Keeping Up with the Soviets

For an entire generation of Americans, the Cold War is a history lesson rather than personal memory. Basement fallout shelters were standard features of some new home developments, and cocktail party conversations often revolved around the latest front-page stories about atrocities committed by the “Reds” and the “Commies” in China and the Soviet Union. For Americans who still had fresh memories of Senator Joseph McCarthy's witch hunts and the executions of “atomic spies” Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the news that the Russians had successfully placed the first artificial satellite, named Sputnik, in orbit on October 4, 1957, only seemed to confirm that the United States was losing the political and scientific battles for the hearts and minds of the world.

"[I]n those days ... we didn't believe [the Soviet Union] could build a refrigerator. And we were very stunned that they had done this," recalls space journalist Jay Barbee.

Caption: Fallout shelters were no joke in the 1950s, and Civil Defense pamphlets detailed how to stock them with food, water, and lanterns. National Archives, ca. 1957.

Playing Catch-Up

President Dwight D. Eisenhower immediately came under public criticism for failing to grasp the psychological significance of the space race. Eisenhower ordered a response to demonstrate that the United States was still the world’s technological powerhouse. Instead, what followed was one of the most humiliating moments in America’s space history. On December 6, 1957, a satellite-carrying Vanguard rocket was hurried to the launch pad. The missile climbed all of four feet before exploding, a disaster seen in broadcasts around the globe. To add insult to injury, the Soviet delegation to the United Nations solicitously asked their America counterparts if the U.S. space effort would like some help from the USSR’s Third World aid program.

Shortly afterwards, Eisenhower was brought the news that America's first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, had made a unique voyage under the Arctic ice cap.

Caption: The Arctic Ocean was still largely unknown in the early days of the Cold War despite centuries of exploration. While the Pole was not surrounded by islands, as this 1633 map shows, submariners had little idea about its underwater topography. Osher Map Library and Smith Center for Cartographic Education at the University of Southern Maine, OS-1633-2.

Going Nuclear

Built at the Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, Connecticut, Nautilus was launched January 21, 1954, after years of lobbying by Admiral Hyman Rickover, today known as the father of the nuclear navy. Rickover saw the Nautilus, named for the fictional submarine in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, as the test bed for a fleet of undersea boats that could stay submerged for weeks at a time and loiter undetected off hostile shorelines.

Over the next several years the Nautilus set numerous speed and endurance records. In August and September 1957 she traveled some 1,200 nautical miles under polar pack ice and came within 200 miles of the North Pole as part of a research expedition to investigate the possibility of an undersea Northwest Passage. Word of the journey reached the White House through an offhand Pentagon conversation between the Nautilus's captain, Commander William R. Anderson, and Eisenhower's naval aide, Captain Evan Peter Aurand. Eisenhower and his staff immediately saw the implications.

Caption: Nautilus, shown here during her initial sea trial on January 20, 1955, normally carried a crew of twelve officers and ninety enlisted personnel and had a publicly acknowledged submerged speed of "at least" twenty-three knots. Her official crush depth remains secret, although she routinely operated at 700 feet and deeper. General Photographic File of the Department of the Navy, 1943-1958; General Records of the Department of the Navy, 1804-1958; Record Group 80; National Archives.

The Original Nautilus Expedition

As daring as it sounds, Commander Anderson's explorations were not unique, nor was the USS Nautilus the first submarine of that name to attempt the Pole. In 1931 polar adventurer Sir George Hubert Wilkins (1888-1958) leased a surplus American World War I submarine, the O-12, renamed it the Nautilus, and announced plans to sail under the polar ice and surface at the Pole.

The Australian-born Wilkins was a colorful character worthy of an Indiana Jones movie. An early movie photographer, during the 1912-1913 Balkan War he filmed the first footage of live combat. He was second-in-command of the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-1916. During World War I he flew with the Royal Australian Flying Corps and was twice decorated for bravery -- once for leading American troops in ground combat. He was knighted for his daring 1928 flight across the Arctic Ocean from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen, Norway.

The Nautilus was Wilkins' most ambitious venture, but the expedition was dogged by mechanical failures and suspected sabotage. The Pole proved to be a goal too far, although the Nautilus managed to operate under the ice up to 82 degrees north during its brief voyage. The sub suffered storm damage on its return voyage, and Wilkins was forced to scuttle her off Bergen, Norway. He ended his career as a cold-weather consultant for the U.S. military and died in Massachusetts.

Captions: Sir George Hubert Wilkins led the first attempt to reach the North Pole by submarine in 1931. Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University, ca. 1930s.

On March 17, 1959, the USS Skate surfaced at the North Pole. After a brief ceremony, her commander, in accordance with Wilkins' wishes, scattered his ashes across the ice. Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University.

An Arctic War Zone

As the Cold War heated up in the 1950s, the Arctic became increasingly militarized. The shortest distance for bombers and missiles between the heartlands of the United States and the Soviet Union was over the Pole. By 1957 the U.S. and Canada had strung an elaborate, interlocking series of radar stations dubbed the DEW (Distant Early Warning) Line across the top of the continent, while bomber and fighter bases were built from Greenland to Alaska.

The interest in the Arctic by the U.S. Navy's Silent Service went beyond mere curiosity. As missile technology advanced in the 1950s, submarines were increasingly seen as mobile, stealthy launch platforms that could hide under the pack ice, then slip into open water, fire their missiles, and be gone again before being detected. Navy planners saw the Arctic Ocean as both a hiding place for their own missile submarines and a hunting ground to seek out and destroy enemy missile submarines.


Captions: (Top) DEW Line stations scanned the skies over the Arctic for incoming missiles and bombers. The stations are now largely abandoned and pose a significant environmental clean-up problem for Arctic communities. NWT Archives/N-1979-051:1968)

(Bottom) Sea-launched ballistic missiles were, and still are, considered the most difficult to counter because of the mobility and stealthiness of the submarines that carried them. U.S. Navy photo.

The Dark Secrets of Operation Sunshine

In 1958 the Nautilus was on the cutting edge of Arctic Ocean exploration. Despite decades of surface exploration, the ocean underneath the ice cap remained a mystery. Almost nothing was known of the seabed topography, ice cap circulation patterns, or even how ice thickness varied during the year. The sub's ability to stay submerged for weeks at a time and the sophisticated instruments she carried made Nautilus the ideal research vehicle to determine the region's military potential.

She was also the ideal vehicle for a serious nose-thumbing to the Soviet Union in President Eisenhower's eyes, and he personally ordered Anderson to attempt the polar transit. The expedition was dubbed Operation Sunshine to mislead the curious, and each time the submarine left port naval officers let word slip that she was bound for Panama or Guam. As soon as the Nautilus was at sea, her crew painted out the sub's identifying hull numbers and insignia in case she was sighted by Soviet vessels.

Caption: The Nautilus traveled almost exclusively underwater on her trip over the Pole between Pearl Harbor and Iceland, operated from the cramped control room beneath the conning tower. Undated photo, Submarine Force Museum.

Not Even a Trail of Bread Crumbs

Arctic explorers both on and under the ice had long known that magnetic and gyroscopic compasses performed erratically or not at all near the Pole — one reason for the controversy over Robert Peary's claim to have reached the Pole in 1909. Once Nautilus dropped under the ice pack, those weaknesses raised the real danger that the sub could get lost. Anderson and his crew depended upon an innovative and experimental inertial navigation system originally designed for the Air Force's Navajo missile. Anderson later admitted considerable skepticism about the device, since it had never been used in a ship before. "A lot of debugging had to be done at first," he said. He came to appreciate the new system as it guided Nautilus unerringly through the Arctic Ocean to the Pole.

The new navigation and sonar systems allowed Anderson and his crew to sail along the Chukchi Plateau and over the Lomonosov Ridge with ease. In fact, once in the Arctic Ocean the Nautilus saw surprisingly smooth sailing. The crew enjoyed first-run movies and a free jukebox while the scientists aboard charted previously known ocean floor features, including huge mountains and deep canyons.

Caption: Eisenhower aide James Hagerty put together a map of the Nautilus's voyage for his boss soon after the trip ended. Eisenhower Archives, Nautilus documents, James Hagerty Papers, Box 7, Nautilus. http://eisenhower.archives.gov/Research/Digital.Documents/Nautilus/Map.pdf