Unknown Waters by Alfred S. McLaren
A First Hand Account of an Historic Under-Ice Arctic Survey
Jul 26, 2009
Cold War submarine adventures can make for exciting reading (at least they should). There is just something about working in a metal tube, sleeping next to a nuclear reactor, and sneaking around under the ocean.
In Unknown Waters, Alfred S. McLaren, Captain, U.S. Navy (Ret.), commander of the Queenfish, recounts the boat's 1970 mission to visit the North Pole and perform a bathymetric survey of the Siberian Continental Shelf. The USS Queenfish was the first Sturgeon-class nuclear submarine to achieve operational readiness (although construction on her started after the first boat, Sturgeon).
Commissioning the Queenfish
McLaren describes the events leading up to the Qeenfish's departure beginning with his admission to the submarine service (and a bit before). Naval submarine authors can't resist telling stories of interviews with Admiral Rickover, and McLaren tells his share. He had the privilege of accompanying many other submarine service officer candidates into the admiral's office for interviews. Rickover was an interesting guy, and his candidate interviews are legendary. It probably wasn't a lot of fun to sit for an interview in front of him, but it's entertaining (and amusing) to vicariously participate at someone else's expense.
One thing is clear from reading this book—the U.S. Submarine service is an outstanding organization, with impressive attention to detail, technological know how, and the best possible training. It's reassuring, and one can only hope that the professionalism and dedication evident in McLaren, the other officers, and the enlisted men of the Queenfish, are as evident in the service today as they were back in the day.
Queenfish Visits the Pole
The Queenfish departed for the arctic from Pearl Harbor in the Pacific in July of 1970. She was to stop at Seattle before heading up through the Bering Straight on her way to the North Pole. The boat undergoes final training along the way. Some shenanigans pulled by the crew in Seattle caught up with them later. Overall, an uneventful trip from home base—other than the rogue wave that just about killed two crew members just after departure from Seattle.
Other nuclear subs had surfaced at the pole, and that leg of the trip was more of a commemoration of the journey made by Nautilus in 1958. Nautilus was the first sub (or watercraft of any sort) to reach the North Pole. Each crewmember got some time off-boat and had their picture taken with their state flag. A large number of letters "written by" admiral Rickover were also postmarked at the pole for later delivery to dignitaries around the world. It must have been a lot of fun.
Exploring Unknown Waters
After leaving the pole, the real mission gets underway. McLaren and his officers become masters of arctic navigation as they creep along, avoiding submerged ice, keeping clear of the bottom, and looking for polynyas in which to surface. Periodic surfacing was required to receive and transmit radio messages and to obtain navigational fixes from satellites.
The remainder of the mission involves under ice navigation at set depths charting the bottoms and ice conditions of the little known Chukchi, Laptev, and East Siberian Seas. It's pretty boring stuff really. Other than sightings of some jellyfish, diatoms, one soviet convoy, a polar bear and her cubs—and a whole lot of ice, there isn't much to report on. There are a few close calls involving ice and the bottom, but the crew handles them without much fanfare.
Although the survey portion of the mission no doubt had scientific and military value, one is left to wonder exactly how much. According to McLaren, much of the data has yet to be anlyzed and incorported into charts, even to this day. Perhaps the data were rendered moot by other information collected later.
It was clearly a great honor to serve on the Queenfish, and Captain McLaren was a good leader. No doubt it was a lot more exciting to actually be there, than it is to read about navigational maneuvers, periscope views, and surfacing for navigational fixes (and not much else).
References
Unknown Waters, 2008, Alfred S. McLaren, U. of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa, AL, ISBN 978-0-8173-1602-0
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