SEAWOLF
. v
Author James Conniff and his son,
Gregory, aboard U. S. S. Seawolf.
big somewhat bigger than the Nautilus, though
not nearly as big as our recently launched twin
reactor picket sub Triton, the largest in our fleet.
Seawolf displaces about 3,200 tons. She is some
330 feet long, with an unmistakable whale-like
swelling at her bow for a tremendous amount of
classified sonar equipment.
Yet with all the wonders of navigation, propul
sion, and armament crammed into her, she is 27
feet wide at her widest point and in the crew's
mess, for example, you know she's roomy. Head
room? Plenty. On this record trip she carried a
handful of 6-foot-6-inch Texans, real giants, not
one of whom whacked his skull on piping or got
a crfck in his neck from ducking. The only com
monly used tight spot is the oval-on-end aperture
through the half-dozen or so bulkheads dividing
the sub into water- and airtight compartments.
There, even a child has to duck a little and climb
over the threshold.
Crew's quarters consist of tiered bunks divided
by a narrow aisle in "staterooms" just behind the
torpedo room at the bow. Eight to ten men share
such units. Each bunk has its own overhead read
ing light. With 116 aboard for the 60-day sub
mergence, the Seaioolf ran a bit short of sleeping
facilities but solved it with the "hot bunk" tech
nique: if you have only two bunks for every three
men, remember that at all times one of the three
will be on watch, so all you need is two bunks
in constant use.
I rolled into one of those bunks to check the
myth that you can't turn over' without jamming
into the bunk above. It's strictly a myth. Only
Gargantua would have any problem. Those mat
tresses, by the way, are four-inch foam rubber,
zipped into heavy plastic protective covers when
not in use. Very comfortable.
A-subs are air-conditioned throughout and
maintain an even 70 degrees temperature with
around 46 percent relative humidity, an Ideal
combination seldom achieved back home. In the
reactor room and among the turbines driven by
its steam, things get warmer but never enough to
overwhelm the blowers or the men on watch there.
I spent some time in that reactor room. Before
going aboard Seawolf, I'd felt a fleeting uneasi
ness, irrational but very real, about snooping
around that close to what is, in effect, a controlled
atomic bomb. Yet there beside the awesome thing
itself, rising to knee-level through the thickly
lead-shielded deck, I felt only a profound respect
for the men who devised and installed this liquid
sodium SIR (Submarine Intermediate Reactor)
Mark B, and for the men who make her go.
Nearby, a radiation counter's needle . flickered
with the infinitesimal milliroentgens of gamma-ray
exposure we were getting. Its green cat's-eye
winked steadily on and off. The ever-present
whine of the blowers filled our ears. Off-center
atop the reactor's main lucite shield, directly over
the uranium core, a gleaming brass Buddha
grinned its eternal grin.
The Buddha gleams because nobody goes
through the reactor room without rubbing it for
luck. At first Seawolf had some trouble with its
reactor. When that was licked, the Buddha was in
stalled, more as a charm than anything else. For
21 months now the reactor has run smoothly, and
one gets the definite impression that those aboard
Seawolf give the Buddha more than a little credit
for what their own engineering has accomplished.
The Navy will soon rip out this prized sodium
reactor and standardize the Seawolf to pressurized
water reactors, which scientists have decided are
best. Price tag for the conversion is in the neigh
borhood of $20 million, or two-thirds the cost of a
new atomic submarine.
Why convert? For one thing, sodium is a tricky
metal which explodes on contact with water. It is
devilishly hard to install, and equally hard to con
fine in the system without developing leaks. Too, it
freezes at 280 degrees Fahrenheit, which presents
a problem in keeping the ship ready for sea duty.
Regardless, the Seawolf's crew remains convinced
it's the best reactor going.
Any a-sub's reactor, whatever kind, is basically
only a heat source. Liquid sodium or pres
surized water absorbs the heat generated by nu
clear reaction and circulates through a heat ex
changer. There water picks up the heat and turns
to steam. The steam turns the turbines which drive
the A-sub's propellers.
How fast? Well, the Navy isn't talking about
that, any more than it is about how deep nuclear
submarines can go the Seawolf's depth gauges
were all carefully screw-covered against even
loyal visitors' eyes. But some close figuring by
those who know their math supports the belief that
engines of war like Nautilus, Seawolf, Skate, Skip
jack, Scorpion, Sea Dragon, Triton, Swordfish, and
about 21 other nuclear subs now building or au
thorized are capable of 40 knots submerged, not
just in spurts but for thousands of miles at a clip.
You go up a regular stairway not a ladder to
reach the Seawolf's attack center. Forward of the
center is the dizzyingly complex but thoroughly
coordinated control room. The boat is sailed or
fought from a position in the attack center called
the "plot," from which skipper Richard B. Laning,
newly promoted to captain, gives his commands.
About 15 feet forward are three red-leather,
foam-cushioned metal seats, side by side, where
the men who maneuver the vessel sit. One handles
the rudder, one the forward diving planes, one the
aft planes. But all three functions can be instantly
and automatically turned over to one man so that
he can, quite literally, fly the submarine under
water like an airplane.
If power fails, there is a three-way auxiliary
hydraulic steering system. If that goes, manual
controls on the back of each seat can be used.
Communication throughout the A-sub is by
intercom and sound-powered telephone. The lat
ter, for station-to-station talk, is a regular phone
which you dial before lifting from its cradle. Your
voice calling the station causes the phone at the
other end to yelp like a puppy whose tail has been
stepped on. Anyone near the other phone picks it
up. From there on, sound-vibrated diaphragms
permit a regular conversation.
At sea, calls to the stern of the boat usually con
cern the availability of the washing machine in the
shower room.
During the 60-day test run, both the washer and
the dryer got a workout night and day.
So did the showers, where you can use all the
hot water you want at any time. Lavatory facili
ties are kept odorless by charcoal filters regularly
renewed. Since the A-sub puts out three distinct
voltages 120 and 450 AC and a 250-volt DC use
of electric razors, sun lamps, and such is no prob
lem. Only a few used sun lamps during the long
submersion, and one gave himself such a sunburn
that he quit altogether.
For the first week out, the Seawolf's four cooks
were able to feed everybody fresh vegetables, but
afterward it was frozen foods all the way. The
Seawolf converted her chill box (like a vegetable
crisper) into a freezer of enormous capacity. Cook
F.P. "Barney" Bongiorno told me he had enough
food left for another 30 days.
Even 90-day submersions, the Navy feels, are
by no means the conceivable limit for A-subs.
Experimentation with dehydrated foods for indefinite-length
trips is under way, with the accent
on fresh taste when cooked. This time Seawolf
crewmen tried and enjoyed a variant on the
unpopular powdered eggs: fresh-frozen ones.
floR those who take the A-subs to sea and, if
necessary, to war the Navy has gone to great
lengths in providing creature comforts. Is this just
a discreet way of saying, "The condemned ate a
hearty meal"? Are the men of the nuclear sub
marine fleet expendable via 1) exposure to radia
tion; 2) exposure to atomic accidents such as
prompted the British and Danes to welcome Nau
tilus only in sparsely populated areas; or 3) ex
posure to a peculiarly horrible death in action?
The A-subs, if clobbered or sunk, will not kill
their crews any more "horribly" than conventional
subs. Escape techniques, in fact, have been vastly
improved for A-sub personnel. As for atomic acci
dents, those aboard know how to deal with a
leak in the system. If the reactor "runs away" on
them, there are manual, automatic, and remote
control devices for regaining control or, if need be,
for shutting power off instantly.
But what about radiation? Didn't this reporter
just admit he saw evidence it was going on as he
stood in the reactor room? Did he not, in fact,
shorten his life or run the risk of inducing cancer
or sterility by being exposed?
If you could have sat in the skipper's stateroom
for an hour or so as I did, chatting with the Sea
wolf's medical officer, Lieut. Comdr. John H. Eber
sole, you'd realize how wrong these common no
tions are.
Partially because our A-subs offer their crews
an average 50 percent more living space than ordi
nary fleet submarines, half the crew gets no radia
tion at all. Those whose watch stations are near the
reactor got an average radiation dose, during the
calendar year 1957, of 120 milliroentgens. The ex
posure level considered safe in industry is 300 mil
liroentgens a week.
Among the radiation checks Dr. Ebersole ran
was to pin a film badge on the man always near
est the reactor, E. M. Curry, Jr. When Curry took
his annual Navy chest X ray, he received 1,700
milliroentgens. Yet Curry, in an entire year near
the Seawolf reactor, got a maximum dosage of
only 550 milliroentgens.
(Continued on page 14)
6 Family Weekly, January 4, 1959