The Submarine Review is a quarterly publication
with an international audience: submariners,
other armed forces personnel, participants
in the wider governmental defense and intelligence
communities, military contractors, and people
who care about national security policy and
problems. It is a forum for the discussion
of submarine matters, past, present, and future.
The Submarine Review is published by the Naval
Submarine League.
Its Editorial Review Committee
consists of retired U.S. Navy submariner captains
and admirals. The Naval Submarine League is
a professional association for submariners
and submarine supporters. It is a non-profit
organization headquartered in Annandale, Virginia.
Membership is permitted to the general public,
and includes a subscription to the Review.
Every year, the Naval Submarine League conducts
separate classified-level and open Symposia,
both of which are well attended events important
to the undersea warfare community.
Joe Buff is a professional writer on national security and defense preparedness. He is also a novelist of tales of near-future warfare featuring nuclear submariners and Navy SEALs in action at their bravest and best. Two of Joe's non-fiction articles on future submarine technology and tactics, which appeared in The Submarine Review, received literary awards from the Naval Submarine League. His latest novel now out in paperback, Crush Depth, made the Military Book Club's Top 20 Bestseller List after being selected as a Featured Alternate of the Club in late 2002. His most recent work, Tidal Rip, was released from Wm. Morrow in hardcover in November, 2003, and quickly made the Amazon.com Top 100 General Thrillers Bestseller List. Joe's next novel, Straits of Power, is scheduled for hardcover release in autumn, 2004.
Joe is a Life Member of the following organizations: U.S. Naval Institute, the Navy League of the United States, the Fellows of the Naval War College, CEC/Seabees Historical Foundation, and the Naval Submarine League. Joe's father was an enlisted man in the Navy (Seabees in the Pacific Theater) from 1948 through 1953, and his uncle was a merchant mariner on the North Atlantic convoys late in World War II, before being drafted into the U.S. Army to serve in the Occupation of Nazi Germany.
Preface for Military.com: On Board a Nuclear Attack Submarine
Few Americans get to see the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of one of their modern Attack Submarines, and that is most unfortunate because each one is so important to our national security. They are hard to get a look at because they are usually busy in distant waters or undergoing fairly intense refit and replenishment while in port at a secured naval base. They are also expensive and it would be great if more of the public had a firsthand chance to balance the worth with that cost. Fortunately, Joe Buff, with the novelist's knack of observation and explanation, did have a most unusual opportunity to participate in a short cruise which was not a classified operation, and he has provided an excellent layman's look at a magnificent machine and the outstanding men who live in it and make it work.
Joe's experience was aided by his previous work in thinking about
and writing of the world of submarining. All of that was without benefit
of instruction and training by the professionals. His source of information
was in the public arena and it was his interest, ingenuity and common
sense which has made him a knowledgeable commentator on issues of
undersea science, strategy and operations. He has done that not only
in his several novels but in the pages of THE SUBMARINE REVIEW,
a professional magazine for the submarine community. As Editor of
that magazine I have asked Joe to write about some subjects and his
own initiative has led him to investigate and comment on other substantive
issues. Our readership has responded positively to those efforts.
It is particularly appropriate that those interested in general military matters have the benefit of Joe Buff's insights.
Captain James C. Hay, USN (Ret.)
Editor, THE SUBMARINE REVIEW
Introduction and Purpose
Back in October, 1999, I was very privileged to join a Tiger Cruise aboard the USS MIAMI, SSN 755, from the Naval Submarine Base New London to Halifax, Canada. Commander (now Captain) Jim Ransom was the MIAMI's CO. MIAMI departed Groton, CT, on a Friday at 1000, and I debarked from the ship in Halifax the following Monday at 1400.
Many readers of THE SUBMARINE REVIEW will be aware that Tiger
Cruises ordinarily embark close family relations of a Navy ship's
crew, and can be an excellent vehicle for enhancing morale, cohesion,
recruiting, and reenlistment rates. In this voyage, the "Tigers" were
primarily fathers or sons of the MIAMI's officers, chiefs, and enlisted
personnel. Due to a last minute cancellation, I was invited by a Navy
League contact to participate. As a professional writer at that time
engaged in the final editing of my first novel of future undersea
warfare, the voyage was an invaluable formative experience. I remain
forever grateful to the Department of the Navy, and to everyone else
involved, for this wonderful learning opportunity.
It was not my intention in joining the Tiger Cruise to compose an article about it afterward, but rather to obtain only what journalists might call "deep background," for additional novels and non-fiction writings I planned -- the idea of this very personal reminiscence essay came slowly in the months that followed. More than four years have passed since the voyage, as intervening world events repeatedly gave pause: the KURSK disaster, the USS GREENVILLE collision, the attack on the USS COLE, the horrors of 9/11/01, and bloody campaigns in the ongoing Global War on Terror triggered by that infamous day. Yet in retrospect, these events all underscore a significant point: that serving on a nuclear submarine is a risky but absolutely vital calling. And the memories, my whole experience aboard MIAMI, seem as vivid now as when they first occurred.
Enough of preliminaries. Let's go to sea!
First Impressions
I reported to the MIAMI at 0800. The sky was clear and sunny, the air refreshingly cool and brisk -- some thin mist on the Thames River dissipated rapidly. Crewmen were busy making final preparations to leave port.
I had been on a number of SSN dock tours, so I had some idea of what to expect when inside the ship. But I knew that in the hours to come, I would be thrust into an overcrowded environment in which physical, mental, or even "acoustic" privacy hardly existed, and from which there could be no escape. This would be a social test of a sort I had never faced before. I knew the crew had all been carefully selected, tested, and trained, and had bonded strongly as a group -- for instance, when the MIAMI made naval history by firing Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles in two different theaters of quasi-war on a single deployment. Unlike the Tiger Cruise blood relatives, I was a complete outsider. Yet my concerns vanished from the start: Everyone was very friendly, clearly proud of their work, eager to talk shop (within the bounds of security), and made me feel warmly welcome.
One thing that impressed me as I got settled in that Friday morning, and we got underway, was the considerable ethnic diversity of the crew. Here was a true melting pot, men of all backgrounds welded into a single organic whole.
Since I was sponsored by the ship's Chief of the Boat, I ate meals in the enlisted mess. Lunch that Friday was a chance to experience further the relaxed and open mood of the crew, their high morale, and their obvious competence and pride. And yes, the food was terrific!
When we were out past the twelve mile limit, the Officer of the Deck gave me permission to climb up the bridge trunk and stand in the tiny cockpit atop the sail. Lookouts wearing safety harnesses scanned in every direction using binoculars. The radar was running -- and metal radar reflectors were in position to enhance our signature for other vessels. Someone kept track of surface contacts using erasable marker pen on the Plexiglas windscreen of the cockpit. Seawater cascaded smoothly over the bow; looking down through that clear water I could see the vents for the forward ballast tank group, and the hatches for the Tomahawk launch tubes. The MIAMI's wake, a churning brilliant white against the sparkling blue of the ocean, stretched behind us endlessly. I gazed toward the distant nautical horizon.
I said to the OOD, "So these are international waters. Nobody owns them, and here we are. Now I understand what 'seapower' means." The OOD agreed.
"Dive the Ship!"
It took until about 2000 to pass the edge of the continental shelf and be ready to submerge. The Tigers (guests) were asked to assemble in one corner of the control room, between the ship control station and the navigation plotting table. It was fascinating to watch the instruments and readouts as the men carefully made preparations for diving, and then MIAMI descended beneath the waves. Except for a slight down-angle of the deck, and increasing depth indicated at the ship control station, I might never have known that the massive vessel had left the surface. Rather than feeling nervous or claustrophobic, my thoughts ran more toward "Ah, at last I get to see, and feel, and savor what a nuclear submarine is really designed for. Operations submerged on the high seas."
The close interpersonal contact to me felt cozy, the ship's hull like a protective womb for all of us inside. With trained paramedics and firefighters only seconds away, and with nuclear-qualified people held to the highest imaginable standards of preparedness always nearby, I believed (and still believe) I was as safe as one could ever ask for. The more time I spent on the ship, in fact, the more I learned to move deftly among her people and their tightly packed equipment and machinery; as the hours passed during the cruise, the MIAMI actually seemed larger.
Extreme Eco-Tourism
At one stage, while we were running deep in about seven thousand feet of water, I spent a couple of hours in the sonar compartment. Besides observing the different display screens, and hearing the sonarmen announce each new contact, I was permitted to listen to the noises outside the ship by borrowing a spare set of sonar headphones.
This was one of the most unforgettable moments during the cruise. I was able to hear whales calling, dolphins whistling, and shrimp "popping." (To me, though, the shrimp gave off something more like a repetitive clickety-clack.) Hearing these biologics from deep underwater via sonar, on what amounted to a billion-dollar nuclear-powered sound system, was "extreme eco-tourism" at conceivably its most extreme!
Sleep? What's That?
From several years of research before the Tiger Cruise, I knew that SSN crews worked very hard. I also knew -- by studying fiction and non-fiction on various naval topics ranging from the Age of Fighting Sail to the post-Cold War era -- that once underway one quickly becomes accustomed to the rhythms of the ship, including the regular watch-change schedule, and the cares of the land often tend to fall away. Now I had a chance to see this first-hand. I can state unequivocally that no amount of reading accounts written by others comes even close to experiencing this special and unique land/sea transition personally.
My sleeping quarters were in the Los Angeles-class design's "Nine Man" compartment. I was assigned the top rack in a tier of three. Access to my tier was partly obstructed by another -- the opening to my rack was about four feet wide, and my mattress was up at about the level of my chin. Getting in there, and doing so quietly in the dark (because crewmen around me were sleeping) was quite a challenge that first night.
I "slept" about four hours. I put "slept" in quotes here on purpose. While I lay on my back, dozing very fitfully because of the sheer excitement of being there, I kept hoping I wouldn't roll over in my sleep and fall to the deck! Then, once I did finally manage to fall asleep, the ship descended to a considerable depth to perform engineering tests. These tests included firing a number of water slugs from the torpedo tubes. The release of compressed air with each simulated firing made my ear canals ache. Then the ship suddenly put on a steep up-bubble and made toward shallower depth at what felt like flank speed. Upward I went with the ship, lying in my rack, ascending toward the surface feet first (i.e., with my head downhill). Then the ship slowed and leveled off and the 1MC blared "Secure from deep submergence." So much for my first night's sleep! It became clear that work aboard the MIAMI never ceased, and while underway the ship herself did not for one instant slumber. Every minute, every activity, went toward helping maintain and operate the ship, or toward improving crew training and "maintaining" basic bodily needs -- so the crew could go back and maintain and operate some more.
I had turned in to my rack at midnight, local time. I was awake and on my way to the head by 0400 Saturday morning. For me, this Tiger Cruise was a business research trip; I was determined to make all of it count.
There was one poignant note when I went to sleep that Friday night: I had traveled extensively on business in my previous career, and spent many nights in hotels. My last act before bed was always to call my wife from the hotel room. But there, aboard the MIAMI submerged somewhere in the North Atlantic -- alone behind the closed curtain of my rack -- there was no way whatsoever to "phone home." I felt strong homesickness. Then I reminded myself that, for the MIAMI's crew, this isolation from their loved ones happened every night, for months at a time. I came to better understand the sacrifices made by all who earn and wear the silver or gold Dolphins. I "slept" another four hours on Saturday night; the being unable once again to phone home didn't get any easier -- perhaps it never gets easier for Sailors either.
Conclusion to Part 1
In Part 2 of this article, I'll -- among other things -- tell you how it felt "to be the hunted" in an anti-submarine training exercise with P-3 Orion maritime patrol aircraft, and what it was like to man the helm at flank speed while deeply submerged.
