Operation Ice Breaker, page 5
“Diving Officer, make your depth six-seven feet,” I ordered.
Five seconds later, the sub was at sixty-seven feet, and a moment after that, the first roller passed over the snorkel as I watched through the scope. The valve slammed shut, and the powerful diesel engine pulled several inches of vacuum in the sub before the roller passed, and the snorkel valve opened again. It did an excellent job of clearing everybody’s sinuses.
I glanced at the skipper, and he nodded, holding up three fingers. I kept the depth steady at sixty-seven feet while we endured the next three rollers. Then I ordered, “Diving Officer, take us back to six-five feet.”
The next item on the skipper’s list was a crash dive to 600 feet at a steep angle. He got on the 1MC. “This is the captain. We are about to undergo steep angles and rapid depth changes. Before we start, take a few moments to ensure that your area has nothing loose that can become airborne. The Chief-of-the-Watch will make another announcement just before we commence.”
“Recommend course one-six-eight,” Al told me from the chart table.
“Depth,” I requested.
“Twelve hundred feet,” Al said. “Depth will reach eighteen hundred feet on this leg. You have five-point-eight-one nautical miles on this leg.”
“Helmsman, come right to one-six-eight,” I ordered.
I glanced at the skipper again. He nodded. I nodded to the Chief-of-the-Watch.
“The ship will commence a crash dive in two minutes,” Dokey announced on the 1MC.
The skipper made a final sweep with his scope, flipped the handles up, and dropped it into the well. I checked the time and did my final sweep. The horizon was empty all around under a grey overcast. I flipped up my scope handles and dropped the scope.
“Ahead flank! Thirty degree down bubble! Make your depth six-zero-zero feet!”
Teuthis jumped forward like a pent-up racehorse as the nose dropped rapidly to thirty degrees down and then continued to thirty-five degrees.
“Mind your angle!” I snapped at Tubes as a ceramic cup crashed to the deck somewhere behind me in the Electronics Nav Center.
I could hear some breaking noises down in the Galley and something through the open Sonar Shack door.
“Sorry, Sir, we got a bit ahead of ourselves.”
“That’s why we’re practicing this shit, Tubes,” I said back.
“Depth two hundred feet,” Dokey said. Moments later, he said, “Three hundred…” and then “Four hundred…”
“Don’t slide through six hundred,” I cautioned as we passed 500 feet. “Ahead standard,” I ordered the helmsman.
“Zero bubble,” Tubes ordered his planesmen.
As we hit 601 feet and then drifted back to 600, Tubes announced, “At six hundred feet, Sir, zero bubble.”
“Very well. Make turns for five knots,” I said and grinned at the skipper.
“Recommend course one-three-zero,” Al said from Nav. “Depth eighteen hundred twenty-five feet—that’s one thousand two hundred twenty-five feet below the keel,” he added.
“Helmsman,” I ordered, “come left to one-three-zero.”
The skipper picked up the 1MC mike. “This is the captain. Take fifteen minutes to clean up your messes, and then we’ll do several in a row, including some tight turns.”
And so it went for the rest of the morning. No matter what the skipper said, each steep angle—down or up—caused at least one more object to crash. Finally, around 1100, the skipper took to the 1MC again.
“This is the captain. Somehow, you gents are NOT taking this seriously. Two months from now, when we are beneath solid ice and need to dive quickly to avoid detection, one broken cup can get us all killed! We are going to continue these drills until nothing breaks anywhere in the sub, and we are doing it at Battle Stations. We’ll remain at Battle Stations until we get it right!” He looked at the Chief-of-the-Watch with a nod.
“Man Battle Stations! Man Battle Stations!” Dokey announced on the 1MC, and then sounded the General Alarm.
I was just about to come off watch, and my Battle Station was in Dive Control, where I was going anyway. I swung by the Galley and grabbed a bag of tuna sandwiches—the skipper must have given the cook, Cedric, a heads up. When I got to Dive Control, Ham and Bill looked up from the console, and Bill passed the sandwich bag through the Medical Lock.
Ham reported on the Battle Station sound-powered phone, “Dive Control all present and accounted for. A reminder, Control, six divers are pressing down in the Main Lock.”
It turned out that on the crash-dive, someone had not properly secured an umbilical. It hit the deck in the Egress Lock with a lot of noise. And...Ham’s favorite cup had slid along the console desk to crash off the end.
During the two hours that Barry—he was the Battle Station OOD—put Teuthis through its paces, Ham and I checked and rechecked everything under our control, so that nothing moved, even a fraction of an inch. You could have put Teuthis through a loop-the-loop, and everything would have stayed in place.
“That’s how I want it from now on,” Ham said to the guys in the Main Lock. “We’re on a dive op, you free up whatever you need. But, the moment we’re done, you put it back exactly like it is now. We are not going to be responsible for getting a fish up our ass!”
I couldn’t have agreed more.
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4 See Glossary entry.
CHAPTER THREE
Sat System Test
USS TEUTHIS—ENCOUNTER WITH CAMEROCERAS—HUDSON CANYON
Finally, the skipper was satisfied with how the crew performed during angles and dangles. I didn’t blame him one bit for insisting as he did. I remembered only too well Halibut’s confrontation with the Soviet Whiskey in the Sea of Okhotsk. Our ability to be silent even when doing extremely complicated dive maneuvers, and Captain Jackson’s tactical chutzpa, are the only reasons I am here to tell you about this follow-on operation.
“Secure from Battle Stations. Set the underway watch, section two,” the Chief-of-the-Watch finally announced.
The Dive Center telephone rang. I picked it up. “McDowell,” I said.
“This is Bert. We’re diving to test depth, and then we head for the dive ops area. We’re going to hover at one hundred feet over the bottom and run a fish survey until we’re satisfied we know what’s down there. Once we’re hovering, the captain will join you in Dive.”
Taking a submarine to test depth for the first time after an extensive overhaul like ours is always a tense event. No matter how much faith you have in the people who did the overhaul, 668 pounds pushing against every square inch of submarine hull is something you cannot ignore. So far as I was concerned, the guys who did the welding on our hull should have been making this dive with us. Unfortunately, this wasn’t Navy policy.
Bert Cobb had the watch. I wished I were doing it, but the lot fell to him. If it had to be someone other than the skipper or me, I was glad it was Bert.
“This is the captain,” the 1MC droned. “We are about to descend to test depth of one thousand five hundred feet. We will not go to Battle Stations, but I want one person in each watertight compartment on sound-powered phones with Control. Report to the Chief-of-the-Watch as soon as you are set up. We will descend to one thousand feet, check for leaks or other abnormalities, and then descend fifty feet at a time, stopping at each depth to check for leaks or anything else out of the ordinary.”
“I’ll be in Control,” I told Ham. “Call the Nav phone if you need me.”
I went up a level, forward to the Galley, where I grabbed a sandwich and wolfed it down with a glass of bug juice (Kool-Aid) and then slipped quietly into Control and parked myself on the far side of the chart table. Fonzie had the Nav Watch, but Senior Chief Forbes was there as well, keeping back as I was. When Barry (Nav) joined us, it got a bit crowded. We pushed back against the firecontrol computer to leave sufficient room around the lighted chart table. I could feel the 400-Hertz vibration from the synchros that transmitted fire-control information from this monstrosity to its little brother in the Torpedo Room.
“Diving Officer, make your depth one-zero-zero-zero feet,” Bert ordered, “ten degree down bubble.”
The sub nosed down and began to creak as we drove deeper.
“Passing five hundred feet,” Senior Chief Ogden Winder, the Chief-of-the-Watch, said. “Six hundred…seven hundred…eight hundred…”
“Ease your bubble,” Bert ordered.
“Nine hundred feet…nine hundred fifty feet…nine hundred eighty feet…one thousand feet.”
The skipper picked up the 1MC mike. “This is the captain. We are at one thousand feet. Check each compartment fore to aft, top to bottom, and don’t forget the bilges. Report your results to Control.”
I went aft down the starboard side, down two ladders into Dive Control.
“What’s your status?” I asked Bill.
“At five hundred ten feet, pressing to one thousand,” he responded.
“Any problems?” I asked.
“We had to stop once at fifty for Jake. He cleared up with no problems since. Harry’s done a lot of blowing, but he’s been fine since two hundred. Jimmy’s been blowing from the get-go, but I haven’t had to stop for him. The others are just yawning from time to time. Harry claims he’s hungry. Wants more sandwiches…with hot sauce. Says the first batch tasted like cardboard.”
I called Cedric and asked him to send a plate of sandwiches to Dive Control along with two bottles of hot sauce.
From the Main Lock, Harry squeaked, “Toss in a six-pack with that order,” his voice distorted by both helium and the increased pressure.
“You’ll have to wait on that one,” Ham said. “We’re on backorder.”
“Better hook up the descrambler,” I said to Bill, “or the skipper will never understand them.”
I headed back to Control. As I arrived, we hit a thousand fifty and were checking for leaks. I reassumed my spot against the firecontrol computer and kept my mouth shut.
“Eleven hundred feet,” Oggy droned.
Ten minutes later, we started down again. It took about an hour to reach test depth—1,500 feet. It had been a long time since this old girl had experienced such pressure. But other than some surprisingly loud creaking, everything went fine. Technically, we had another 300 feet below us as a safety margin and maybe another 200 before the hull imploded—not something I wanted to contemplate.
The skipper said something to Bert that I couldn’t hear. Bert picked up the 1MC mike.
“We are at test depth. We will remain here for thirty minutes while we test the hover system. Continue checking for leaks at your stations, and be sure to report anything unusual to Control.” He turned to the Chief-of-the-Watch. “What’s your trim?”
“Neutral buoyancy, near as I can tell,” Oggy answered.
“Let’s see how close you are,” Bert said to him. “Helmsman, all stop!”
As the sub ceased its forward motion, little-by-little, it began to rise. Oggy flooded several hundred pounds of seawater into both port and starboard trim tanks. The sub commenced sinking by the stern. He pumped a couple hundred pounds out of the aft trim tank. The sub leveled and stopped sinking at 1,510 feet. Oggy pumped a small amount from the port and starboard trim tanks, and as soon as the sub started to creep up, he flooded it back in. The sub halted at 1,501 feet. Oggy looked at Bert.
“Close enough,” Bert said. “Well done.” He looked at the skipper, who nodded and indicated a go-ahead.
“Activate the Hover System and pump out a hundred pounds,” Bert ordered the COW.
The sub commenced rising, but immediately the Hover System sucked water in and then blew it out, sucked in less, blew it out, sucked in even less, and the sub stabilized at exactly 1,500 feet. For the next fifteen minutes, Teuthis remained there until Bert secured the test and ordered the sub to 300 feet at ten knots on a course to the dive location.
The skipper arrived in Dive Control moments after Franklin James and his team.
“We’ll be at the dive site in a few minutes,” the skipper said. “I want to launch the Fish for a full left-right survey across the canyon from thirty feet over the bottom. How wide are your cuts?”
“From thirty feet over the bottom, about thirty-five feet,” Lt. Cmdr. James answered. “We can drive the Fish at ten knots.”
The skipper thought for a few seconds. “So, we can survey a half-a-nautical-mile square in about four hours and twenty minutes.” He paused. How much tether do you have?”
“About two miles.”
“We’ll take station at three hundred feet above the dive spot and hover while you do your survey. Then we’ll pick an exact spot, bottom the sub, and conduct dive operations.” He looked around. “Any questions?”
He looked at me. “Where are your divers?”
I glanced at the middle of three large gauges on the console. “Eight hundred thirty-six feet, Skipper. We’ll be ready to enter the water by the time you set dive ops.”
“Good.” He rose and left Dive Control.
By mid-afternoon, we had set the 300-foot hover and by chowtime had completed the survey. Chief Ocean Tech Francis Oberst and Petty Officer Wally Dubbs laid out the printouts on the survey table and taped them together. What emerged was an image of a nearly flat, sloping bottom ending abruptly in steep slopes at both canyon sides.
I picked a spot 990 feet deep that was close to a nearly featureless rise from the ocean floor.
We had done this many times before, but this time it was distinctly different. We had this fabulous oversized DDC. We were riding a vehicle specifically designed to support our operation. We were about to lock out of the sub in the open ocean at a depth never before attempted. We had been to a thousand feet before off the USNS Elk River near San Diego, but this was entirely different. Before, we dove out of a Personnel Transfer Capsule (PTC) that had been lowered by a crane to our dive depth. Here, we were diving out of a submarine bottomed in a deep canyon at the edge of the continental shelf. As far as I was concerned, this completely redefined the meaning of cool.
Teuthis settled to the sandy bottom with a slight bump, her four skids finding good traction. Her heading was 138 degrees with a one-degree up-bubble. Barry Jacobs had the Deck, and Chief Ocean Tech Francis Oberst had left Dive Central to assume the watch as Diving Officer. Wally Dubbs remained in Dive Central to run the Basketball.
“Wally,” Ham said, “you launch the Basketball and position it so we can record the divers exiting the DDC.” He turned to Senior Chief Morris Jones, who ran the Spec Ops Department under Franklin James. “Make sure this gets recorded, Morris. We’re makin’ history here.”
“Attention on Deck!” someone called out as the skipper entered Dive Control.
“As you were,” the skipper said. “From now on, skip the formality during Dive Ops.” He turned to me. “What’s your status, Mac?”
“The Basketball is setting up to record the diver’s first exit to the bottom. Harry Blackwell and Jimmy Tanner will be the first divers out. Whitey Ford and Ski Cslauski will tend them from the Egress Lock. Jer Romain and Jake Palmer—the new guy—will remain in the Main Lock with the hatch closed but not sealed.” I picked up Ham’s cheat sheet. “The divers will inspect the Engine Room seawater intake, check the screw, and then return to the Egress Lock. We’ll rotate the teams to give everyone time outside. Then we wrap it up and give the boat back to you, Sir.”
“Carry on,” the skipper said and took a seat away from the immediate action.
“Divers, enter the water,” Bill Fisher ordered, running this dive under Ham’s close supervision. “I’m using your names for this op: Harry, Jimmy, Whitey, and Ski.”
“Harry, aye.”
“Jimmy, aye.”
“Whitey, aye.”
“Ski, aye.”
Their voices, affected by the higher speed of sound in helium and the effect of high pressure on their vocal cords, passed through the electronic descrambler to loudspeakers over the console. They still sounded strange, but they were intelligible.
“Tenders, verify your divers.”
“Whitey tending Harry.”
“Ski tending Jimmy.”
About thirty seconds later, the speakers squawked:
“Harry on the bottom.”
“Jimmy on the bottom.”
“You got all this, Morris?” Ham asked, “video and sound?”
“Don’t get your panties in a snit, Ham,” Morris said. “I got your six!”
I was a bit tense since this was the first time this system had locked divers out at a thousand feet. We proceeded methodically. Ham checked Bill, and I checked Ham. There would be no mistakes on this watch.
It was pitch black outside, but the water was remarkably clear. The Basketball’s beam was barely visible in the water column so that the circle of light it created almost seemed to appear and move by magic. Wally kept the Basketball about ten yards outboard of the divers as they glided down the starboard side. They swam parallel to the sub’s keel, about seven feet above the bottom. Their strong fin down-strokes created tiny swirls on the bottom that picked up a bit of detritus, marking their path. There was no sound other than their easy breathing.
“There it is,” Ski said, pointing to the seawater intake, a scoop protruding six inches from the sub’s side.
Wally moved the Basketball in for a closer look.
“Dive, this is Harry. Look at this thing. If we was surrounded by slush, this could freeze up.”
“Or if a piece of ice got sucked against it, slush could sorta weld it in place,” Jimmy added.
The skipper got up and approached the monitor. “Try to get images from every direction and several close-ups as well,” he said to Wally.
Ham looked at Bill and tapped the dive timer.
“Harry, Jimmy, this is Dive. Time to return to the DDC.”
“Wally, pull the Basketball out so we can just see the divers,” I said. “Let’s get some big picture footage.”
