Operation Ice Breaker, page 15
Our intent was to head the other way, west toward Point Barrow, the same route that Amundsen took after working his way through the ice in the Dolphin and Union Strait. The big difference, we were beneath the ice. Our only problem was avoiding the Alfa.
We had no way of knowing what the Alfa was doing. The skipper thought, and I agreed with his reasoning, that the Alfa had followed us into Prince of Wales Strait. Unlike us, however, the Alfa skipper had no way of investigating the immediate environment ahead of him. My personal fantasy was that when he reached the Princess Royal Islands, he ran smack into the jumbled ice through which we had picked our way. He simply would have had no way of knowing that the ice extended so far down. Conservatively, he might have been doing between five and ten knots. I believed he hit the ice, did some damage, but not enough to disable him, and that he turned around, headed back out the strait, and headed west around Banks Island.
CHAPTER NINE
Beaufort Sea
USS TEUTHIS—LEAVING AMUNDSEN GULF
It was now over thirty days since we had left Groton, ten days since we began deploying the first SOSUS array, and eight days since we began threading our way across the Canadian Arctic. Once we passed south of Banks Island, the only things north of us were 1,930 nautical miles of ice-covered open ocean stretching between us and the Russian Arctic island of Severny—and probably the Alfa. Ahead of us was Point Barrow, Alaska, 580 nautical miles as the fish swims, but we wanted to blend into the coastal noise. This would add fifty nautical miles or so to our track.
Forty-three nautical miles west of our position and twelve due north of Cape Bathurst is the entrance to a five-mile-wide shipping channel recently defined by Canadian maritime people. It passes south of, for the most part, a spread-out grouping of pingo-like protrusions from the seafloor.
On land north of the permafrost zone, pingos are a type of frost heave where ice forms on top of the permafrost, pushing the ground above it into a mound that can rise as high as 180 feet. The Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, between 90 and 175 nautical miles west, is home to a very large number of these formations.
Just offshore of Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, extending for fifty miles right to the edge of the drop-off into the Beaufort and Arctic basin is a large number of gas-hydrate pingos that bubble methane from the tops of their structures. They are not very well understood but might indicate the presence of oil beneath the seafloor. The Canadian-surveyed shipping channel lies south of most of them, and those in the channel are well charted. The channel runs for 187 nautical miles along the coast to Mackenzie Bay with depth ranging from eighty-five to a hundred feet. The ice surface is mostly smooth and fairly thin—six to eighteen inches for the most part.
We could handle the transit at just below periscope depth at five knots. Because of the precision navigating, we would need to avoid the pingos in the channel; however, the skipper wanted to reset the SINS before commencing the run.
USS TEUTHIS—PINGOS TRANSIT
Barry and Waverly assumed the watch two hours away from the entrance to the shipping channel. They continued the twenty-knot run until the bottom began to shallow up as they approached the entrance. The skipper joined them in Control as they prepared to push through the ice to take a fix.
By this time, pushing through the ice cover, especially a thin cover, was nearly routine. Barry instructed Waverly to handle the process and gave him the Conn. The skipper didn’t interfere, but he remained on the periscope stand in his chair, and when the scopes went up, he took the nav scope as he usually did. Quartermaster 2nd Class Ben Gross had the watch with Barry, and he successfully got a three-satellite fix that nailed our position. He reset the SINS, and Barry laid out a path that followed the deepest part of the channel and avoided the submerged pingos by the widest possible margin.
Creeping along at five knots with the secure bottom-sounder running continuously, we went through a complete watch cycle plus two, so that as Teuthis exited the channel fifteen nautical miles north of Mackenzie Bay, I was coming on watch with Zeb Trainer. Zeb had been carrying most of the load for several watch cycles. Legally, I had to retain the Deck, but he did most of the work.
Barry had laid a course track to a point about twenty nautical miles north of Herschel Island. Zeb was studying the chart.
“What depth do you think?” he asked.
“How deep is the water?”
He traced his finger along the track. “Looks like he keeps us twenty-thirty miles from the coast. Shallowest appears to be about two hundred thirty feet.”
“So, what do the skipper’s standing orders say?”
“No less than a hundred feet beneath the keel. More if possible.”
“So…?”
“One hundred twenty-five feet, I guess.”
“You guess?” I was giving him a bit of a hard time.
“Diving Officer,” Zeb said, “make your depth one-two-five feet.”
USS TEUTHIS—DEMARCATION POINT
King called from Sonar. “Commander McDowell, can you come to Sonar?”
I stepped off the periscope stand and into Sonar. “What’s up, King?”
King handed me a set of headphones. “This is the starboard side,” he said.
I heard sound, lots of it, much more than we heard up in Parry Channel. It formed sort of a background crackling hiss.
“This is the port side,” he said.
The noise was two or three times as loud, subjectively anyway. It was pretty overwhelming. I suspected it would tire out a pair of ears pretty quickly.
“I don’t think anybody can hear us against that noise,” King said. “I’m thinking we tell the captain we’re go for more speed.”
“I get that, but the water isn’t very deep here. I’ll check with the skipper to see if we can move out several miles so the depth will support higher speeds. Then we can see if the background noise still masks us.”
Back in Control, I detailed the suggestion to Zeb. “If we could travel near the fifty-fathom curve while still being masked, that would work. Check the chart, get the details in mind, and then call the captain and explain it to him.”
Zeb was relatively new to the Navy. He had a lot of respect for the skipper, tinged with just a bit of fear. He called the skipper on the dial-up. I could see the concern in his eyes.
“Captain, it’s Zeb Trainer… Yes, Sir, J-O-O-D. I…I have a thought, Sir, that will allow us to make faster time…No, Sir. It’s a bit complicated. Can you come to Control so I can show you?” He replaced the handset on the hook and looked at me with a question in his eyes.
“You did fine, Zeb,” I told him with a warm smile.
The skipper joined us at the chart table. As Zeb started to explain, the skipper got it immediately, but he let Zeb finish his presentation.
“You want to move out to the fifty-fathom curve, let Sonar check out the sound, and then we’ll make a decision? Is that it?”
“Yes, Sir, exactly.”
“Make it so,” the skipper said to Zeb, glanced at me, and returned to his cabin.
Zeb moved us out another eight nautical miles until the secure depth-sounder indicated 175 feet below the keel—fifty fathoms. I stepped into Sonar and told King. He handed me the headset again and reached for his reel-to-reel.
“This is live off the port side,” he said and then switched to the tape deck. “And this is from before.” He switched back and forth several times.
Frankly, I could barely tell the difference. King showed me the actual difference on the decibel meter—a bit less than a DB. That was below the threshold the human ear could hear. I went back to Control and informed Zeb.
With more confidence this time, he called the skipper. “Captain, there is virtually no difference in the noise level. I think we can stay out here and raise speed to twenty knots.”
A moment later, the skipper joined us in Control. “I trust you,” he said to Zeb, “but I want to see for myself.”
He spent a few minutes looking at the chart and then stepped into Sonar. When he returned to Control, he said, “Okay, two hundred feet, twenty knots.”
About two and a quarter hours later, we passed Demarcation Point that defined the bay of the same name, the first identified harbor on the American side of the border—that is, if anything could be called a harbor on this ice-choked shoreline. Despite the ambient noise, the skipper wanted to clear the baffles every hour, if for no other reason to listen carefully outward for any signs of the Alfa.
By the end of our watch, we had passed Barter Island and had our sights set on Point Barrow, 200 nautical miles ahead.
Doug Watson and Franklin James assumed the watch shortly before we arrived in the waters north of Point Barrow, the northernmost point of the United States. Their first task was to reset the SINS to enable Teuthis to move safely through the shallow waters around Point Hope to lay the second SOSUS array.
In addition to a satellite fix, Point Barrow had several rotating beacons on towers that would give the quartermasters a backup to their satellite fix.
Twenty nautical miles north of Point Barrow, the ice was a foot thick, mostly solid, and without ridges. When Doug broke through the ice, he raised the attack scope.
“Bearing…Mark! White and green. Bearing…Mark! Red-red.”
Juby laid out the lines on his chart and awaited the satnav results. “Got it! Pinpoint!”
The skipper had joined Doug and Frank and was draped over the nav scope when Sonar called.
“Conn, Sonar, I have a faint, intermittent contact at three-three-zero. I think it’s the Alfa.”
CHAPTER TEN
Point Hope
USS TEUTHIS—CHUKCHI SEA
Sonar had intermittent contact with what might be the Alfa, but it was too flaky to get a range. As I had done earlier, Doug turned over most of the watch responsibilities to Frank, who was well qualified in principle, but still needed some knowledge of fine points on Teuthis.
Frank reported the Alfa detection to the skipper, paused to listen, and then responded, “Aye, Captain. I’ll pass it along to Doug.” He turned to his Diving Officer, Chief Electronics Technician Rusty Jackson. “Diving Officer, make your depth two-zero-zero feet quietly. Helmsman, ahead standard gently, make turns for eight knots, come left to new course two-four-six.”
The 1MC came alive. “This is the captain. We have picked up our Russian friend again. We will not go to ultra-quiet right now, but I want you to be as quiet as possible while carrying on with your normal tasks. Be ready to go to ultra-quiet instantly when the time comes.”
Frank walked to the chart table and beckoned Doug. “The captain said to maintain this course, speed, and depth until the fifty-fathom curve shallows out…” he pointed, “right about here. From then on, we’re dealing with water a hundred twenty or so feet deep. That puts us near periscope depth. He wants five knots.”
“How long before all this happens?” Doug asked.
“About ten hours with baffle clears.”
“Okay, then. That makes the rest of our watch easy.”
When Zeb and I assumed the watch, we still had four hours to go on this leg. I continued to let Zeb handle the watch. He was doing great. I suspected that by the end of this cruise, the skipper would qualify him as an official watchstander.
During our second baffle clearing, Sonar called. “Conn, Sonar, I got the Alfa—still intermittent, but more steady. I suspect he is somewhere beyond Point Barrow. If you can give me a fifteen-minute broadside, I may be able to get his range.”
Zeb called the skipper, and I joined them in Sonar.
“Tell me what you know,” the skipper said to King.
“I think he’s beyond the continental margin, probably deeper than three hundred feet, which is why he still is intermittent.”
“I recommend we wait until he is solid,” I said. “He’ll be inside the fifty-fathom curve. We can get a more reliable range.”
“I agree,” the skipper said.
Four hours later, Sonar informed us that the Alfa was no longer intermittent. We came to a stop and hovered at 200 feet for fifteen minutes, pointing toward the northwest while Sonar tried to get a range.
“We got a range, sort of,” King told me. “The Alfa is between seventy and a hundred miles astern.”
“Stay on depth, course, and speed until the fifty-fathom curve,” the skipper told Zeb.
Two hours later, Alastair Forbes, who had the Nav watch, announced, “Fifty-fathom curve, Sir. Recommend we come to one hundred feet and slow.”
“While we’re still at two hundred feet,” I said to Zeb, “let’s come to all stop, turn broadside to the Alfa, and see what we get.”
A few minutes later, King called from Sonar. “We got a good range on him—seventy-five nautical miles. But there’s something wrong. I’m hearing mechanical noises that don’t belong with an Alfa. I don’t know what they are yet, but the Alfa is moving rather slowly.”
“What do you think would happen if the Alfa bumped into the ice wall we crawled under?” I asked.
“Depends on how fast, I guess. It’d mess up his sonar, that’s for sure. Could fuck up his drive train, too. We don’t know a lot about these guys, Sir.”
I called the skipper to brief him about the Alfa and told Zeb to listen to my side of the conversation. When I was done, I nodded to Zeb.
“Diving Officer,” Zeb said, “make your depth one-zero-zero feet. Helmsman, ahead slow, make turns for five knots.”
And with that, we commenced our very stealthy approach to Point Hope.
USS TEUTHIS—POINT HOPE
Point Hope juts out about ten nautical miles into the Chukchi Sea from Lisburn Peninsula. It is about 160 nautical miles slightly east of north of the Bering Strait. The Chukchi Sea is quite shallow all the way to Russia. The waters off Point Hope are not particularly well suited for a SOSUS array. The area was so strategically important, however, that we were tasked with placing an array that would see traffic to the north, east, and south.
Because of the necessarily shallow location of the array, we would have to lay it with all possible stealth. Hence our creeping approach and worry about the Alfa.
We had to cover 205 nautical miles, but in stealth mode, we were moving at five knots, plus we had to clear baffles roughly every hour. This added up to fifty-one hours of slow-walking along the bottom in about 120 feet of water. It’s not particularly difficult, but it required full focus and concentration the entire time. That can be exhausting.
We cycled through the Control watch cycle twice before Zeb and I brought Teuthis to a stop forty-five nautical miles west of Point Hope in 180 feet of water. Bert and Seth would have the fun of surveying out a thousand-foot-wide flat area for the array.
Barry laid out a survey field 2,000 feet on a side. Chief Ocean Tech Francis Oberst worked out the details of the survey. The Fish would run thirty feet above the bottom across the field, making thirty-five-foot swaths. Teuthis would cruise slowly a hundred feet above the field while the Fish would run fifty-seven swaths at ten knots. Total time about two hours.
Franklin set up the survey in Dive Control with Derrick at the Fish controls. Once we had selected the ideal location after the survey, my divers would go through substantially the same drill as they did off Carey Øer, anchoring the array every hundred feet.
Under Bert’s watchful eye, Seth ran the survey and worked with Dr. Brand, Chief Ocean Tech Bart Davidson, and Lt. Cmdr. Franklin James to designate the best position for the array. Then he set the Teuthis on the bottom at the south end of the array, pointing along the bearing of the array, and notified me in Dive Control that we could commence dive operations when ready.
ON THE SEAFLOOR—WEST OF POINT HOPE
Because we were in late autumn, ice covered most of the Chukchi Sea, but a couple nearby polynyas remained ice-free, and many areas near land were covered by easy-to-break thin ice. This allowed air-breathing marine mammals to range from south of Bering Strait north into the waters above Point Barrow.
Ham and I decided to put Whitey and Ski into the water for the first half of the array, and Harry and Jimmy for the second half. We put the divers in hot-water suits breathing a standard tri-mix of nitrogen, helium, and oxygen. This gas mix protected them from nitrogen narcosis, allowed a short decompression time, and conserved helium.
Wally focused the Basketball on the Egress hatch as we commenced. Whitey entered the water carrying an anchor, followed by Ski with the hammer. They both headed aft to the cable pipe. Bart had already lowered several feet of array cable. The divers stretched out a few feet of cable along the sub’s axis, and then Whitey placed the croquet wicket-like anchor over the cable just aft of the first hydrophone.
As Ski lifted the hammer to seat the anchor, he shouted, “What the fuck!” his voice sounding nearly normal through the tri-mix. “Something jerked the hammer right out of my hand.”
Wally panned the Basketball around. As he did so, something very white flashed briefly in the beam and then disappeared. He brought the light back on the divers and panned around the seafloor. About five feet away lay the hammer. Ski stretched over and retrieved it. He lifted it again.
“Dammit!” he shouted. “Fucker took it again.”
Wally backed the Basketball away, increasing the coverage of its light beam. Floating in the light with what looked like a silly grin on its face was a fifteen-foot white whale with a big bump on its forehead.
“That’s a beluga whale!” I said, my excitement pretty obvious to everyone in Dive Control. “He won’t hurt you, Ski,” I said. “He just wants to play.” I turned to Jake, who was standing behind me. “Jake, see if you can find a short piece of two-by-four. Hurry.”
