The Anchors Aweigh series was placed in honor of the men of the
US Navy who have served in the defense of our country. Each cache
is dedicated to one of the warships involved in battle. If you find
all the caches in the series, you’ll reveal some nice GeoArt
on your cache map. These are not difficult caches to find. If you
cannot find a cache easily, it’s probably missing. Send me a
picture (by email, not in your log) of where you think the cache
should be, and I’ll accept the find and replace the
cache.
Because of the difficulty in finding suitable locations for some
of the caches, some puzzle caches were used (not this one) so that
the find icon could be in a location separate from the cache. You
should be able to solve the puzzles with information on this cache
page. I suggest you solve the puzzles before you make your cache
run, to help optimize the route.
USS Nautilus
USS Nautilus is the world's first operational
nuclear-powered submarine. In 1958, she became the first vessel to
complete a submerged transit across the North Pole. The first ship
to dive under the polar ice cap, on August 31, 1931, had also been
named Nautilus (which had intended to do a dramatic
rendezvous at the North Pole with the Graf Zeppelin).
Namesake of the submarine in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand
Leagues Under the Sea, and named after another USS Nautilus
that served with distinction in World War II, Nautilus was
authorized in 1951 and launched in 1954. Because her nuclear
propulsion allowed her to remain submerged for far longer than
diesel-electric submarines, she broke many records in her first
years of operation and was able to travel to locations previously
beyond the limits of submarines. In operation, she revealed a
number of limitations in her design and construction; this
information was used to improve subsequent submarines.
The Nautilus was decommissioned in 1980 and designated a
National Historic Landmark in 1982. She has been preserved as a
museum of submarine history in Groton, Connecticut, where she
receives some 250,000 visitors a year.
Operation Sunshine - Under the North Pole
USS Nautilus in 1970
In response to the nuclear ICBM threat posed by Sputnik,
President Eisenhower ordered the US Navy to attempt a submarine
transit of the North Pole to gain credibility for the soon-to-come
SLBM weapons system. On 25 April 1958, Nautilus was underway for
the West Coast, now commanded by Commander William R. Anderson,
USN. Stopping at San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle, she began
her history-making polar transit, operation "Sunshine", as she
departed the latter port 9 June. On 19 June she entered the Chukchi
Sea, but was turned back by deep draft ice in those shallow waters.
On 28 June she arrived at Pearl Harbor to await better ice
conditions. By 23 July her wait was over and she set a course
northward. She submerged in the Barrow Sea Valley on 1 August and
on 3 August, at 2315 (EDST) she became the first watercraft to
reach the geographic North Pole. The ability to navigate at extreme
latitudes and without surfacing was enabled by the technology of
the North American Aviation N6A-1 Inertial Navigation System, a
naval modification of the N6A used in the Navaho cruise missile.
From the North Pole, she continued on and after 96 hours and 1,590
nmi (2,940 km) under the ice, she surfaced northeast of Greenland,
having completed the first successful submerged voyage around the
North Pole. The technical details of this mission were planned by
scientists from the Naval Electronics Laboratory including Dr.
Waldo Lyon, who accompanied Nautilus as chief scientist and ice
pilot.
Navigation beneath the arctic ice sheet was difficult. Above
85°N both magnetic compasses and normal gyrocompasses become
inaccurate. A special gyrocompass built by Sperry Rand was
installed shortly before the journey. There was a risk that the
submarine would become disoriented beneath the ice and that the
crew would have to play "longitude roulette". Commander Anderson
had considered using torpedoes to blow a hole in the ice if the
submarine needed to surface.
As mentioned above, the most difficult part of the journey was
in the Bering Strait. The ice extended as much as 60 feet below sea
level. During the initial attempt to go through the Bering Strait,
there was insufficient room for the submarine to pass between the
ice and the sea bottom. During the second, successful attempt to
pass through the Bering passage, the submarine passed through a
known channel close to Alaska (this was not the first choice way
through the Bering Strait as the submarine wanted to avoid
detection).
Proceeding from Greenland to the Isle of Portland, England, she
received the Presidential Unit Citation, the first ever issued in
peace time, from American Ambassador J.H. Whitney, and then set a
westerly course which put her into the Thames River estuary at New
London 29 October. Captain Anderson would also be awarded the
Legion of Merit by Eisenhower.