turn no more. I told my petty officer trainer and he came up to check my work, proceeding to demonstrate that the valve still had 4 or 5 more complete turns before it reached its closed off state. For the next few hours, somehow, with his assistance we got through the task of rigging the torpedo room for dive. Sometimes I could barely find, forget reach, the necessary valve. Sometimes I could find and reach the valve, but I could barely turn it. And there were times when he would already be high up in some corner, and giving me a break and speeding things up, would reach around here and there and shut off a dozen or so valves, one after another, without referring to the clipboard.
Following this, I went back into my stateroom profoundly demoralized. How was I ever going to learn how to do this. Beyond that, I was really worried. This was a huge responsibility they were dumping on me. If I failed to do this job correctly, if I made a mistake, perhaps there could be a leak that might endanger the entire submarine!
On the next trip out to sea, again I went in to practice rigging the torpedo room. I think my state of demoralization was so apparent, that the petty officer simply let me watch while he set about to rig it himself. After that, I never asked about rigging the torpedo room and nobody brought it up. I thought I had somehow passive-aggressively evaded this task. I was relieved I never had to do it again but always uneasy that I might again be asked to do it.
Looking back on the entire experience, from a distance of 50 years, I now think this entire episode was simply part of my initiation. Someone must have said, “Hey let’s give the quack the job of rigging the torpedo room. (Chuckle.)” No one really expected me to learn how to do it. It would keep me busy and out of the way, and add just the right amount of gentle torture and sadism.
Nah, you’ve got it wrong. I watched Mr. Roberts recently on TCM. Henry Fonda played Mr. Roberts, who was the Captain’s (Jimmy Cagney) executive officer. Jack Lemmon played ensign Pulver. I had to look up the doctor. (I just remember the creation of the bottle of scotch! Otherwise he was pretty forgettable. Looking him up, I was surprised to find he was played by a well-known bygone star, William Powell, of ‘The Thin Man’ fame.)
Arnie, even if I were not family I would be waiting for the next chapter. It is "Mr. Roberts, the Early Years." but from the Dr.'s viewpoint. I don't remember the Dr.'s name. Only that Henry Fonda played him in the movie.